Throughout history, recycling has been around in some form or another. Even as long ago as 400 BC evidences of earlier recycling are known to have taken place. Archaeological studies show that historical waste dumps contained fewer of what is known today as household waste, such as pots, tools and ash, which shows that individuals were, even in those days, keen to reuse products during a period when natural resources weren’t so freely available. Little did they know that the things they were starting would play such a huge role in shaping the world for future generations
Indeed it could be argued how the old ‘rag-and-bone’ man was just an early recycler collectingdiscarded goods on his horse and cart, before reusing or transforming the collected items into new stuff.
During periods such as the World War Years, recycling and re-use were crucial as natural materials became much more difficult to find. In addition to food being rationed, certain materials such as metal and fibre werenormally allowed only for use by the government to support military operations, in order to meet manufacturing requirements often in the production of weaponry. There was a desperate need to support the military.
As a consequence of rising power costs, the requirement to recycle aluminium increased during the seventies.. As a material aluminium utilises a reduced amount of energy within the production process than many other materials. Plus it was much sought-after because of its non rusting attributes. The demand for aluminium saw the emergence of scrap metal dealers who were prepared to pay good money in return for the best quality metal. Additionally, in the seventies in regions of the United States of America, the first vehicles were seen to be collecting waste with a separate trailer for collection of recyclable items being towed behind the vehicle. This was mainly for big bulky objects including bedsteads and old carpets.
Towards the late eighties, early 1990’s and as the importance of handling the worldwide environmental state increased amongst worldwide authorities, the attention on recycling really began to get energy. In the United Kingdom, the authorities imposed recycling targets upon Local Authorities along with the introduction of new legislation upon the waste community, recycling programmes really started to take off. The once commonly well known waste disposal corporations, began to call themselves waste management companies and demonstrated through the offer of waste collection and recyclable material 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 can be recycled, which range from paper, card, glass and plastics, to mobile phone handsets, electrical items, printer cartridges, textiles, clothing and concrete.
What is Recycling?
The word recycling identifies the process of reprocessing second hand resources into new or nearly new products avoiding the need for potentially useful materials or products to be thrown away. Essentially it is diverting waste material from landfill.
Recycling performs an important role in a world where climate change is high on the environmental agenda. It helps to reduce the requirement to avoidably send waste materials and products to landfill or other waste disposal options. Consequently this lessens the need and the reliance upon the consumption of fresh or new raw materials, reduces energy use and air and rain water pollution, all of which contribute to lower greenhouse gas emissions. Significant contributions to improving the environment.
Recycling would probably be mostnoticeable through the recycling facilities now provided by local authorities for household refuse and recycling collections and by advanced waste management firms who commonly offer a full range of waste and recycling collection services. Some firms, that have traditionally concentrated exclusively on the collection of recyclable items, are extending their operations offering to collect general waste at the same time.
Many offices and retail outlets require a professional collection service go to www.biffa.co.uk for details of the expert services available.
Within the waste materials sector, the regular advertising activity is all around the waste material hierarchy – ‘reduce, reuse, recycle and recover’. This 4 R slogan is a basic message suitable for a far reaching audience. Consider ways to lessen your waste material. Could the waste products or materials be reused? Can the waste product or material be recycled or retrieved?
The waste hierarchy is a strategy that a lot of waste material management companies and local authorities think about when developing new waste management approaches. The strategy is intended to focus the intellect around precluding waste being generated to start with. Consider the options for reuse and recycling but ultimately minimise the amount of waste produced at the end of the cycle. The slogan has been adopted particularly well in the public sector.
So the focus is very much on the overall manufacturing process. The waste materials hierarchy stretches much wider than to waste management firms and local bodies. Working groups have already been established to bring many industries together to consider the complete waste cycle. By way of example, the manufacturer of a product needs to think about how a product will be manufactured. Could parts be used which can later be recycled or reused? Could the volume of packaging which often surrounds the product be reduced? When the item reaches the store, is it essential for the product to be located within an outer box? If the retailer sells the merchandise, what will the buyer do with the unwanted elements of the acquisition, i.e. the packaging? How will the packaging be stored and where will it go? Should it return to a recycling facility, for onward transfer to a reprocessing facility, in which the cycle starts once again? The process must be simple to manage and implement.
How are Materials Collected for Recycling?
Legislation now dictates that most waste should be processed to reduce the amount of recyclables and unnecessary waste materials heading direct to landfill. Since 1996, the United Kingdom government has applied a landfill levy on all waste disposed of within landfill. The rate of tax has increased considerably lately 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 streams, although there exists a lesser rate for inert materials. Sending waste straight to landfill is an expensive option and locating suitable ways to divert waste out of landfill has become a priority.
Therefore, the message to everyone is crystal clear, sort your waste to cut back the amount of waste materials going to landfill. Typically, both at home and at work, the instant you place waste material into the bin , it is forgotten about. Another individual will collect it and take it away. Nowadays, at home and in the office, recycling is being stimulated via the provision of containers in which to place certain recyclable materials. At home, the children are often the keen recyclers.
