Right through history, recycling has been around in some guise or another. Even as long ago as 400 BC indications of early recycling are known to have happened. Archaeological studies show that historical waste dumps contained fewer of what’s known nowadays as household waste, including pots, utensils and ash, which shows that individuals were, even in those days, keen to reuse materials at a time when natural resources weren’t so freely available. Little did they know that what they were starting would play a huge role in shaping society for future generations
Indeed it could be argued how the old ‘rag-and-bone’ man was just an early recycler collectingdiscarded goods on his horse and cart, before reusing or converting the recovered items into new stuff.
During periods such as the World War Years, recycling and re-use were essential as natural resources became much more difficult to get. As well as food being rationed, certain materials including metal and fibre were largely allowed only for use by the government to support military operations, to fulfill manufacturing requirements often in the production of weaponry. There was a desperate need to support the military.
As a consequence of rising power costs, the demand to recycle aluminium increased during the 1970’s.. As a material aluminium utilises a reduced amount of energy in the production process than various other materials. Also it was much prized because of its non rusting attributes. The need for aluminium saw the emergence of scrap metal merchants who were prepared to pay cash in return for the best quality metal. Additionally, in the seventies in parts of the USA, the first vehicles were seen to be collecting waste with a separate trailer for recovery of recyclable items being towed behind the vehicle. This was mainly for big bulky items including bedsteads and old carpets.
Into the late 1980’s, early 1990’s and as the importance of handling the worldwide environmental state increased amongst world-wide governments, the debate upon recycling really began to gather impetus. In the UK, the authorities imposed recycling targets upon Local Authorities and with the introduction of fresh legal guidelines upon the waste product community, recycling programmes really started to take off. The once widely well known waste disposal businesses, began to call themselves waste management companies and demonstrated with the offer of waste collection and recyclable materials collection that waste had to be handled more successfully.
Today, many hundreds of materials and products are easily recycled, starting from paper, card, glass and plastics, to phones, electrical items, printer cartridges, textiles, clothing and concrete.
What is Recycling?
The term recycling identifies the operation of reprocessing second hand products into new or nearly new products avoiding the need for potentially useful materials or products to be dumped. Essentially it is diverting waste material from landfill.
Recycling performs an important 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 reduces the need or the reliance upon the consumption of fresh or new natural resources, lowers energy use and air and rain water pollution, that all 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 also modern waste management organisations who typically offer a full range of waste and recycling collection solutions.
One among the largest United Kingdom authorities in waste material management is Biffa Waste Ltd, you can visit their website for more information on all aspects of waste and poisonous waste management.
Within the waste material sector, the regular promotional activity is all around the waste materials hierarchy - ‘reduce, reuse, recycle and recover’. This 4 R slogan is a straightforward message made for a far reaching crowd. Think about how you can reduce your waste materials. Can the waste products or materials be reused? Can the waste product or material be recycled or recovered?
The waste hierarchy is usually a strategy that a lot of waste material management organisations and local bodies consider when developing new waste management strategies. The strategy is meant to concentrate the mind around preventing waste material being produced to begin 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.
So the emphasis is very much on the overall production process. The waste materials hierarchy expands much wider than to waste management companies and local authorities. Working groups have been set up to bring many sectors together to consider the entire waste cycle. By way of example, the manufacturer of a product has to take into account the way the product is to be constructed. Could components be used which could eventually be recycled or reused? Can the amount of packaging that surrounds the product be decreased? When the product gets to the store, is it required for the product to be placed inside an outer package? If the retailer sells the item, what will the purchaser do with the unwanted components of the acquisition, i.e. the packaging? How will the packaging be collected and where will it go? Can it go back to a recycling plant, for onward shipment to a reprocessing facility, in which the cycle starts once again?
How are Materials Collected for Recycling?
Legislation now dictates that most waste must be treated to reduce the quantity of recyclables and unnecessary waste materials going direct to landfill. Since 1996, the United Kingdom government has applied a landfill levy on all waste materials discarded within landfill. The rate of duty has increased considerably lately rising from the initial level of £8 per ton, to the current rate of £40 per ton. The UK government has recently declared that this will increase further to £48 per ton by the end of 2010/11. This fee applies to all general waste materials streams, although there’s a lesser rate for inert products. Dispatching waste materials directly to landfill is an expensive choice and choosing appropriate solutions to divert waste away from landfill is now a priority.
