Right through history, recycling has been around in one way or another. Even as long ago as 400 BC indications of earlier recycling are known to have happened. Archaeological studies show that historical waste dumps contained fewer of what is known nowadays as household waste, such as pots, tools and ash, which demonstrates that men and women 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 transforming the collected items into something new. The 60’s TV series, Steptoe and Son, brought this very much to the public eye and greater attention.
During periods such as the World War Years, recycling and re-use were common place as natural materials became much more difficult to get. As well as food being rationed, certain materials such as metal and fibre werenormally allowed just for use by the government to support military operations, to satisfy manufacturing requirements often in the production of weaponry. There was a desperate need to support the military.
Because of rising power costs, the requirement to recycle aluminium increased in the 1970’s.. As a material aluminium uses a reduced amount of energy during the production process than various other materials. Plus it was much sought after on account of its non rusting qualities. The demand for aluminium saw the emergence of scrap metal dealers who were prepared to pay money in exchange for the best quality metal. Additionally, in the 70’s in areas of the USA, the first vehicles were seen to be collecting waste with a separate trailer for the recovery of recyclable items being towed behind the vehicle.
Into the late eighties, early 1990’s and as the awareness of handling the worldwide environmental state increased amongst world-wide governments, the debate on recycling really began to gather momentum. In the UK, the authorities imposed recycling targets upon Local Authorities and with the introduction of fresh legal guidelines upon the waste materials industry, recycling initiatives really began to take off. The once commonly knownwaste disposal corporations, began to call themselves waste management specialists and demonstrated with 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 products tend to be recycled, including paper, card, glass and plastics, to phones, electrical items, printer cartridges, textiles, clothing and concrete. The demand for different types of collection receptacles has increased dramatically.
What is Recycling?
The word recycling describes the operation of converting second hand items into new or nearly new products to avoid the need for potentially useful materials or products to be discarded.
Recycling performs an important role in a modern world where climate change is high on the environmental agenda. It reduces the requirement to avoidably send waste materials and products to landfill or other waste disposal options. This in turn lessens the demand and the reliance upon the consumption of fresh or new raw resources, cuts back energy usage and air and drinking 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 assistance now provided by local councils for domestic refuse and recycling collections and also modern waste management organisations who commonly offer a full range of waste and recycling collection solutions. Some firms, who have traditionally concentrated exclusively on the collection of recyclable materials, are increasing their service offering to collect general waste at the same time.
In recent years the recovery of energy from waste has become an essential environmental for the advantage of everyone.
Within the waste sector, the common promotional activity is all around the waste hierarchy - ‘reduce, reuse, recycle and recover’. This four R slogan is a straightforward message created for a far reaching target audience. Consider how you can get rid of your waste material. Could the waste materials products or materials be reused? Can the waste product or material be recycled or recovered?
The waste material hierarchy is usually a strategy that a lot of waste management companies and local bodies consider when producing new waste management approaches. The plan is designed to focus the thought process around preventing waste materials being generated at all. Consider the options for reuse and recycling but ultimately minimise the amount of waste produced at the end of the cycle.
So the emphasis is very much on the whole production process. The waste hierarchy expands much wider than to waste materials management firms and local authorities. Working groups have already been set up to bring many industries together to consider the entire waste cycle. For example, the manufacturer of a product needs to take into account how the product is to be made. Can components be used which could eventually be recycled or reused? Can the volume of packaging which often surrounds the product be reduced? When the item reaches the shop, is it required for the product to be left inside an outer box? Once the retailer sells the product, what will the buyer do with the unwanted components of the purchase, i.e. the packaging? How will the packaging be stored and where will it go? Could it go back to a recycling facility, for onward transfer to a reprocessing plant, in which the cycle starts again?
How are Materials Collected for Recycling?
Legislation now dictates that all waste material must be processed to avoid the volume of recyclables and unnecessary waste material heading direct to landfill. Since 1996, the United Kingdom government has enforced a landfill tax on all waste discarded within landfill. The rate of levy has increased considerably in recent years rising from the original level of £8 per ton, to the current rate of £40 per ton. The UK government has previously declared that this will increase further to £48 per ton from the end of 2010/11. This charge applies to all general waste materials streams, although there exists a lesser rate for inert materials. Dispatching waste directly to landfill is an expensive choice and locating suitable solutions to divert waste out of landfill has become important. For inert materials the rate is £2.50 per ton.
So, the message to everyone is clear, sort your waste materials to scale back the amount of waste materials going to landfill. Typically, both at home and in the office, as soon as you place waste in the dustbin , it’s forgotten about. Another individual will collect it and take it away. Today, in your own home and at work, recycling is being stimulated through the provision of bins in which to place specific recyclable materials. At home, the children are often the keen recyclers.
Perhaps the most common resources to be seen being gathered for recycling are paper, card, glass, metals and plastics. However the possiblity to recycle a vast number of materials or products keep increasing.
