Right 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 taken place. Archaeological studies show that historical waste dumps contained fewer of what’s known nowadays as household waste, such as pots, utensils and ash, which shows that people were, even back then, keen to reuse products at a time when natural resources were not 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 turning the accumulated items into new stuff.
During periods like the World War Years, recycling and re-use were common place as natural materials became considerably more difficult to find. As well as food being rationed, certain materials like metal and fibre were largely 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 energy costs, the need to recycle aluminium increased during the seventies.. As a material aluminium uses significantly less energy in the production process than some other materials. Plus it was much sought-after as a result of its non rusting properties. The need for aluminium saw the emergence of scrap metal dealers who were willing to pay good money in exchange for good quality metal. In addition, in the 70’s in parts of the United States of America, the first vehicles were seen to be collecting waste with a separate trailer for collection of recyclable materials being towed behind the vehicle.
Towards the late eighties, early nineties and as the awareness of managing the worldwide environmental state heightened amongst worldwide governments, the focus on recycling really started to gather energy. In the UK, the government imposed recycling targets upon Local Authorities along with the introduction of fresh legal guidelines upon the waste product community, recycling initiatives really began to take off. The once commonly knownwaste disposal companies, began to call themselves waste management firms and demonstrated by the offer of waste collection and recyclable materials collection that waste needed to be handled more successfully. Local skip companies needed to become better at what they did.
Today, many hundreds of materials and products are easily recycled, ranging from 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 term recycling describes the process of reprocessing used products into new or nearly new materials to avoid the need for potentially useable materials or products to be thrown away.
Recycling plays a key role in a modern world where climate change is high on the green agenda. It reduces the need to avoidably send waste products and products to landfill or other waste disposal options. This in turn lessens the need or the reliance upon consuming 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 is probably most evident through the recycling services now provided by local authorities for domestic refuse and recycling collections and by innovative waste management organisations who generally offer a full range of waste and recycling collection solutions.
There will be many companies throughout the united kingdom who now offer paper recycling, cardboard recycling, glass recycling, energy from waste , disposal services. But to be sure your waste is really going to be correctly recycled is it important to look for a well known and trusted company.
Within the waste materials sector, the common promotional activity is all around the waste hierarchy – ‘reduce, reuse, recycle and recover’. This 4 R slogan is a straightforward message devised for a far reaching audience. Think about ways to get rid of your waste. Can 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 material management companies and local authorities consider when producing new waste management procedures. The plan is intended to focus the thoughts around avoiding waste materials 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 overall production process. The waste material hierarchy stretches much wider than to waste material management businesses and local authorities. Working groups have been set up to bring many industries together to look at the entire waste cycle. By way of example, the producer of a product needs to consider how a product is to be made. Could parts be used which could later be recycled or reused? Could the volume of packaging which often surrounds the product be decreased? Once the product reaches the retailer, is it required for the product to be left inside an outer package? If the retailer sells the item, what will the purchaser do with the excess components of the acquisition, i.e. the packaging? How will the packaging be collected and where will it go? Could it return to a recycling plant, for onward transfer 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 most waste needs to be treated to divert the amount of recyclables and unnecessary waste material heading direct to landfill. Since 1996, the UK government has enforced a landfill levy on all waste dumped within landfill. The rate of duty has increased considerably recently rising from the initial level of £8 per ton, to the current rate of £40 per ton. The UK government has previously announced that this will increase further to £48 per ton by the end of 2010/11. This charge applies to all general waste material streams, although there’s a lesser rate for inert products. Sending waste material directly to landfill is an expensive choice and choosing suitable processes to divert waste out of landfill is now a priority. For inert materials the rate is £2.50 per ton.
Thus, the message to everyone is clear, segregate your waste material to cut back the volume of waste going to landfill. Traditionally, at home or in the office, as soon as you place waste materials in the bin , it’s forgotten about. Another individual will collect it and take it away. Nowadays, in the home and in the office, recycling is being stimulated with the provision of containers in which to place specific recyclable materials.
Perhaps the most common products to be seen being gathered for recycling are paper, card, glass, metals and plastics. But 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 facility for processing into a reusable or saleable compost product.
