Recycling
Last updated Wednesday 30 April 2008
Just a load of rubbish? Not if we get it sorted
If you're concerned about greenhouse gases, recycling beats landfill in two ways. First, more energy is required to make most new goods than to recycle them, so it saves CO2. Second, rotting rubbish can produce methane, a greenhouse gas 21 times as potent as CO2.
Britain is dubbed 'the dustbin of Europe' for the amount of rubbish we bury. While our waste disposal habits are getting better, there is still plenty of room for improvement. According to the Local Government Association, if we continue to send rubbish to landfill at our current rate, in less than nine years we'll run out of landfill space.
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How will it make a difference?
Pub Fact
- Recycling saves the UK 10 to 15 million tonnes CO2 annually, a saving equivalent to taking 3.5 million cars off the road
- Each UK household produces over 1 tonne of rubbish annually, amounting to about 31 million tonnes for the UK each year
- If you recycled a single aluminium can you would save enough energy to run a television set for three hours
- The construction industry alone sends 70 millions tonnes of waste to landfill a year
- If all of the aluminium cans recycled in the UK in 1998 were laid end to end, they would stretch from Land's End to John O'Groats more than 160 times
- Every 8 months the UK produces enough waste to fill Lake Windermere (the largest lake in England)
- On average every person in the UK throws away their own body weight in rubbish every 7 weeks
- Every tonne of biodegradable waste produces 300-500 m3 of landfill gas
The precise benefits of recycling depend on the material you're recycling - for example, recycling aluminium saves 95% of the energy of making it from scratch, while recycling glass saves 25%. That said, glass can be recycled again and again without losing its clarity or purity - unlike other materials.
Overall, though, recycling saves the UK 10 to 15 million tonnes of CO2 a year - the equivalent of taking three and a half million cars off the road.
- Recycling a glass bottle instead of making a new one can save enough energy to power a 100 watt light bulb for almost an hour
- Recycling a tonne of card or paper can save 1.3 tonnes of greenhouse gases
- The energy wasted when rubbish goes in your bin instead of to recycling could give you 500 baths, 3,500 showers or 5,000 hours of television
- If UK homes recycled everything, they could save 31 million tonnes of rubbish from going to landfill each year. That's the same weight as 3.5 million double-decker buses - enough to form a queue from London to Sydney and back
- In 2004, plastic bottle recycling saved enough energy to heat and light 1,700 homes
- Recycling clothes saves more energy than recycling glass - it takes ten times more energy to make a tonne of textiles than it does a tonne of glass
What's the debate?
"Doesn't recycling paper and glass use almost as much energy as making them in the first place?"
While recycling is almost always more efficient than making materials anew because it reduces the need for energy intensive mining and extraction of raw material, critics point out that the energy saved by recycling different materials varies greatly. Recycled aluminium saves 95% of the energy used in manufacturing, followed by steel (75%), plastic (70%), paper (50%) and glass (25%).
It is worth knowing a bit about the different materials though. For example, whereas clear glass recycles beautifully into new jars and bottles, green glass is more energy-intensive to recycle so usually ends up as aggregate in road building.
"Can't you just burn rubbish to generate electricity?"
Incineration (a process which burns waste at 1000°C) is on the rise but critics say recycling is preferable because it prevents the CO2 embedded in a material from being released into the atmosphere and produces fewer air pollutants. That said, incineration could become more climate-friendly if the combustion process were used to generate usable power more effectively.
"Surely it's better just to generate less rubbish"
Recycling campaigns often promote the three Rs: 'reduce, reuse, recycle' - in that order. Reducing our consumption - especially of unnecessary packaging - is the most effective way to reduce emissions from waste.
Advocates of recycling claim that businesses should do more to provide biodegradable packaging and use less of the stuff in the first place. But while you're waiting for manufacturers to get the message and cut out wasteful packaging, it's still better to recycle what remains rather than add it to landfill.
What's stopping me?
"Doesn't everything we 'recycle' end up in landfill somewhere in the UK anyway?"
We currently recycle about a quarter of our household waste, and the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) claims that all of this ends up either being recycled in the UK or elsewhere. That said, our recycling rates lag far behind Germany (where 57% of domestic waste is recycled) and the Netherlands (64%).
"Isn't half our 'recycled' plastic shipped to China to be recycled?"
True. Until the UK's recycling capacity gets up to speed, proponents say that it makes some sense to ship our plastics to China, where they can be recycled and incorporated into new goods - many of which are then imported to the UK. Filling up empty cargo ships on their return leg of the journey to China makes better use of fuel than travelling without cargo. And the more recycled materials that China uses in new manufacture, the less energy and greenhouse gas it needs to spend on extracting raw materials. Indeed, a recent report by the NGO Forest Trends claims that China's use of imported waste-paper instead of trees to make paper products probably saved 54 million tonnes of wood from being harvested for pulp last year. Read more about it on the Waste and Resources Action Programme's website Recycle Now.
"Half the things that claim to be recyclable aren't collected by my local council"
According to DEFRA, some councils fare better than others when it comes to assessing their recycling credentials. See the DEFRA report.
In fact, you can recycle almost everything - from aerosols to bicycles - but some things like batteries, hearing aids and incandescent light bulbs are still beyond the reach of most local councils. Tetrapaks are recyclable in parts of the UK - check where on Tetrapak Recycling's interactive map.