Therefore, the message to everybody is obvious, segregate your waste to cut back the amount of waste materials going to landfill. Traditionally, at home or at the office, as soon as you place waste material into the container , it is forgotten about. Somebody else will collect it and take it away. These days, at home and at the office, recycling is being stimulated via the supply of containers in which to place certain recyclable materials. At home, the children are often the keen recyclers.
Some common products to be seen being collected 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 materials is taken back to a plant for processing into a reusable or saleable compost product.
One of many ways to make sure we don’t vanish at the bottom of a mountain of waste is to establish additional energy recovering facilities in order that our waste turns into a very importantresource.
The systems of collecting resources or waste materials to be recycled is also increasing and ever more noticeable within local communities. Specialist collection sites, often referred to 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 card to the bins on their way into the store.
Local Authority waste materials collection crews or their appointed personnel will collect refuse and recyclables from the kerbside usually in front of your property. Collection from domestic premises generally remains the responsibility of the local authorities and many have employed the supply of baskets in which to gather particular recyclable materials or products. The services do vary from council to council.
In the industrial and commercial market, waste material management companies offer separate storage containers where the customer deposits the correct waste materials stream or recyclable resources ready for collection. The bins will usually be plainly labeled 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 should be placed within which bins.
The real key to a successful recycling initiative is homeowners 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
A variety of collection solutions exist for the collection of the recyclable products . Regardless of what collection system is used , the materials are taken to a drop off point where they’ll be segregated from other waste items. This might be done by hand or through the use of mechanical separators.
To begin the recycling process from a collection viewpoint, the more recyclable material which can be separated at source, i.e. at home or in the workplace, the more efficient it will be for the waste collector. That is why individual containers are provided to the waste producer to stimulate segregation at source. If card can be collected using a vehicle, that will collect no other waste materials, the card is going to be kept clean and for that reason will have a greater value when it actually reaches the processing plant. Similarly, specialist glass collection vehicles are used to collect just 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 mixed with other waste material.
Once collected, the recyclable resources can be taken direct to the reprocessing plant, if the load contains only that particular type of material. So a separate glass collection vehicle could take the load on to a glass processing plant.
If compounded recyclables have been collected such as paper and card within the same compartment, it might be necessary for the collector to take the load to a materials recycling facility 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. No matter what method is employed, the recyclable material gathered will usually be segregated or washed before going through to a reprocessing plant 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, for example shredded old tyres to help grip on access roadways.
Because of high density populations, the issue of waste disposal requires new modern answers than the old land fill systems. power in waste is just the kind of system, turning waste material into energy.
The Increasing Value of Recycling
In the UK around 35% of waste collected from households is recycled or composted. While in the business and industrial market, the volume of waste materials delivered to landfill has dropped significantly in recent years as well as the amount of waste material now being diverted for recycling or reuse by this market has risen above the volumes going to landfill. But there is still much to be done to boost rates even more in this sector.
Landfill continues to play a necessary role in the control of waste throughout the UK as not all waste products are able to be recycled plus some are more suited to landfill disposal than by any other method. Nonetheless, it’s not just the increasing costs of getting rid of waste directly in landfill which is making recycling a more appealing option for companies. Landfill is becoming scarce, with several experts hinting that the amount of space available across all UK landfill sites, has under ten years existence left before all sites are deemed 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 the past few years, waste material management firms have had to vary their focus, and start to take into account and spend money on new technologies, such as energy from waste facilities, anaerobic digestion facilities and mechanical biological treatment plants, as alternate options to landfill. Local Authorities have changed their views by undertaking comprehensive strategic reviews as to how waste under their jurisdiction must be handled. In some cases this means unitary authorities are implementing plans to bring in long term deals, usually around 25 years in length, through which to handle their entire waste material management demands. These agreements will often include the need to develop a facility through which to take care of all waste material generated throughout the city by sorting all waste streams. The contracts could also incorporate the collection of waste and recyclables from households across the region. So the face of waste management has been evolving rapidly. The days 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.
Conclusion
Recycling has become a lifestyle and is not going anywhere soon. It has evolved through the years from something that was undertaken with no 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 policy, where the intention is very clear - reduce waste, reuse waste and recycle waste, but no waste must finish up in landfill.
Many houses across the country now have some form of bin in which to separate waste materials for recycling. The need to separate newspapers, aluminium cans and plastic bottles are almost common place. Whilst in industrial and business 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 whole process would be a complete cycle such as it was in the days 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.