One of the ways to be sure we won’t disappear under a mountain of waste products is to construct more energy recovering facilities so that our level of waste becomes a valuableresource.
The means of collecting resources or waste material to be recycled is also growing and becoming more visible within local communities. Dedicated collection sites, known as bring bank sites, are popping up in supermarket car parks to encourage customers of the superstore to return such items as bottles, newspapers or cardboard to the bins on their way into the store. Shoppers are therefore encouraged to bring back their recyclables.
Local Authority waste materials collection crews or their appointed personnel will collect refuse and recyclables from the kerbside normally at the front of your house. Collection from household premises typically continues to be the responsibility of the local authorities and many have now employed the provision of bins in which to collect specific recyclable materials or products.
In the business and commercial field, waste materials management businesses offer standalone storage containers in which the customer deposits the appropriate waste material stream or recyclable resources ready for collection. The particular containers will usually be plainly branded as to which recyclable materials must be put inside that container or bin. Alternatively, the bins will be colour coded to identify which recyclable materials should be placed within which bins.
The key to a successful recycling initiative is residents 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 introduction of any recycling scheme should be kept simple.
The Recycling Process
Various collection solutions exist for the collection of the recyclable material . Regardless of what collection system is used , the materials are taken to a materials recycling facility where they’ll be segregated from other waste items. This could be done by hand or by making use of mechanical separators.
To begin the recycling process from the collection point of view, the more recyclable material which can be separated at origin, i.e. at home or in the work place, the more useful it will be for the waste collector. That’s the reason individual storage units are supplied to the waste producer to encourage segregation at source. If card could be collected on a truck, which will collect no other waste material, the card will be kept uncontaminated and therefore could have a greater value when it gets to the processing plant. Similarly, specialist glass collection vehicles are employed to collect only glass. Aside from the obvious health and safety reasons and the weight of collected glass, it’ll have a much higher value if the collected glass load is not contaminated with other waste materials. Uncontaminated recyclables will present a better value than contaminated materials.
When collected, the recyclable resources may be taken direct to the reprocessing plant, if the load contains only that particular type of material. So a separate glass collection truck could take the load directly to a glass processing plant. It is more likely that the glass will have to be bulked up for onward shipment to the processor.
If mixed recyclables have been collected such as 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 distinct paper and card bundles for onward transport to a paper or card processing plant. Whichever method is employed, the recyclable material collected will most likely be sorted or washed before going through to a reprocessing facility to be processed to a new resource and eventually used as something new or in manufacturing. Inert materials can be a useful by product at landfill, such as shredded tyres to aid grip on access roadways.
There are many ways to generate green energy in the residence and now one can find government schemes in the form of grants to encourage you to consider these initiatives.
The Increasing Importance of Recycling
In the UK close to 35% of waste material collected from households is recycled or composted. Whilst within the business and industrial sector, the volume of waste material sent to landfill has dropped substantially recently and also the volume of waste materials now being diverted for recycling or reuse by this sector has risen above the quantities going to landfill.
Landfill continues to play a key role in the control of waste throughout the UK as not all waste items can be recycled and several are more suited to landfill disposal than by any other method. Nonetheless, it’s not only the increasing costs of getting rid of waste directly in landfill that is making recycling a more appealing option for companies. Landfill is starting to become scarce, with many experts hinting that the quantity of space in existence across all UK landfill sites, has less than 10 years existence remaining before all sites are reckoned to be filled. 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 recent years, waste management companies have had to vary their focal point, and start to take into consideration and spend money on technology, such as energy from waste facilities, anaerobic digestion facilities and mechanical biological treatment plants, as alternate options to landfill. Local Authorities also have changed their attitudes by commencing detailed strategic reviews as to how waste materials under their jurisdiction must be handled. In some instances this has meant that unitary authorities are progressing plans to introduce long term contracts, usually around 25 years in length, through which to control all of their waste materials management demands. These agreements will most likely include the need to build a facility through which to deal with all waste created across the region by segregating all waste streams. The contracts might also include the collection of all waste and recyclables from homes throughout the region. So the issue of waste management is changing quickly. The times of merely throwing anything in the dustbin have gone and the arrival of new technologies are upon us.
Conclusion
Recycling has become a lifestyle and is here to stay. It has evolved over the years from a thing that was undertaken without any real thought behind it. The trusty rag and bone man was just attempting to make a living. Today, many blue chip organisations are setting out plans for a ‘zero to landfill’ waste plan, where the purpose is very straightforward - reduce waste, reuse waste and recycle waste, but no waste must end up in landfill. Some companies have announced ambitious target dates by which to achieve such policies.
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 the norm. Whilst in industrial and commercial sectors, there is an increasing selection of items to consider 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 days of the horse. However the advent of new technologies will accelerate 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.