Re-using waste materials for future years
Right through history, recycling has existed in one guise or another. Even as long ago as 400 BC signs of earlier recycling are recognized to have taken place. Archaeological reports show that historical waste dumps contained fewer of what is known today as household waste, such as pots, utensils and ash, which shows that individuals were, even in those days, keen to reuse products at a time when natural resources weren’t so freely available.
Indeed it may be argued how the old ‘rag-and-bone’ man was just an early recycler collectingdiscarded goods on his horse and cart, before reusing or converting the collected items into new stuff.
During periods such as the World War Years, recycling and re-use were vital as natural resources became a lot more difficult to come by. In addition to food being rationed, certain materials including metal and fibre werenormally permitted only for use by the government in support of military operations, to meet manufacturing requirements often in the production of weaponry.
As a result of rising power costs, the demand to recycle aluminium increased in the 1970’s.. As a material aluminium utilises significantly less energy in the production process than alternative materials. Plus it was much sought-after because of its non rusting properties. The need for aluminium saw the rise of scrap metal dealers who were prepared to pay money in exchange for good quality metal. In addition, in the 70’s in parts of the United states, the first trucks were seen to be collecting waste with a separate trailer for the collection of recyclable materials being towed behind the vehicle. This was mainly for big bulky things such as bedsteads and old carpets.
Towards the late 1980’s, early 1990’s and as the awareness of managing the intercontinental environmental state heightened amongst international governing bodies, the debate on recycling really started to collect impetus. In the United Kingdom, the government imposed recycling targets upon Local Authorities and with the introduction of the fresh legislation upon the waste materials sector, recycling programmes really began to take off. The once commonly knownwaste disposal firms, began to call themselves waste management providers and demonstrated with the offer of waste collection and recyclable materials collection that waste needed to be managed more effectively. Local skip companies needed to become better at what they did.
Currently, many hundreds of materials and resources may be recycled, starting from paper, card, glass and plastics, to mobile phone handsets, electrical items, printer cartridges, textiles, clothing and concrete.
What is Recycling?
The term recycling describes the operation of reprocessing second-hand items into new or nearly new materials and avoid the need for potentially useable materials or products to be thrown away.
Recycling plays a vital role in a modern world where climate change is high on the green agenda. It removes the requirement to unnecessarily send waste products and products to landfill or other waste disposal options. This in turn reduces the demand and the reliance upon consuming fresh or new natural materials, decreases energy use and air and water pollution, that all contribute to lower greenhouse gas emissions.
Recycling is probably mostnoticeable through the recycling solutions now provided by local councils for domestic refuse and recycling collections and also advanced waste management firms who commonly offer a full range of waste and recycling collection services.
In recent years the recovery of energy from waste company is becoming an essential environmental development for the advantage of the world.
Within the waste material industry, the most popular promotional activity is all around the waste materials hierarchy – ‘reduce, reuse, recycle and recover’. This 4 R slogan is a straightforward message designed for a far reaching crowd. Consider ways to reduce your waste material. Can the waste materials products or materials be reused? Could the waste product or material be recycled or recovered? Many questions to take into consideration.
The waste materials hierarchy is often a strategy that various waste material management companies and local bodies think about when developing new waste management procedures. The system is designed to focus the intellect around precluding waste being produced to begin with. Take into account the options for reuse and recycling but ultimately minimise the amount of waste produced at the end of the cycle.
And so the emphasis is very much on the overall manufacturing process. The waste material hierarchy stretches much wider than to waste management businesses and local bodies. Working groups have been set up to bring many industries together to look at the whole waste cycle. By way of example, the manufacturer of a product needs to take into account how a product will be constructed. Could parts be used which can later be recycled or reused? Can the quantity of packaging which surrounds the product be reduced? Once the item gets to the retailer, is it essential for the product to be located inside an outer box? If the retailer sells the product, what will the purchaser do with the unwanted components of the acquisition, i.e. the packaging? How will the packaging be handled and where will it go? Can it return to a recycling facility, for onward shipment to a reprocessing facility, where the cycle will begin yet again? The process must be simple to manage and implement.
How are Materials Collected for Recycling?
Legislation now dictates that all waste should be treated to avoid the volume of recyclables and unnecessary waste material going direct to landfill. Since 1996, the UK government has enforced a landfill levy on all waste material dumped within landfill. The rate of duty has increased considerably in recent years rising from the initial level of £8 per ton, to today’s rate of £40 per ton. The UK government has recently declared that this will increase further to £48 per ton from the end of 2010/11. This fee applies to all general waste material streams, although there exists a reduced rate for inert materials. Sending waste materials directly to landfill is an expensive course of action and locating acceptable solutions to divert waste away from landfill has become important. For inert materials the rate is £2.50 per ton.
So, the message to everyone is crystal clear, sort your waste material to scale back the volume of waste going to landfill. Ordinarily, at home or at work, as soon as you place waste in the bin , it’s forgotten about. Someone else will collect it and take it away. Nowadays, in the home and at your workplace, recycling is being stimulated through the supply of containers in which to place certain recyclable materials. At home, the children are often the keen recyclers.
Perhaps the most common materials to be seen being collected for recycling are paper, card, glass, metals and plastics. However the possiblity to recycle many materials or products continues to grow. Although technically not seen as recycling, food waste and garden waste collections are increasing, where the food or garden waste is taken back to a plant for processing into a reusable or saleable compost product.
