All the way through history, recycling has existed in some form or another. Even as long ago as 400 BC indications of earlier recycling are recognized to have occurred. Archaeological reports show that historical waste dumps contained less of what is known nowadays as household waste, such as pots, tools and ash, which demonstrates that men and women were, even back then, keen to reuse products during a period when natural resources weren’t so freely available.
Indeed it may be argued that 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 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 considerably more difficult to find. Along with food being rationed, certain materials including metal and fibre were largely allowed only for use by the government in support of military operations, to meet manufacturing requirements often in the production of weaponry.
As a result of rising energy costs, the demand to recycle aluminium increased in the seventies.. As a material aluminium utilises much less energy within the production process than some other materials. Also it was much sought-after due to its non rusting properties. The demand for aluminium saw the emergence of scrap metal merchants who were ready to pay good money in return for good quality metal. Also, in the seventies in regions of the United States of America, the first trucks were seen to be collecting waste with a separate trailer for gathering of recyclable materials being towed behind the vehicle.
Towards the late eighties, early 1990′s and as the importance of handling the worldwide environmental state accelerated amongst international governments, the focus upon recycling really started to gather energy. In the United Kingdom, the government imposed recycling targets upon Local Authorities and with the introduction of new legislation upon the waste products industry, recycling schemes really began to take off. The once widely knownwaste disposal companies, began to call themselves waste management firms and demonstrated with the offer of waste collection and recyclable material collection that waste needed to be handled more effectively. Local skip companies needed to become better at what they did.
Today, many hundreds of materials and products may be recycled, which range from paper, card, glass and plastics, to mobile 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 process of converting second-hand products into new or nearly new materials avoiding the need for potentially valuable materials or products to be dumped.
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 material and products to landfill or other waste disposal options. Consequently this lessens the need and the reliance upon consuming fresh or new raw resources, reduces energy use and air and drinking water pollution, that all contribute to lower greenhouse gas emissions. Significant contributions to improving the environment.
Recycling would probably be mostnoticeable through the recycling services now provided by local councils for household refuse and recycling collections and by contemporary waste management companies who typically give a full range of waste and recycling collection solutions.
The majority of all of your rubbish collected today will head to some form of energy from waste treatment unit where the recyclables will be removed for reprocessing. The left over waste materials may go to land fill or could be used for energy recovery.
Within the waste material sector, the regular advertising activity is all around the waste materials hierarchy – ‘reduce, reuse, recycle and recover’. This four R slogan is a straightforward message designed for a far reaching target audience. Consider some ways to lessen your waste material. Could the waste material products or materials be reused? Can the waste product or material be recycled or retrieved? Many questions to take into consideration.
The waste hierarchy is often a strategy which various waste material management firms and local authorities consider when producing new waste management procedures. The plan is meant to concentrate the intellect around precluding waste being generated to start with. Think about 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 emphasis is very much on the entire manufacturing process. The waste material hierarchy expands much wider than to waste materials management firms and local bodies. Working groups have been established to bring many industries together to consider the complete waste cycle. For example, the manufacturer of a product must consider how the product is to be designed. Can components be used which can later be recycled or reused? Can the quantity of packaging which often surrounds the product be cut down? When the item reaches the shop, is it essential for the product to be left within an outer package? Once the retailer sells the product, what will the purchaser do with the excess components of the purchase, i.e. the packaging? How will the packaging be recovered and where will it go? Should it go back to a recycling plant, for onward transfer to a reprocessing plant, where the cycle begins once again?
How are Materials Collected for Recycling?
Legislation now dictates that all waste material must be processed to divert the volume of recyclables and unnecessary waste material going direct to landfill. Since 1996, the United Kingdom government has enforced a landfill levy on all waste materials dumped 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 previously declared that this will increase further to £48 per ton by the end of 2010/11. This cost applies to all general waste material streams, although there’s a reduced rate for inert materials. Sending waste straight to landfill is an expensive course of action and finding appropriate processes to divert waste out of landfill has become important.
So, the message to everybody is clear, segregate your waste material to cut back the volume of waste material going to landfill. Traditionally, both at home and at the office, the instant you place waste material into the dustbin , it is forgotten about. Someone else will collect it and take it away. These days, in your own home and at the office, recycling is being encouraged with the supply of containers in which to place certain recyclable materials.
Perhaps the most common materials to be seen being collected for recycling are paper, card, glass, metals and plastics. However the possiblity 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 materials is taken back to a plant for processing into a reusable or saleable compost product.
