Changing waste into power

Right through history, recycling has been around in some way or another. Even as long ago as 400 BC signs of earlier recycling are known to have occurred. Archaeological reports show that historical waste dumps contained fewer of what’s known nowadays as household waste, including pots, utensils and ash, which demonstrates that individuals were, even back then, keen to reuse products 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 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 recovered 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 a lot more difficult to find. Along with food being rationed, certain materials such as metal and fibre were largely permitted only for use by the government in support of military operations, in order to meet manufacturing requirements often in the production of weaponry.

As a consequence of rising energy costs, the need to recycle aluminium increased in the seventies.. As a material aluminium utilises a lesser amount of energy within the production process than alternative materials. Plus it was much sought-after due to its non rusting qualities. The need for aluminium saw the emergence of scrap metal dealers who were willing to pay cash in return for good quality metal. Also, in the 70′s in regions of the USA, the first vans were seen to be collecting waste with a separate trailer for the collection of recyclable items being towed behind the vehicle.

To the late 1980′s, early nineties and as the importance of handling the worldwide environmental state heightened amongst global authorities, the attention on recycling really started to get impetus. In the United Kingdom, the authorities imposed recycling targets upon Local Authorities along with the introduction of the fresh new legislation upon the waste materials industry, recycling programmes really started to take off. The once widely knownwaste 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 handled more efficiently.

Currently, many hundreds of materials and products can be recycled, including paper, card, glass and plastics, to mobile phones, electrical items, printer cartridges, textiles, clothing and concrete.

What Exactly is Recycling?

The word recycling identifies the operation of converting used resources into new or nearly new materials and avoid the need for potentially useable materials or products to be dumped.

Recycling performs an important role in a world where climate change is high on the environmental agenda. It removes the need to avoidably send waste materials and products to landfill or other waste disposal options. Consequently this reduces the demand and the reliance upon the consumption of fresh or new natural 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 most evident through the recycling services now provided by local authorities for domestic refuse and recycling collections and also innovative waste management companies who commonly give a full range of waste and recycling collection solutions.

In recent years the recovery of energy from waste is becoming an important environmental for the advantage of all people.

In the waste market, the common marketing activity surrounds the waste hierarchy – ‘reduce, reuse, recycle and recover’. This four R slogan is a basic message made for a far reaching crowd. Look at some ways to lessen your waste material. Can the waste material products or materials be reused? Can the waste product or material be recycled or retrieved?

The waste materials hierarchy is often a strategy which various waste material management companies and local authorities think about when developing new waste management strategies. The strategy is intended to concentrate the thought process around preventing waste material being produced to begin with. Think about the options for reuse and recycling but ultimately minimise the amount of waste produced at the end of the cycle.

So the emphasis is very much on the overall manufacturing process. The waste hierarchy expands much wider than to waste management firms and local bodies. Working groups have been set up to bring many industries together to look at the complete waste cycle. For instance, the manufacturer of a product has to think about how the product is to be made. Can components be used which could eventually be recycled or reused? Could the amount of packaging that surrounds the product be decreased? Once the item gets to the shop, is it essential for the product to be placed inside an outer package? If the retailer sells the product, what will the consumer do with the excess elements of the purchase, i.e. the packaging? How will the packaging be recovered and where will it go? Should it return to a recycling plant, for onward shipment to a reprocessing facility, in which the cycle begins again? The process must be simple to manage and implement.

How are Materials Collected for Recycling?

Legislation now dictates that all waste should be processed to avoid the volume of recyclables and unnecessary waste material going direct to landfill. Since 1996, the UK government has enforced a landfill levy on all waste material disposed of within landfill. The rate of duty has increased considerably recently rising from the original 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 material streams, although there’s a reduced rate for inert materials. Sending waste materials straight to landfill is an expensive choice and locating appropriate solutions to divert waste away from landfill has become a priority.

Therefore, the message to everybody is clear, segregate your waste materials to cut back the amount of waste materials going to landfill. Typically, both at home and at the office, the instant you place waste material into the bin , it’s forgotten about. Someone else will collect it and take it away. Today, in the home and at work, recycling is being encouraged with the supply of containers in which to place certain recyclable materials. At home, the children are often the keen recyclers.