There is a enormous choice of food waste bins might be placed at high usage points for instance next to photocopying machines to collect leftover paper.
The methods of collecting items or waste to be recycled is also growing and becoming more apparent within local communities. Specialist collection sites, often referred to as bring bank sites, are cropping up in supermarket car parks to motivate customers of the superstore to return such items as bottles, newspapers or cardboard to the bins on their way into the supermarket.
Local Authority waste materials collection crews or their appointed personnel will collect refuse and recyclables from the kerbside usually in front of your property. Collection from domestic premises typically continues to be the responsibility of the local authorities many have employed the provision of bins in which to gather specified recyclable materials or products.
In the industrial and commercial sector, waste material management businesses offer separate containers in which the customer deposits the appropriate waste stream or recyclable material ready for collection. The particular bins will usually be clearly tagged as to which recyclable product should be placed inside that container or bin. Otherwise, the bins will probably be colour coded to identify which recyclable materials should be placed within which bins. Waste management companies also may have to deal with special requests from the customer.
The true secret to a successful recycling initiative is informing the public about what can be recycled and how. In the commercial world getting the co-operation of office employees is crucial. The introduction of any recycling scheme must ensure that in asking employees to separate waste for recycling, it does not become time consuming and affect the productivity of what employees should be doing in their work.
The Recycling Process
Various collection solutions exist for the collection of the recyclable products . Whichever collection method is utilised , the resources are taken to a drop off point where they’ll be segregated from other wastes. This could be done manually or through the use of mechanised separators.
To begin the recycling process from a collection viewpoint, the more recyclable materials that can be segregated at origin, i.e. at home or in the work place, the more effective it will be for the waste collector. That’s the reason separate containers are supplied to the waste producer to promote segregation at source. If card can be collected on a vehicle, that will collect no other waste material, the card is going to be kept uncontaminated and therefore could have a greater value when it actually reaches the processing plant. In the same way, dedicated glass collection vehicles are used to collect just glass. Apart from the obvious health and safety factors and the weight of collected glass, it will have a much higher value if the collected glass load is not contaminated with other waste material. Uncontaminated recyclables will present a better value than contaminated materials.
When collected, the recyclable resources can be taken direct to the reprocessing plant, if the load contains only that specific type of material. So a dedicated glass collection vehicle could take the load on to a glass processing plant.
If compounded recyclables have been collected such as paper and card within the same compartment, it may be a necessity for the collector to take the load to a recycling centre to unload and allow the load to be segregated into separate paper and card bundles for onward transport to a paper or card processing plant. No matter which approach is used, the recyclable material collected will usually be segregated or cleaned before proceeding through to a reprocessing facility to be processed to a new useful resource and ultimately used as something new or in manufacturing.
During severe economic periods like today, limiting food waste will make a considerable difference to the finances on a private as well as a national level.
The Increasing Value of Recycling
In the UK around 35% of waste materials collected from households is recycled or composted. While within the business and industrial community, the volume of waste material sent to landfill has declined significantly recently and the volume of waste material now being diverted for recycling or reuse by this sector has grown over the quantities going to landfill. But there is still much to be done to increase rates further within this sector.
Landfill continues to play a key role in the control of waste across the UK as not all waste items can be recycled and some are more suited to landfill disposal than by any other means. Nonetheless, it’s not only the increasing expense of disposing of waste directly in landfill which is making recycling an even more attractive option for businesses. Landfill is starting to become scarce, with many specialists indicating that the amount of void accessible across all UK landfill sites, has under ten years existence remaining before all sites are deemed to be full. Such countries as Dubai have filled parts of the coastline with their waste and created useful land area to extend the boundaries of their country.
In the past few years, waste material management firms have had to vary their focal point, and start to take into consideration and put money into technology, such as energy from waste plants, anaerobic digestion facilities and mechanical biological treatment plants, as alternate options to landfill. Local Authorities also have changed their approaches by commencing comprehensive strategic reviews as to how waste materials under their jurisdiction needs to be handled. In some instances this means unitary authorities are implementing plans to bring in long term agreements, usually around two-and-a-half decades in length, through which to control their entire waste materials management demands. These agreements will often include the need to create a facility through which to take care of all waste created throughout the county by sorting all waste streams. The deals might also include the collection of all waste and recyclables from homes across the region. So the face of waste management is beginning to change rapidly. The days of just throwing everything in the dustbin have vanished and the advent of new technologies are upon us.
Summary
Recycling has become a lifestyle and is not going anywhere soon. It has evolved through the years from something that was carried out with no real thought behind it. The trusty rag and bone man was just working to make a living. Today, many blue chip firms are setting out plans for a ‘zero to landfill’ waste plan, where the intention is very straightforward – reduce waste, reuse waste and recycle waste, but no waste must end up in landfill.
Many houses across the country now have some kind of bin in which to separate waste for recycling. The decision to split up newspapers, aluminium cans and plastic bottles are almost common place. Whilst in industrial and business areas, there is an increasing list of items to think about for recycling like printer cartridges, office paper, metal and electrical equipment. Even on street corners and airports you see bins to recycle such items as newspapers and drink cans.
Ideally the entire process would be a complete cycle such as it was in the time of the horse. However the advent of new technology will increase further the way in which our waste is to be managed in the future, but it is highly unlikely that we will ever reach the ultimate waste free society.