If you're not sure what to do with the remnants at the bottom of your recycling box, check Recycle Now to find out what can be recycled locally and where to send the stuff that can't.
How do I do it?
Reducing the need to recycle is the best way to tackle waste. You can do that by:
- Getting off the junk mail hit list: nearly 550,000 tonnes of paper are used in the manufacture of junk mail every year
- Choosing foods with less packaging
- Stripping off excess packaging and leaving it at the till - if you're bold enough
- Swapping junk online. According to YouGov, you probably have £460 of junk lying around
- Trying buying or getting free second-hand stuff on: MySkip, Freecycle, Ebay, Vskips.co.uk and Swapxchange
- Buying fewer clothes, but of better quality
- Buying recycled products where you have the option: Read the Waste and Resources Action Programme's (WRAP) Recycled Products Guide
- Choosing clear glass over green - it's easier to recycle
If you can't avoid it, here's how to dispose of it:
- Check whether and what your council recycles on Recycle Now's website
- If one isn't provided already, order a recycling box, bag or wheelie bin from the council
- You can also get bags for organic waste, which the council takes away for municipal composting
- Clean and separate items into their correct bags
- Recycle e-waste. Due to new Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Regulations, electrical waste must now be recycled. Check out where to put your electrical waste on Recycle Now's website
- Recycle end-of-life vehicles and tyres: Waste Online
- Recycle garden waste, and fruit and vegetable peelings, by making compost
- Get bottled milk delivered to your doorstep. Each bottle is reused an average of 12 times
- Take your old clothes to charity shops or clothing banks. Textiles present particular problems in landfill as synthetic (man-made fibres) products will not decompose, while woollen garments do decompose and produce methane
- Recycle any junk mail that still gets through
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Our council collects the bins every 2 weeks which in summer leavs the green compost bin reeking of fermenting grass and the bins get quite full quite quically.
sorry about the spelling!
I have just joined one new organization Greenobin provide a complete range of independent recycling and waste management facilities to both industrial and commercial customers as well as local authorities whilst reducing volume of waste going to landfill.
See www.GreenOBin.com
I've just discovered some brilliant recycling initiatives on www.recyclemore.co.uk - apparently old tights, even laddered ones as long as it's not too near the top, are the best way to hold on dressings for certain types of maternal injuries in childbirth - see www.tightsplease.com/charity.php Also for bras that are finished with, as long as the clasps still work, see www.breasttalk.co.uk/bra-appeal/
On another note, I'm expecting a baby and have just managed to buy a load of cotton nappies second hand and also maternity clothes from the nearly new board on Netmums - go to www.netmums.com and you can register for your local site, free, then check out the nearly new boards. It's saved me a fortune!
I have just found an organisation called The Vyouz Network and they have a lot recycling ideas and different websites aimed at all age ranges. Seems very clever as they have included social networking to encourage people to get involved and talk about, as well actually recycling stuff. Anyway its worth a look as this seems to be quite effective and its free: www.vyouz.com
I recycle everything I can whether its letting the cancel take away my bits and pieces or using them to make things. My aim is to have far less waste for the bin man to take away and although I find recycling helpful for that, and a really good start, I have found it far easier just to lower my consumption and buy food with far less packaging. It really is not that hard!
In the Shrewsbury area waste recycling is pretty well advanced (looking at it as a user). Unkike many councils Shrewsbury has a trailer policy which actuall encourages users to take in trailers rather than fill their cars. It is a permit system, but the number of permits given to each user is very generous and if you use them all, you can apply for more. We have the normal green and black bins with 3 boxes which is useful, the only complaint is that their is no collection for plastics other than to take them to the tip. It's a very good start, much more user friendly than my previous council in Wolverhampton.
I worked with a recycling company and IT IS NOT THE ANSWER! It is helpful, but I get frustrated with people who go to the effort to recycle their yogurt lids, then refuse to change their consumption levels. It is a good thing, but not the best thing. I try to use a travel mug. It is difficult to not be judgmental.
BRENTWOOD is set to become the first council in the country to launch a trailblazing scheme to reward recyclers.
The borough council will soon be installing a state-of-the-art reverse vending machine in the Brentwood Centre, which rewards residents for thinking green.
Cllr Russell Quirk, environment panel chairman, said he eventually wanted the council to purchase a number of machines which accept used metal and plastic containers before giving a reward of some sort to the user in return.
He said the reward scheme was being discussed this month between the Reverse Vending Corporation, the council and the Brentwood Leisure Trust who operate the centre.
We have three blue small bins wich with the help of my wife son and all his friends we fill them with cans bottels and loads of packageing plus bags for paper every two weeks great start.
We were given a blue bag to recycle paper and a box to recycle everything else (which is woefully small). I live with my husband and our cat and although we recycle as much as our council have provisions for at our local recycling centre, they won't collect recyclable 'stuff' if it is not a standard can, bottle or plastic milk carton. I am familiar with the system in Wallasey (Kinders) and although there are a lot of bins, their council seem to be taking the problem seriously instead of our council who are paying lip service to recycling by providing the facilities if you want to take your own 'stuff' as long as they don't have to collect it.
© MMIX
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