Disposing of Waste Materials by Recycling

Throughout history, recycling has existed in one guise or another. Even as long ago as 400 BC indications of earlier recycling are known to have occurred. Archaeological reports show that historical waste dumps contained less of what’s known today as household waste, including pots, utensils and ash, which demonstrates that people were, even back then, keen to reuse materials at a time when natural resources were not 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 turning the collected items into something new.

During periods such as the World War Years, recycling and re-use were common place as natural materials became much more difficult to find. Along with food being rationed, certain materials including metal and fibre were largely allowed just for use by the government in support of military operations, in order to meet manufacturing requirements often in the production of weaponry.

Thanks to rising power costs, the need to recycle aluminium increased during the 1970’s.. As a material aluminium utilises much less energy within the production process than various other materials. Plus it was much coveted due to its non rusting properties. The demand for aluminium saw the emergence of scrap metal merchants who were willing to pay cash in return for good quality metal. Also, in the seventies in regions of the USA, the first vehicles were seen to be collecting waste with a separate trailer for the recovery of recyclable items being towed behind the vehicle. This was mainly for large bulky items including bedsteads and old carpets.

Towards the late 1980’s, early nineties and as the awareness of handling the intercontinental environmental state accelerated amongst worldwide governments, the debate upon recycling really started to gather momentum. In the United Kingdom, the authorities imposed recycling targets upon Local Authorities and with the introduction of fresh new legal guidelines upon the waste products sector, recycling programmes really began to take off. The once commonly well known waste disposal companies, began to call themselves waste management specialists and demonstrated through the offer of waste collection and recyclable materials collection that waste had to be managed more successfully. Local skip companies needed to become better at what they did.

Today, many hundreds of materials and resources can be recycled, ranging from paper, card, glass and plastics, to mobile phone handsets, electrical items, printer cartridges, textiles, clothing and concrete. The demand for different types of collection receptacles has increased dramatically.

What Exactly is Recycling?

The word recycling describes the process of converting used resources into new or nearly new products and avoid the need for potentially valuable materials or products to be discarded. Essentially it is diverting waste material from landfill.

Recycling plays an integral role in a world where climate change is high on the environmental agenda. It removes the requirement to avoidably send waste products and products to landfill or other waste disposal options. Consequently this lessens the need and the reliance upon consuming fresh or new raw resources, decreases energy usage and air and rain water pollution, that all contribute to lower greenhouse gas emissions. Significant contributions to improving the natural environment.

Recycling is probably most evident through the recycling assistance now provided by local councils for domestic refuse and recycling collections and also innovative waste management companies who typically give a full range of waste and recycling collection services.

Being able to collect waste material and convert it back to a very useful material is of great benefit to our communities particularly in the longer term. For recycling expert services click here for all your recycling requirements.

In the waste market, the regular marketing 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. Look at some ways to reduce your waste material. Could the waste materials products or materials be reused? Could the waste product or material be recycled or retrieved?

The waste material hierarchy is usually a strategy which a lot of waste management companies and local authorities look at when producing new waste management approaches. The strategy is designed to concentrate the thought process around avoiding 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. The slogan has been adopted particularly well in the public sector.

And so the focus is very much on the entire manufacturing process. The waste materials hierarchy expands much wider than to waste material management businesses and local bodies. Working groups have been established to bring many sectors together to consider the whole waste cycle. By way of example, the manufacturer of a product has to consider the way the product is to be made. Can components be used which could later be recycled or reused? Can the amount of packaging which surrounds the item be decreased? When the item gets to the retailer, is it necessary for the product to be left within an outer box? 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 stored and where will it go? Can it go back to a recycling plant, for onward shipment to a reprocessing plant, in which the cycle will begin once again? The process must be simple to manage and implement.

How are Materials Collected for Recycling?

Legislation now dictates that most waste must be processed to divert the volume of recyclables and unnecessary waste materials heading direct to landfill. Since 1996, the United Kingdom government has enforced a landfill levy on all waste material discarded within landfill. The rate of tax has increased considerably in recent years rising from the original level of £8 per ton, to today’s rate of £40 per ton. The UK government has recently announced 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 is a lesser rate for inert products. Delivering waste directly to landfill is an expensive course of action and selecting acceptable ways to divert waste out of landfill has become important. For inert materials the rate is £2.50 per ton.

