All the way through history, recycling has been around in some form or another. Even as long ago as 400 BC evidences of early recycling are known to have occurred. Archaeological studies show that ancient waste dumps contained fewer of what is known nowadays as household waste, including pots, utensils and ash, which shows that men and women were, even in those days, keen to reuse materials at a time when natural resources weren’t so freely available.
Indeed it could be argued that the old ‘rag-and-bone’ man was just an early recycler collecting unwanted goods on his horse and cart, before reusing or turning the recovered items into something new. The 60’s TV series, Steptoe and Son, brought this very much in to the public eye and greater attention.
During periods like the World War Years, recycling and re-use were vital as natural materials became much more difficult to find. In addition to food being rationed, certain materials including metal and fibre were largely allowed just for use by the government in support of military operations, to satisfy manufacturing requirements often in the production of weaponry.
Thanks to rising power costs, the requirement to recycle aluminium increased in the 1970’s.. As a material aluminium uses a lesser amount of energy within the production process than some other materials. Plus it was much sought-after due to its non rusting attributes. The demand for aluminium saw the rise of scrap metal merchants who were willing to pay cash in exchange for good quality metal. Additionally, in the 70’s in regions of the USA, the first vehicles were seen to be collecting waste with a separate trailer for collection of recyclable materials being towed behind the vehicle.
Into the late eighties, early nineties and as the importance of managing the worldwide environmental state accelerated amongst world-wide governing bodies, the attention upon recycling really started to get energy. In the United Kingdom, the authorities imposed recycling targets upon Local Authorities and with the introduction of fresh new legislation upon the waste products market, recycling initiatives really began to take off. The once commonly well known waste disposal companies, began to call themselves waste management companies and demonstrated by the offer of waste collection and recyclable materials collection that waste had to be managed more successfully.
These days, many hundreds of materials and products can be recycled, which range from paper, card, glass and plastics, to mobile phones, electrical items, printer cartridges, textiles, clothing and concrete.
What Exactly is Recycling?
The term recycling identifies the operation of converting used products into new or nearly new materials and avoid the need for potentially useful materials or products to be discarded. Essentially it is diverting waste material away from landfill.
Recycling plays a key role in a world where climate change is high on the green agenda. It removes the need to avoidably send waste materials and products to landfill or other waste disposal options. Consequently this lessens the demand or the reliance upon the consumption of fresh or new raw resources, lowers energy use and air and water supply pollution, all of which contribute to lower greenhouse gas emissions.
Recycling is probably most evident through the recycling solutions now provided by local councils for domestic refuse and recycling collections and by modern waste management firms who typically provide a full range of waste and recycling collection services. Some businesses, who have in the past concentrated solely on the collection of recyclable products, are now extending their service offering to collect general waste material as well.
One among the biggest UK authorities in waste material management is Biffa Waste Ltd, you can go to their website to get more detailed information on all aspects of waste and toxic waste management.
In the waste market, the common promotional activity is all around the waste materials hierarchy – ‘reduce, reuse, recycle and recover’. This 4 R slogan is a basic message made for a far reaching target audience. Think about how you can 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 usually a strategy that a lot of waste material management companies and local authorities look at when creating new waste management procedures. The plan is meant to concentrate the intellect around preventing 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.
So the focus is very much on the entire manufacturing process. The waste hierarchy stretches much wider than to waste material management businesses and local bodies. Working groups have already been set up to bring many sectors together to consider the whole waste cycle. By way of example, the manufacturer of a product has to consider how the product will be designed. Can parts be used which could eventually be recycled or reused? Could the amount of packaging which surrounds the item be decreased? Once the item reaches the store, is it required for the product to be located within an outer box? If the retailer sells the product, what will the purchaser do with the unwanted elements of the acquisition, i.e. the packaging? How will the packaging be recovered and where will it go? Could it go back to a recycling facility, for onward transfer to a reprocessing facility, in which the cycle will begin 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 treated to reduce the quantity of recyclables and unnecessary waste material going direct to landfill. Since 1996, the UK government has applied a landfill tax on all waste material disposed of within landfill. The rate of levy has increased considerably lately rising from the original level of £8 per ton, to today’s rate of £40 per ton. The UK government has recently announced that this will increase further to £48 per ton from the end of 2010/11. This fee applies to all general waste materials streams, although there exists a lower rate for inert materials. Dispatching waste materials directly to landfill is an expensive option and selecting acceptable processes to divert waste away from landfill is now a priority. For inert materials the rate is £2.50 per ton.
Thus, the message to everyone is crystal clear, sort your waste to cut back the volume of waste going to landfill. Typically, at home or at work, as soon as you place waste in the dustbin , it’s forgotten about. Someone else will collect it and take it away. These days, at home and at the office, recycling is being stimulated by the supply of bins in which to place specific recyclable materials. At home, the children are often the keen recyclers.
