Right through history, recycling has been around in some form or another. Even as long ago as 400 BC indications of early recycling are recognized to have happened. Archaeological reports show that historical waste dumps contained fewer of what’s known nowadays as household waste, like pots, tools and ash, which demonstrates that men and women were, even in those days, keen to reuse materials during a period when natural resources weren’t so freely available.
Indeed it could be argued how the old ‘rag-and-bone’ man was just an early recycler collecting unwanted goods on his horse and cart, before reusing or turning the accumulated items into new things. The 60′s TV series, Steptoe and Son, brought this very much to the public eye and greater attention.
During periods like the World War Years, recycling and re-use were necessary as natural resources became much more difficult to come by. 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, in order to meet manufacturing requirements often in the production of weaponry.
Thanks to rising power costs, the requirement to recycle aluminium increased during the seventies.. As a material aluminium utilises a lesser amount of energy within the production process than some other materials. Plus it was much coveted owing to its non rusting qualities. The need for aluminium saw the emergence of scrap metal dealers who were willing to pay good money in return for good quality metal. Additionally, in the 70′s in areas of the United States of America, the first trucks were seen to be collecting waste with a separate trailer for the collection of recyclable materials being towed behind the vehicle. This was mainly for substantial bulky objects like bedsteads and old carpets.
Into the late eighties, early nineties and as the awareness of handling the global environmental state increased amongst worldwide authorities, the focus on recycling really began to collect momentum. In the United Kingdom, the government imposed recycling targets upon Local Authorities along with the introduction of new legislation upon the waste product sector, recycling programmes really began to take off. The once commonly recognised waste disposal businesses, began to call themselves waste management specialists and demonstrated by the offer of waste collection and recyclable materials collection that waste had to be managed more efficiently.
Nowadays, many hundreds of materials and products may 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 identifies the operation of reprocessing second hand materials into new or nearly new products avoiding the need for potentially useable materials or products to be discarded. Essentially it is diverting waste materials away from landfill.
Recycling takes on an integral 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 diminishes the need and the reliance upon the consumption of fresh or new natural materials, cuts back energy usage and air and rain water pollution, all of which contribute to lower greenhouse gas emissions. Significant contributions to improving the natural environment.
Recycling is probably mostnoticeable through the recycling facilities now provided by local authorities for domestic refuse and recycling collections and also innovative waste management organisations who generally offer a full range of waste and recycling collection solutions. Some companies, that have in the past concentrated primarily on the collection of recyclable items, are now increasing their operations offering to collect general waste at the same time.
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In the waste material market, the common marketing activity is all around the waste material hierarchy – ‘reduce, reuse, recycle and recover’. This 4 R slogan is a straightforward message made for a far reaching audience. Consider ways to reduce your waste. Can the waste products or materials be reused? Could the waste product or material be recycled or retrieved?
The waste material hierarchy is a strategy that a lot of waste material management organisations and local authorities think about when creating new waste management strategies. The plan is designed to concentrate the thought process around precluding waste materials being produced at all. Take into account 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 whole production process. The waste material hierarchy expands much wider than to waste material management companies and local authorities. Working groups have already been established to bring many sectors together to look at the entire waste cycle. For instance, the manufacturer of a product must take into account how the product is to be fabricated. Could components be used which can later be recycled or reused? Could the volume of packaging that surrounds the item be cut down? Once the product reaches the retailer, is it required for the product to be left within an outer box? Once the retailer sells the product, what will the buyer do with the unwanted elements of the acquisition, i.e. the packaging? How will the packaging be stored and where will it go? Should it go back to a recycling plant, for onward transfer to a reprocessing plant, in which the cycle starts all over 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 avoid the amount of recyclables and unnecessary waste material going direct to landfill. Since 1996, the United Kingdom government has applied a landfill levy on all waste dumped within landfill. The rate of tax has increased considerably lately rising from the initial 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 from the end of 2010/11. This cost applies to all general waste materials streams, although there exists a reduced rate for inert materials. Delivering waste material directly to landfill is an expensive course of action and finding appropriate solutions to divert waste away from landfill has become a priority.