One of the methods to make sure we don’t vanish under a mountain of waste is to generate a lot more energy recovering facilities to ensure that our waste products becomes a very importantresource.
The systems of collecting resources or waste to be recycled is also growing and becoming more visible within local communities. Specialist collection sites, known as bring bank sites, are popping up in superstore car parks to encourage clientele of the store to return such objects as bottles, newspapers or cardboard to the bins on their way into the store. Shoppers are therefore encouraged to return with their recyclables.
Local Authority waste material collection crews or their appointed contractors will collect refuse and recyclables from the kerbside commonly in front of your house. Collection from domestic premises usually continues to be the duty of the local authorities many have 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 sector, waste management companies offer different storage units where the customer deposits the applicable waste material stream or recyclable material ready for collection. The particular bins will often be plainly branded as to which recyclable product must be placed within that container or bin. Otherwise, the bins will probably be colour coded to identify which recyclable materials need to be placed within which bins.
The real key 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 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
Various collection systems exist for the collection of the recyclable material . No matter which collection system is employed , the resources are taken to a drop off point where they will be segregated from other waste items.
To start the recycling process from the collection point of view, the more recyclable materials which can be separated at origin, i.e. at home or in the work place, the more efficient it will be for the waste collector. That’s the reason individual containers are supplied to the waste producer to encourage 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 as a consequence could have an increased value when it gets to the processing plant. Likewise, specialist glass collection vehicles are widely-used to collect just glass. In addition to 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.
When collected, the recyclable resources are generally taken direct to the reprocessing plant, if the load contains only that specific type of material. So a separate glass collection truck could take the load straight 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 compounded recyclables are collected like paper and card within the same container, 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 what technique is used, the recyclable material gathered will often be sorted or washed before proceeding through to a reprocessing facility to be converted to a new resource and eventually used as a new product or in manufacturing. Inert materials can be a useful by product at landfill, such as shredded tyres to aid grip on access roadways.
Many households all over the UK are now choosing to use green energy for their own requirements like light and heating. Although it might be expensive to install at this stage, eventually it’s going to save on money
The Increasing Importance of Recycling
In the UK close to 35% of waste material collected from homes is recycled or composted. Although within the commercial and industrial area, the volume of waste sent to landfill has declined substantially recently plus the volume of waste materials now being diverted for recycling or reuse by this market has risen over the volumes going to landfill.
Landfill continues to play a necessary role in the management of waste throughout the UK as not all waste items are able to be recycled and some are more suited to landfill disposal than by some other means. Nonetheless, it’s not only the increasing expense of disposing of waste directly in landfill which is making recycling a more appealing option for companies. Landfill is becoming scarce, with some experts hinting that the volume of space available across all UK landfill sites, has under ten years existence left before all sites are deemed to be full.
In recent years, waste materials management companies have had to change their focus, and start to take into consideration and put money into technology, like energy from waste facilities, anaerobic digestion plants and mechanised biological treatment plants, as alternatives to landfill. Local Authorities have changed their attitudes by undertaking detailed strategic reviews as to how waste under their jurisdiction needs to be handled. In some cases this has meant that unitary authorities are progressing plans to introduce long-term deals, usually around two-and-a-half decades in length, through which to handle all of their waste management requirements. These contracts will often include the need to build a facility through which to take care of all waste material created throughout the region by sorting all waste material streams. The agreements may also include the collection of all waste and recyclables from homes across the region. So the issue of waste management is evolving quickly. The times of just throwing every little thing in the dustbin have disappeared and the advent of new technologies are upon us.
Conclusion
Recycling has become a way of life and is not going anywhere soon. It has evolved over the years from a thing that was carried out without any 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 strategy, where the purpose is very straightforward – reduce waste, reuse waste and recycle waste, but no waste must wind up in landfill.
Many households across the country now have some kind of bin in which to divide waste for recycling. The need to separate newspapers, aluminium cans and plastic bottles are almost common place. Whilst in industrial and commercial areas, there is an increasing list of items to think about 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 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.