Thus, the message to everyone is clear, sort your waste to reduce the amount of waste materials going to landfill. Typically, at home or at the office, the instant you place waste materials into the bin , it’s forgotten about. Another person will collect it and take it away. Today, at home and at the office, recycling is being stimulated by the supply of containers in which to place specific recyclable materials.

Perhaps the most common materials 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 keep increasing. 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.

Within big organisations, a number of recycling schemes can easily be created to get used or unwanted recyclable materials.

The means of collecting materials or waste material to be recycled is also escalating and becoming more apparent within local communities. Specialist collection sites, often referred to as bring bank sites, are popping up in supermarket car parks to encourage customers of the superstore to return such items as bottles, newspapers or card to the bins on their way into the store. Shoppers are therefore encouraged to return with their recyclables.

Local Authority waste materials collection crews or their appointed contractors will collect refuse and recyclables from the kerbside usually at the front of your house. Collection from household premises usually continues to be the duty of the local authorities and several have employed the provision of baskets in which to collect particular recyclable materials or products. The services do vary from council to council.

In the business and commercial market, waste management contractors offer different storage units where the customer deposits the applicable waste material stream or recyclable materials ready for collection. The particular bins will usually be plainly branded as to which recyclable materials ought to be put inside that container or bin. Otherwise, the bins will probably be colour coded to identify which recyclable materials should be placed within which bins.

One of the keys to a successful recycling initiative is residents 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 staff to separate waste for recycling, it does not become time consuming and affect the efficiency of what employees should be doing in their work.

The Recycling Process

Numerous collection systems exist for the collection of the recyclable material . Whichever collection method is employed , the materials are taken to a drop off point where they’ll be segregated from other waste products. This can be done manually or by using mechanised separators.

To start the recycling process from a collection perspective, the more recyclable material 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. For this reason separate containers are provided to the waste producer to encourage segregation at source. If card can be collected on a truck, that will collect no other waste material, the card can be kept uncontaminated and therefore could have a greater value when it gets to the processing plant. In the same way, dedicated glass collection vehicles are employed to collect solely glass. Aside 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 materials.

When collected, the recyclable materials are generally taken direct to the 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 compounded recyclables have been collected such as paper and card within the same compartment, 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. Whichever method is employed, the recyclable material obtained will most likely be sorted or cleaned before proceeding through to a reprocessing plant to be processed to a new resource and ultimately used as something new or in manufacturing.

All corporations, large or small can be urged to introduce waste recycling systems within their organisations.

The Increasing Significance of Recycling

In the UK around 35% of waste material collected from households is recycled or composted. While in the commercial and industrial community, the volume of waste materials sent to landfill has dropped substantially in recent years plus the volume of waste now being diverted for recycling or reuse by this market has risen over the quantities going to landfill. But there is still much to be done to help to increase rates further within this sector.

Landfill continues to play a significant role in the control of waste across the UK as not all waste items are able to be recycled plus some are more suited to landfill disposal than by some other method. Nevertheless, it is not just the increasing costs of disposing of waste directly in landfill which is making recycling an even more attractive option for businesses. Landfill is now scarce, with some specialists hinting that the amount of void available across all UK landfill sites, has less than ten years existence remaining before all sites are reckoned to be full.

In the past few years, waste materials management firms have had to change their focus, and begin to think about and put money into new technologies, like energy from waste plants, anaerobic digestion plants and mechanised biological treatment plants, as alternate options to landfill. Local Authorities also have changed their approaches by undertaking comprehensive strategic reviews as to how waste materials under their jurisdiction needs to be taken care of. In some instances this means unitary authorities are implementing plans to bring in long-term agreements, usually around 25 years long, through which to handle all of their waste management demands. These contracts will most likely include the need to develop a facility through which to deal with all waste materials produced across the city by segregating all waste material streams. The deals may also incorporate the collection of all waste and recyclables from homes across the region. So the face of waste management has been evolving quickly. The days of just 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 over time from something which was carried out without any real thought behind it. The trusty rag and bone man was just trying to make a living. Today, many blue chip firms are setting out plans for a ‘zero to landfill’ waste plan, where the intention is very straightforward – 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 kind of bin in which to isolate waste for recycling. The requirement to separate newspapers, aluminium cans and plastic bottles are almost the norm. Whilst in industrial and commercial areas, there is an increasing list of items to consider 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 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.