Thus, the message to everyone is obvious, sort your waste material to reduce the volume of waste materials going to landfill. In the past, at home or at work, the instant you place waste in the container , it is forgotten about. Someone else will collect it and take it away. Today, at home and in 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 a vast number 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 material is taken back to a facility for processing into a reusable or saleable compost product.
One of several ways to make sure we don’t vanish at the bottom of a mountain of waste materials is to establish additional energy recovering facilities so that our waste materials turns into a very importantresource.
The methods of collecting materials or waste material to be recycled is also growing and ever more noticeable within local communities. Specialist collection sites, known as bring bank sites, are popping up in superstore car parks to inspire customers of the supermarket to return such objects 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 contractors will collect refuse and recyclables from the roadside normally at the front of your house. Collection from domestic premises typically remains the responsibility of the local authorities many have now employed the provision of boxes in which to gather particular recyclable materials or products.
In the industrial and commercial field, waste management contractors offer individual storage units in which the customer deposits the correct waste materials stream or recyclable resources ready for collection. The particular bins will usually be clearly labeled as to which recyclable materials ought to be put within that container or bin. Alternatively, the bins will probably be colour coded to identify 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 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
Numerous collection systems exist for the collection of the recyclable material . Regardless of what collection system is used , the resources are taken to a materials recycling facility where they’ll be segregated from other waste products. This could be done by hand or by using mechanised separators.
To start the recycling process from the collection perspective, the more recyclable material which can be segregated at source, i.e. at home or in the workplace, the more efficient it will be for the waste collector. For this reason individual storage units are provided to the waste producer to promote segregation at source. If card can be collected using a truck, which will collect no other waste material, the card is going to be kept clean and for that reason could have a greater value when it actually reaches the processing plant. Similarly, dedicated glass collection vehicles are widely-used to collect only glass. Apart from 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.
When collected, the recyclable materials are generally 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 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 blended recyclables are being collected such as paper and card within the same container, it could be necessary for the collector to take the load to a drop off point to unload and permit the load to be segregated into distinct paper and card bundles for onward transport to a paper or card processing plant. Whatever technique is employed, the recyclable material obtained will often be sorted or cleaned before traveling through to a reprocessing plant to be processed to a new useful resource and ultimately used as a new product or in manufacturing. Inert materials can be a useful by product at landfill, such as shredded old tyres to help grip on access roads.
In severe economic periods such as today, minimising food waste will make a large impact to the budget on a individual as well as a nationwide level.
The Increasing Value of Recycling
In the UK close to 35% of waste materials collected from homes is recycled or composted. While in the commercial and industrial market, the volume of waste material delivered to landfill has declined substantially recently and the volume of waste materials now being diverted for recycling or reuse by this sector has risen over the volumes going to landfill. But there is still much to be done to boost rates even more within this sector.
Landfill continues to play a vital role in the management of waste across the UK as not all waste items can be recycled and several are more suited to landfill disposal than by some other means. However, it’s not only the increasing expense of disposing of waste directly in landfill that is making recycling an even more appealing option for businesses. Landfill has started to become scarce, with some specialists indicating that the amount of void readily available across all UK landfill sites, has under 10 years existence left 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 materials management firms have had to change their focal point, and start to take into consideration and spend money on new technologies, such as energy from waste plants, anaerobic digestion facilities and mechanical biological treatment plants, as alternate options to landfill. Local Authorities have adapted their attitudes by undertaking detailed strategic reviews as to how waste material under their jurisdiction needs to be taken care of. In some instances this has meant that unitary authorities are implementing plans to introduce long term deals, usually around 25 years in length, through which to regulate their waste material management requirements. These agreements will often include the need to develop a facility through which to handle all waste material generated throughout the region by segregating all waste material streams. The deals might also incorporate the collection of waste and recyclables from households across the region. So the face of waste management is evolving rapidly. The times of simply throwing everything in the dustbin have disappeared and the advent of new technologies are upon us.
Summary
Recycling is now a lifestyle and is here to stay. It has evolved through the years from a thing 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.
Many households across the country now have some form of bin in which to separate waste for recycling. The need to split up newspapers, aluminium cans and plastic bottles are almost common place. Whilst in industrial and business areas, there is an increasing list of items to consider for recycling such as 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 time 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.
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