Perhaps the most 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 keeps growing.

By way of training, people could be motivated think ‘green energy’ so that they will engage in energy recovery techniques and enhance the use of their waste products.

The systems of collecting resources or waste material to be recycled is also increasing and becoming more apparent within local communities. Specialist collection sites, known as bring bank sites, are springing up in supermarket car parks to inspire clientele of the store to return such items 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 usually in front of your property. Collection from household premises usually continues to be the duty of the local authorities and several have now 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 field, waste management contractors offer individual storage containers in which the customer deposits the appropriate waste materials stream or recyclable materials ready for collection. The bins will usually be plainly tagged as to which recyclable product need to be placed within that container or bin. Otherwise, the bins will be colour coded to distinguish which recyclable materials need to be placed within which bins.

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 factory 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 products . Regardless of what collection system is used , the materials are taken to a drop off point where they will be segregated from other waste materials. This might be done by hand or by employing mechanised separators.

To start the recycling process from the collection perspective, the more recyclable material which can be separated at origin, i.e. at home or in the work place, the more effective it will be for the waste collector. That’s the reason separate storage units are provided to the waste producer to encourage segregation at source. If card can be collected using a vehicle, that will collect no other waste materials, the card will be kept uncontaminated and as a consequence will have an increased value when it actually reaches the processing plant. Likewise, specialist glass collection vehicles are widely-used to collect just 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.

When collected, the recyclable materials are generally taken direct to the reprocessing plant, if the load contains only that specific type of material. So a separate glass collection vehicle could take the load directly to a glass processing plant.

If blended recyclables are collected like paper and card within the same compartment, it may be a necessity 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. No matter what process is employed, the recyclable material collected will often 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.

There will be many ways to generate green energy in the residence and now there are government schemes in the form of subsidies to encourage these initiatives.

The Increasing Significance of Recycling

In the UK around 35% of waste materials collected from households is recycled or composted. Although within the commercial and industrial community, the volume of waste material delivered to landfill has dropped considerably recently as well as the volume of waste materials now being diverted for recycling or reuse by this sector has increased over the quantities going to landfill. But there is still much to be done to increase rates even more in this sector.

Landfill continues to play a significant role in the management of waste throughout the UK as not all waste items can be recycled and some are more suited to landfill disposal than by some other method. However, it’s not just the increasing expense of disposing of waste directly in landfill that is making recycling a more attractive option for corporations. Landfill is now scarce, with certain experts indicating that the amount of space readily available across all UK landfill sites, has under 10 years existence left before all sites are reckoned to be full. Such countries as Dubai have filled parts of the coastline with their waste and created useful land area to extend the boundaries of their state.

In recent times, waste material management companies have had to alter their focal point, and start to take into consideration and put money into new technologies, like energy from waste facilities, anaerobic digestion plants and mechanical biological treatment plants, as alternate options to landfill. Local Authorities have adapted their attitudes by undertaking comprehensive strategic reviews as to how waste material under their jurisdiction should be handled. 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 all of their waste management needs. These deals will often include the need to create a facility through which to handle all waste materials generated throughout the county by segregating all waste materials streams. The agreements could also incorporate the collection of all waste and recyclables from households throughout the area. So the issue of waste management has been evolving quickly. The days of just throwing everything in the dustbin have disappeared and the development of new technologies are upon us.

Summary

Recycling is now a lifestyle and is not going anywhere soon. It has evolved through the years from something which was undertaken with no real thought behind it. The trusty rag and bone man was just working to make a living. Today, many blue chip firms are setting out plans for a ‘zero to landfill’ waste strategy, where the purpose is very clear – reduce waste, reuse waste and recycle waste, but no waste must wind up in landfill. Some companies have announced ambitious target dates by which to realize such plans.

Many households across the country now have some kind of container in which to divide waste for recycling. The decision 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 like printer cartridges, office paper, metal and electrical equipment.

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 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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