The Essential of Recycling for the Future
April 22, 2010 | In: General
All the way through history, recycling has existed in one way or another. Even as long ago as 400 BC indications of earlier recycling are known to have occurred. Archaeological studies show that ancient waste dumps contained fewer of what is known today as household waste, like pots, tools and ash, which demonstrates that people were, even back then, keen to reuse products during a period when natural resources weren’t so freely available. Little did they know that the things they were starting would play such a huge role in shaping the world 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 transforming the collected items into something new. 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 crucial as natural materials became much more difficult to come by. 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 meet manufacturing requirements often in the production of weaponry.
Thanks to rising power costs, the demand to recycle aluminium increased in the seventies.. As a material aluminium utilises a lesser amount of energy in the production process than various other materials. Plus it was much coveted on account of its non rusting properties. The demand for aluminium saw the emergence of scrap metal dealers who were willing to pay money in exchange for the best quality metal. Also, in the seventies in regions of the United states, the first vans 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 objects including bedsteads and old carpets.
Towards the late eighties, early nineties and as the awareness of managing the intercontinental environmental state heightened amongst worldwide authorities, the focus upon recycling really began to get impetus. In the UK, the authorities imposed recycling targets upon Local Authorities along with the introduction of the fresh legal guidelines upon the waste community, recycling programmes really began to take off. The once widely recognised waste disposal businesses, began to call themselves waste management providers and demonstrated with the offer of waste collection and recyclable material collection that waste needed to be handled more efficiently.
Currently, many hundreds of materials and resources can be recycled, starting from paper, card, glass and plastics, to mobile phones, electrical items, printer cartridges, textiles, clothing and concrete.
What is Recycling?
The term recycling identifies the operation of reprocessing second-hand materials into new or nearly new materials avoiding the need for potentially useful materials or products to be thrown away. Essentially it is diverting waste from landfill.
Recycling takes on a key role in a world where climate change is high on the green agenda. It reduces the requirement to unnecessarily send waste material and products to landfill or other waste disposal options. As a result this reduces the need and the reliance upon consuming fresh or new raw resources, lowers energy usage and air and water pollution, that all contribute to lower greenhouse gas emissions. Significant contributions to improving the environment.
Recycling would probably be most evident through the recycling solutions now provided by local councils for domestic refuse and recycling collections and also innovative waste management firms who generally give a full range of waste and recycling collection solutions. Some firms, that have traditionally focused exclusively on the collection of recyclable products, are now extending their service offering to collect general waste materials at the same time.
Recently the recovery of energy from waste has become an essential environmental for the benefit of the world.
In the waste sector, the common advertising 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 crowd. Consider how you can eliminate waste materials. 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 material hierarchy is a strategy that a lot of waste material management organisations and local authorities consider when producing new waste management approaches. The strategy is designed to focus the thoughts around preventing waste material being generated 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.
And so the focus is very much on the overall manufacturing process. The waste hierarchy expands much wider than to waste management companies and local authorities. Working groups have already been established to bring many sectors together to look at the complete waste cycle. For instance, the manufacturer of a product needs to think about how the product is to be constructed. Could components be used that can later be recycled or reused? Could the amount of packaging that surrounds the product be cut down? When the product gets to the store, is it necessary for the product to be located within an outer box? If the retailer sells the item, what will the consumer do with the excess components of the purchase, i.e. the packaging? How will the packaging be collected and where will it go? Could it go back to a recycling facility, for onward transfer to a reprocessing facility, where the cycle starts all over again?
How are Materials Collected for Recycling?
Legislation now dictates that most waste should be processed to divert the amount of recyclables and unnecessary waste materials going direct to landfill. Since 1996, the United Kingdom government has enforced a landfill tax 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 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 fee applies to all general waste materials streams, although there is a lesser rate for inert products. Sending waste material straight to landfill is an expensive choice and locating acceptable solutions to divert waste out of landfill has become a priority.
So, the message to everybody is clear, sort your waste to reduce the amount of waste material going to landfill. Typically, at home or at the office, the instant you place waste in the dustbin , it’s forgotten about. Another individual will collect it and take it away. These days, at home and in the office, recycling is being stimulated through the supply of bins in which to place specific recyclable materials. At home, the children are often the keen recyclers.
Some common products to be seen being gathered for recycling are paper, card, glass, metals and plastics. But the opportunity to recycle many materials or products continues to grow.
One of several ways to ensure we don’t disappear at the bottom of a mountain of waste is to construct more energy recovering facilities so that our waste products becomes a valuableresource.
