Throughout history, recycling has existed in one form or another. Even as long ago as 400 BC evidences of early recycling are known to have happened. Archaeological studies show that ancient waste dumps contained less of what’s known nowadays as household waste, like pots, utensils and ash, which shows that people were, even in those days, keen to reuse materials during a period when natural resources were not 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 converting the accumulated items into new things. The 60′s TV series, Steptoe and Son, brought this very much in to the public eye and greater attention.
During periods such as the World War Years, recycling and re-use were common place as natural resources became a lot more difficult to find. As well as food being rationed, certain materials including metal and fibre werenormally permitted just for use by the government in support of military operations, to meet manufacturing requirements often in the production of weaponry.
Because of rising energy costs, the requirement to recycle aluminium increased in the 1970′s.. As a material aluminium uses a reduced amount of energy within the production process than alternative materials. Plus it was much coveted as a result of its non rusting properties. The demand for aluminium saw the rise of scrap metal merchants who were ready to pay money in return for good quality metal. Additionally, in the seventies in areas of the United states, the first vans were seen to be collecting waste with a separate trailer for collection of recyclable materials being towed behind the vehicle. This was mainly for big bulky objects including bedsteads and old carpets.
Towards the late eighties, early nineties and as the importance of managing the intercontinental environmental state increased amongst world-wide authorities, the debate upon recycling really began to collect impetus. In the UK, the government imposed recycling targets upon Local Authorities and with the introduction of the fresh new legal guidelines upon the waste materials sector, recycling schemes really started to take off. The once commonly recognised waste disposal companies, began to call themselves waste management specialists and demonstrated through the offer of waste collection and recyclable material collection that waste had to be handled more effectively. Local skip companies needed to become better at what they did.
These days, many hundreds of materials and resources can be recycled, including paper, card, glass and plastics, to phones, electrical items, printer cartridges, textiles, clothing and concrete.
What Exactly is Recycling?
The word recycling describes the operation of reprocessing used resources into new or nearly new products avoiding the need for potentially useable materials or products to be thrown away.
Recycling performs an integral role in a modern world where climate change is high on the green agenda. It removes the requirement to avoidably send waste products and products to landfill or other waste disposal options. This in turn lessens the demand or the reliance upon the consumption of fresh or new raw resources, reduces energy usage and air and drinking water pollution, all of which contribute to lower greenhouse gas emissions.
Recycling is probably mostnoticeable through the recycling assistance now provided by local councils for household refuse and recycling collections and by modern waste management firms who typically give a full range of waste and recycling collection services.
Virtually all of your rubbish collected today will go to some type of energy from waste treatment unit where any recyclables may be extracted for reprocessing. Your left over waste materials may go to landfill or could be utilised for energy recovery.
In the waste materials sector, the most popular advertising activity is all around the waste material hierarchy – ‘reduce, reuse, recycle and recover’. This four R slogan is a simple message devised for a far reaching crowd. Think about some ways to eliminate waste. Could the waste material products or materials be reused? Can the waste product or material be recycled or retrieved? Many questions to think about.
The waste hierarchy is a strategy which various waste management organisations and local authorities look at when developing new waste management procedures. The system is intended to focus the intellect around preventing waste materials being produced 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.
And so the emphasis is very much on the whole production process. The waste materials hierarchy expands much wider than to waste materials management companies and local bodies. Working groups have been set up to bring many sectors together to consider the entire waste cycle. For example, the manufacturer of a product must consider the way the product will be designed. Can parts be used which could eventually be recycled or reused? Could the quantity of packaging which surrounds the product be decreased? Once the item gets to the shop, is it essential for the product to be left within an outer box? If the retailer sells the product, what will the buyer do with the excess elements of the purchase, i.e. the packaging? How will the packaging be handled and where will it go? Will it go back to a recycling plant, for onward shipment 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 all waste must be processed to divert the quantity of recyclables and unnecessary waste material heading direct to landfill. Since 1996, the United Kingdom government has applied a landfill levy on all waste materials discarded within landfill. The rate of tax has increased considerably in recent years rising from the original 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 lower rate for inert products. Dispatching waste directly to landfill is an expensive option and choosing suitable ways to divert waste away from landfill has become important. For inert materials the rate is £2.50 per ton.