Some common resources to be seen being recovered for recycling are paper, card, glass, metals and plastics. However the opportunity 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.
By way of training, individuals can be encouraged think ‘green energy’ so that they will take part in energy recovery processes and make better use of their waste products.
The methods of collecting materials or waste materials to be recycled is also growing and ever more apparent within local communities. Dedicated collection sites, often referred to as bring bank sites, are springing up in supermarket car parks to encourage customers of the store to return such items as bottles, newspapers or card to the containers on their way into the supermarket. Shoppers are therefore encouraged to bring back their recyclables.
Local Authority waste collection crews or their appointed contractors will collect refuse and recyclables from the kerbside commonly in front of your property. Collection from household premises typically remains the duty of the local council and many have now employed the supply of boxes in which to collect specific recyclable materials or products.
In the industrial and commercial category, waste material management businesses offer standalone storage containers where the customer deposits the applicable waste material stream or recyclable resources ready for collection. The containers will often be clearly tagged as to which recyclable materials need to be placed within that container or bin. Otherwise, the bins will probably be colour coded to identify which recyclable wastes 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 factory 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 effectiveness of what employees should be doing in their work.
The Recycling Process
A variety of collection systems exist for the collection of the recyclable products . No matter which collection method is utilised , the resources are taken to a recycling centre where they’ll be segregated from other waste materials.
To start the recycling process from a collection viewpoint, the more recyclable material which can be segregated at origin, i.e. at home or in the work place, the more efficient it will be for the waste collector. For this reason individual containers are supplied to the waste producer to promote separation at source. If card can be collected using a vehicle, which will collect no other waste material, the card will be kept uncontaminated and for that reason could have an improved value when it actually reaches the processing plant. Similarly, specialist glass collection vehicles are employed to collect solely glass. Apart from the obvious health and safety factors and the weight of collected glass, it’ll have a greater value if the collected glass load is not contaminated with other waste material. Uncontaminated recyclables will present a better value than contaminated products.
Once collected, the recyclable resources may be taken direct to the reprocessing plant, if the load contains only that specific type of material. So a dedicated glass collection truck could take the load directly to a glass processing plant.
If mixed recyclables are collected such as paper and card within the same compartment, it may be necessary for the collector to take the load to a drop off point to unload and permit the load to be sorted into separate paper and card bundles for onward transfer to a paper or card processing plant. Whichever process is employed, the recyclable material obtained will often be segregated or cleaned before traveling through to a reprocessing plant to be converted to a new useful resource and ultimately used as something new or in manufacturing.
There is a charity system now in place where food waste from supermarkets which would certainly otherwise be thrown away, is obtained and redistributed for the poor and needy members of the community.
The Increasing Value of Recycling
In the UK close to 35% of waste material collected from households is recycled or composted. Whilst in the business and industrial market, the amount of waste delivered to landfill has declined considerably in recent years and also the amount of waste materials now being diverted for recycling or reuse by this market has grown above the volumes going to landfill.
Landfill continues to play an important role in the control of waste throughout the UK as not all wastes can be recycled plus some are more suited to landfill disposal than by some other method. However, it’s not just the increasing costs of getting rid of waste directly in landfill which is making recycling a more attractive option for businesses. Landfill is becoming scarce, with several authorities indicating that the quantity of void in existence across all UK landfill sites, has under ten years existence remaining before all sites are reckoned to be full.
In recent years, waste materials management firms have had to alter their focus, and begin to think about and put money into new technologies, such as energy from waste facilities, anaerobic digestion facilities and mechanised biological treatment plants, as alternate options to landfill. Local Authorities also have changed their approaches by commencing detailed strategic reviews as to how waste under their jurisdiction must be dealt with. In some cases this has meant that unitary authorities are implementing plans to bring in long-term agreements, usually around two-and-a-half decades in length, through which to handle their waste materials management requirements. These deals will most likely include the need to build a facility through which to deal with all waste materials generated throughout the region by sorting all waste streams. The contracts could also incorporate the collection of all waste and recyclables from households throughout the region. So the issue of waste management has been evolving rapidly. The times of just throwing every little thing in the dustbin have disappeared and the development of new technologies are upon us.
Conclusion
Recycling is now a lifestyle and is not going anywhere soon. It has evolved through the years from a thing that was carried out without any real thought behind it. The trusty rag and bone man was just trying to make a living. Today, many blue chip companies are setting out plans for a ‘zero to landfill’ waste plan, where the purpose is very obvious – reduce waste, reuse waste and recycle waste, but no waste must finish up in landfill.
Many houses across the country now have some kind of container in which to isolate waste for recycling. The need to split up newspapers, aluminium cans and plastic bottles are almost common place. Whilst in industrial and commercial sectors, there is an increasing list of items to consider for recycling such as printer cartridges, office paper, metal and electrical equipment.
Ideally the whole 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. There will always be a need for waste to be disposed of somewhere, somehow.