Some common products to be seen being recovered for recycling are paper, card, glass, metals and plastics. But the possiblity to recycle a large amount of materials or products keeps growing. Although technically not seen as recycling, food waste and garden waste collections are increasing, where the food or garden waste materials is taken back to a facility for processing into a reusable or saleable compost product.
One of the methods to make sure we don’t vanish below a mountain of waste products is to establish a lot more recycling disposal services in order that our waste becomes a valuableresource.
The methods of collecting materials or waste material to be recycled is also growing and ever more apparent within local communities. Dedicated collection sites, known as bring bank sites, are cropping up in supermarket car parks to motivate customers of the store to return such objects as bottles, newspapers or cardboard to the bins on their way into the store.
Local Authority waste collection crews or their appointed personnel will collect refuse and recyclables from the roadside normally at the front of your home. Collection from domestic premises usually continues to be the duty of the local council and several have employed the supply of bins in which to gather specific recyclable materials or products.
In the business and commercial field, waste management contractors offer standalone storage units in which the customer deposits the correct waste material stream or recyclable materials ready for collection. The containers will often be plainly branded as to which recyclable product need to be placed inside that container or bin. Otherwise, the bins will be colour coded to distinguish which recyclable products ought to be placed within which bins.
One of the keys 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 staff to separate waste for recycling, it does not become time consuming and affect the effectiveness of what employees should be doing in their work.
The Recycling Process
A variety of collection solutions exist for the collection of the recyclable material . Whichever collection system is used , the resources are taken to a recycling centre where they will be segregated from other wastes. This could be done by hand or by using mechanical separators.
To begin the recycling process from the collection perspective, the more recyclable materials which can be separated at origin, i.e. at home or in the workplace, the more effective it will be for the waste collector. That is why individual containers are provided to the waste producer to encourage separation at source. If card could be collected on a vehicle, which will collect no other waste materials, the card can be kept uncontaminated and for that reason will have a higher value when it gets to the processing plant. Similarly, specialist glass collection vehicles are used to collect only glass. Apart from the obvious health and safety factors and the weight of collected glass, it will have a greater value if the collected glass load is not mixed with other waste material. Uncontaminated recyclables will present a much higher value than contaminated products.
Once collected, the recyclable resources can be taken direct to a reprocessing plant, if the load contains only that particular type of material. So a separate glass collection truck could take the load on to a glass processing plant.
If mixed recyclables are collected like paper and card within the same compartment, it might be necessary for the collector to take the load to a drop off point to unload and allow the load to be segregated into individual paper and card bundles for onward transfer to a paper or card processing plant. No matter which technique is employed, the recyclable material obtained 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 a new product or in manufacturing. Inert materials can be a useful by product at landfill, for example shredded car tyres to help traction on access roads.
There is a charity scheme now in place where food waste from supermarkets which might usually be thrown away, is gathered and redistributed for the struggling and needy members of the community.
The Increasing Value of Recycling
In the UK around 35% of waste material collected from households is recycled or composted. Although in the business and industrial market, the amount of waste material delivered to landfill has declined significantly in recent years as well as the volume of waste 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 boost rates even more within this sector.
Landfill continues to play a vital role in the control of waste across the UK as not all waste items can be recycled and several are more suited to landfill disposal than by some other method. Nevertheless, it’s not only the increasing costs of getting rid of waste directly in landfill which is making recycling an even more appealing option for corporations. Landfill is becoming scarce, with some experts suggesting that the amount of void readily available across all UK landfill sites, has less than ten years existence remaining before all sites are reckoned 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 kingdom.
In recent times, waste management companies have had to change their focus, and begin to take into consideration and spend money on technology, such as energy from waste facilities, anaerobic digestion plants and mechanised biological treatment plants, as alternatives to landfill. Local Authorities have also adapted their views by undertaking detailed strategic reviews as to how waste material under their jurisdiction must be taken care of. In some instances this has meant that unitary authorities are progressing plans to introduce long-term deals, usually around two-and-a-half decades long, through which to regulate all of their waste management requirements. These agreements will most likely include the need to develop a facility through which to deal with all waste produced throughout the region by sorting all waste streams. The agreements may also include the collection of waste and recyclables from households across the area. So the face of waste management is beginning to change quickly. The days of merely throwing anything in the dustbin have disappeared and the advent of new technologies are upon us.
Summary
Recycling is now a way of life and is here to stay. It has evolved through the years from a thing that was carried out with no real thought behind it. The trusty rag and bone man was just trying to make a living. Today, many blue chip organisations are setting out plans for a ‘zero to landfill’ waste policy, where the objective is very straightforward – reduce waste, reuse waste and recycle waste, but no waste must wind up in landfill. Some companies have announced ambitious target dates by which to attain such plans.
Many households across the country now have some kind of bin in which to isolate waste for recycling. The decision to separate newspapers, aluminium cans and plastic bottles are almost the norm. Whilst in industrial and commercial sectors, 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 improbable that we will ever reach the ultimate waste free society. There will always be a need for waste to be disposed of somewhere, somehow.
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