Thus, the message to everyone is crystal clear, sort your waste to scale back the volume of waste going to landfill. Traditionally, both at home and at the office, the instant you place waste material into the bin , it is forgotten about. Someone else will collect it and take it away. These days, in the home and at the office, recycling is being encouraged by the supply of containers 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. Even so the possiblity to recycle a large amount of 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.
Inside sizeable buildings, a number of recycling schemes can simply be introduced to gather used or unwanted recyclable substances.
The means of collecting items or waste materials to be recycled is also growing and ever more apparent within local communities. Specialist collection sites, known as bring bank sites, are springing up in supermarket car parks to inspire customers of the store to return such objects as bottles, newspapers or card to the containers on their way into the supermarket.
Local Authority waste collection crews or their appointed contractors will collect refuse and recyclables from the roadside usually at the front of your house. Collection from domestic premises typically continues to be the duty of the local council and several have now employed the supply of bins in which to gather specified recyclable materials or products. The services do vary from council to council.
In the industrial and commercial field, waste materials management contractors offer different containers where the customer deposits the appropriate waste materials stream or recyclable material ready for collection. The containers will often be plainly tagged as to which recyclable materials should be placed inside that container or bin. Alternatively, the bins will probably be colour coded to distinguish which recyclable wastes need to 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 educating about what can be recycled and how. In the commercial world getting the co-operation of shop floor 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 efficiency of what employees should be doing in their work. The introduction of any recycling scheme should be kept simple.
The Recycling Process
Numerous collection systems exist for the collection of the recyclable products . Whichever collection method is employed , the resources are taken to a materials recycling facility where they’ll be segregated from other waste items. This might be done manually or by using mechanical separators.
To start the recycling process from the collection perspective, the more recyclable material that can be segregated at origin, i.e. at home or in the workplace, the more effective it will be for the waste collector. That’s the reason separate storage units are provided to the waste producer to inspire segregation at source. If card can be collected on a truck, which will collect no other waste material, the card is going to be kept uncontaminated and therefore could have an improved value when it gets to the processing plant. Likewise, dedicated glass collection vehicles are used to collect just glass. In addition to the obvious health and safety reasons and the weight of collected glass, it will have a greater value if the collected glass load is not mixed with other waste materials.
When collected, the recyclable resources may be taken direct to a reprocessing plant, if the load contains only that specific type of material. So a separate glass collection truck could take the load on 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 are being collected such as paper and card within the same compartment, it could 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. Whichever approach is used, the recyclable material obtained will usually be sorted or cleaned before going through to a reprocessing facility to be processed to a new useful resource and ultimately used as a new product 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 neighborhood.
The Increasing Value of Recycling
In the UK close to 35% of waste material collected from homes is recycled or composted. Although within the business and industrial area, the quantity of waste materials delivered to landfill has dropped significantly recently and the volume of waste now being diverted for recycling or reuse by this sector has grown over the amounts going to landfill.
Landfill continues to play a key role in the management of waste throughout the UK as not all waste materials can be recycled and some are more suited to landfill disposal than by any other method. However, it’s not just the increasing expense of disposing of waste directly in landfill which is making recycling an even more appealing option for companies. Landfill has started to become scarce, with many authorities indicating that the quantity of void accessible across all UK landfill sites, has less than 10 years existence left 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 kingdom.
In recent times, waste materials management firms have had to switch their focus, and start to consider and invest in technology, such as energy from waste plants, anaerobic digestion plants and mechanical biological treatment plants, as alternate options to landfill. Local Authorities have adapted their approaches by commencing detailed strategic reviews as to how waste under their jurisdiction must be handled. In some instances this has meant that unitary authorities are implementing plans to introduce long-term agreements, usually around 25 years in length, through which to handle their entire waste management needs. These agreements will often include the need to build a facility through which to handle all waste material created throughout the county by sorting all waste material streams. The agreements could also incorporate the collection of waste and recyclables from households throughout the area. So the face of waste management is evolving quickly. The times of merely throwing everything in the dustbin have gone and the advent of new technologies are upon us. The introduction of new technologies will play a huge role in the future of waste management.
Summary
Recycling is now a lifestyle and is maturing all the time. It has evolved over the years from something that was performed 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 strategy, where the purpose is very obvious – 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 attain such plans.
Many households across the country now have some kind of container in which to divide waste materials for recycling. The need 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 take into account for recycling like printer cartridges, office paper, metal and electrical equipment.
Ideally the entire process would be a complete cycle such as it was in the time of the horse. However the advent of new technologies 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.
April 27, 2010 1:09 pm | 
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