There is a vast range of paper recycling containers should be placed at high usage points such as next to photocopying equipment to gather leftover paper.
The means of collecting items or waste material to be recycled is also increasing and becoming more noticeable within local communities. Specialist collection sites, known as bring bank sites, are popping up in superstore 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 material collection crews or their appointed personnel will collect refuse and recyclables from the roadside normally at the front of your home. Collection from household premises generally continues to be the duty of the local council many have now employed the provision of bags in which to gather specified recyclable materials or products. The services do vary from council to council.
In the industrial and commercial sector, waste material management companies offer different containers in which the customer deposits the appropriate waste material stream or recyclable material ready for collection. The containers will usually be clearly labeled as to which recyclable materials ought to be put inside that container or bin. Alternatively, the bins will probably be colour coded to distinguish which recyclable wastes ought to be placed within which bins.
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 productivity 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 . No matter which collection system is utilised , the materials are taken to a drop off point where they will be segregated from other waste materials.
To start the recycling process from the collection point of view, the more recyclable materials that can be separated at origin, i.e. at home or in the workplace, the more efficient it will be for the waste collector. That’s the reason individual containers are provided to the waste producer to encourage separation at source. If card can be collected on a vehicle, that will collect no other waste materials, the card will be kept clean and for that reason will have a greater value when it reaches the processing plant. In the same way, dedicated glass collection vehicles are used to collect only glass. In addition to the obvious health and safety reasons and the weight of collected glass, it will have a much higher value if the collected glass load is not contaminated with other waste materials. Uncontaminated recyclables will have a much higher value than contaminated products.
When collected, the recyclable resources can be taken direct to a reprocessing plant, if the load contains only that particular type of material. So a dedicated glass collection vehicle 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 blended recyclables are collected like paper and card within the same container, it could be required for the collector to take the load to a materials recycling facility to unload and permit the load to be sorted into distinct paper and card bundles for onward transfer to a paper or card processing plant. Whichever method is used, the recyclable material collected will usually be segregated or cleaned before going through to a reprocessing facility to be processed to a new useful resource and eventually used as a new product or in manufacturing.
In severe monetary instances like now, reducing food waste will make a large impact to the budget on a private as well as a countrywide level.
The Increasing Significance of Recycling
In the UK around 35% of waste materials collected from homes is recycled or composted. Whilst in the business and industrial area, the amount of waste materials delivered to landfill has declined significantly recently and the amount of waste now being diverted for recycling or reuse by this market has grown over the volumes going to landfill. But there is still much to be done to boost rates further in this sector.
Landfill continues to play a necessary role in the management of waste across the UK as not all wastes can be recycled plus some 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 a far more appealing option for corporations. Landfill has started to become scarce, with many specialists hinting that the quantity of void readily available across all UK landfill sites, has less than 10 years existence remaining before all sites are deemed to be full.
In recent years, waste material management firms have had to vary their focal point, and begin to consider and spend money on new technologies, like energy from waste plants, anaerobic digestion facilities and mechanised biological treatment plants, as alternate options to landfill. Local Authorities also have adapted their approaches by commencing comprehensive strategic reviews as to how waste material under their jurisdiction must be dealt with. In some instances this has meant that unitary authorities are implementing plans to introduce extended deals, usually around two-and-a-half decades long, through which to control all of their waste management demands. These agreements will most likely include the need to build a facility through which to take care of all waste materials generated throughout the county by sorting all waste materials streams. The deals could also include the collection of all waste and recyclables from homes throughout the area. So the face of waste management is evolving rapidly. The days of simply throwing anything in the dustbin have vanished and the arrival of new technologies are upon us. The introduction of new technologies will play a huge role in the future of waste management.
Summary
Recycling has become a way of life and is maturing all the time. It has evolved through the years from something that was performed 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 strategy, where the objective is very obvious – reduce waste, reuse waste and recycle waste, but no waste must finish up in landfill. Some companies have announced ambitious target dates by which to realize such policies.
Many households across the country now have some form of bin in which to keep separate waste materials for recycling. The requirement to separate newspapers, aluminium cans and plastic bottles are almost common place. Whilst in industrial and business sectors, there is an increasing selection of items to take into account for recycling such as printer cartridges, office paper, metal and electrical equipment.
Ideally the entire process would be a complete cycle such as it was in the days of the horse. However the advent of new technology 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.