The methods of collecting resources or waste to be recycled is also escalating and becoming more apparent within local communities. Dedicated collection sites, often referred to as bring bank sites, are springing up in supermarket car parks to motivate clientele of the store to return such items as bottles, newspapers or cardboard to the containers on their way into the supermarket. Shoppers are therefore encouraged to bring back their recyclables.
Local Authority waste collection crews or their appointed contractors will collect refuse and recyclables from the roadside normally at the front of your home. Collection from domestic premises usually remains the duty of the local council and many have now employed the supply of bags in which to gather specified recyclable materials or products.
In the industrial and commercial sector, waste management contractors offer separate storage units where the customer deposits the correct waste materials stream or recyclable resources ready for collection. The particular bins will usually be plainly tagged as to which recyclable product must be placed within that container or bin. Alternatively, the bins will probably be colour coded to identify which recyclable materials should be placed within which bins. Waste management companies also may have to deal with special requests from the customer.
The key 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 effectiveness of what employees should be doing in their work.
The Recycling Process
Numerous collection solutions exist for the collection of the recyclable products . Whichever collection method is used , the materials are taken to a materials recycling facility where they will be segregated from other waste products.
To begin the recycling process from the collection point of view, the more recyclable materials 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 separate containers are provided to the waste producer to promote separation at source. If card can be collected on a vehicle, that will collect no other waste materials, the card is going to be kept uncontaminated and therefore could have a higher value when it reaches the processing plant. Similarly, specialist glass collection vehicles are used to collect solely glass. Apart from the obvious health and safety reasons and the weight of collected glass, it’ll have a much higher value if the collected glass load is not contaminated with other waste.
When collected, the recyclable resources are generally taken direct to the reprocessing plant, if the load contains only that particular type of material. So a dedicated 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 mixed recyclables are being collected like paper and card within the same container, it might be necessary for the collector to take the load to a drop off point to unload and permit the load to be segregated into separate paper and card bundles for onward transfer to a paper or card processing plant. Whatever approach is employed, the recyclable material obtained will usually be segregated or cleaned before proceeding through to a reprocessing facility to be converted to a new resource and ultimately used as a new product or in manufacturing. Inert materials can be a useful by product at landfill, such as shredded car tyres to aid traction on access roadways.
Because of high density populations, the problem of waste materials disposal necessitates extra modern solutions than the old land fill ideas. power in waste is just the kind of system, transforming waste material into electricity.
The Increasing Value of Recycling
In the UK around 35% of waste material collected from homes is recycled or composted. While within the commercial and industrial area, the quantity of waste material sent to landfill has dropped considerably recently and also the amount of waste now being diverted for recycling or reuse by this market has increased over the quantities going to landfill.
Landfill continues to play an important role in the control of waste across the UK as not all waste products are able to be recycled and some are more suited to landfill disposal than by any other method. Nonetheless, it is not just the increasing expense of getting rid of waste directly in landfill which is making recycling a far more attractive option for businesses. Landfill is starting to become scarce, with many experts hinting that the volume of space accessible across all UK landfill sites, has less than 10 years existence remaining 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 recent years, waste material management companies have had to switch their focal point, and start to take into consideration and spend money on new technologies, such as energy from waste facilities, anaerobic digestion facilities and mechanised biological treatment plants, as alternate options to landfill. Local Authorities have adapted their approaches by undertaking detailed strategic reviews as to how waste under their jurisdiction should be taken care of. In some instances this means unitary authorities are progressing plans to introduce long term agreements, usually around 25 years in length, through which to handle their entire waste materials management requirements. These agreements will most likely include the need to develop a facility through which to deal with all waste material created throughout the region by sorting all waste streams. The agreements might also include the collection of all waste and recyclables from homes across the area. So the face of waste management is evolving quickly. The days of simply throwing every little thing in the dustbin have disappeared and the development of new technologies are upon us.
Conclusion
Recycling is now a lifestyle and is not going anywhere soon. It has evolved over the years from a thing that was carried out with no real thought behind it. The trusty rag and bone man was just attempting to make a living. Today, many blue chip firms are setting out plans for a ‘zero to landfill’ waste plan, where the purpose 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 type of container in which to keep separate waste for recycling. The decision to split up newspapers, aluminium cans and plastic bottles are almost the norm. Whilst in industrial and commercial sectors, there is an increasing list of items to think about for recycling like 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 technology will accelerate further the way in which our waste is to be managed in the future, but it is highly unlikely 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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