Plastic Recycling

Look at the recycling logo on a plastic bottle or container. It depicts a continuous loop, a virtuous circle, if you like, of plastic being made into bottles then being recycled into new bottles then the whole process repeating endlessly. Nothing falls out of the cycle and nothing new is introduced. It is a bit misleading. It doesn't take much imagination to realise that energy needs added to the process at the very least - energy for collecting the used plastic, treating it and manufacturing the new bottles. Less obvious is the fact that very few food grade bottles contain material from recycled bottles. Plant has been developed to do this but at this time its use not widespread.

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"Recycling" Food Waste

There are moves afoot to begin uplifting food waste separately from other waste to allow energy to be extracted through the use of anaerobic digestion. On the face of it this sounds like a very good idea – not only does it extract energy but the residual waste can be used as a commercial grade compost, unlike the low grade compost extracted from Mechanical Biological Treatment (MBT) systems. This would see large reductions in material going to landfill.

My concern is that large scale adoption of this technology will encourage more waste or, at best, stop any further reduction in the food we waste.

Here is why.

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Mechanical Biological Treatment: an alternative to kerbside recycling?

Continuing with the theme of Recycling Week, here is a brief introduction to Mechanical Biological Treatment of domestic waste.

What is Mechanical Biological Treatment (MBT)?

It is a method for sorting through domestic waste and separating it into materials that can be recycled such as glass, metals and plastics or organic materials that will decompose, such as food waste.

What are the benefits of it?

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More Recycling, Please

Recycling week runs from today, the 18th of June until the 26th with the aim of promoting recycling at home and away. There are many events around the country promoted by the Recycle Now website run by WRAP (Waste & Resource Action Programme). The website also contains a lot of information on recycling.

Recycling helps to conserve limited resources and using recycled materials often use less energy than virgin materials. In addition, recycling reduces the amount of waste that goes in to landfill, hence extending the life of existing sites and reducing the need for opening new sites at great environmental and social cost. Recycling week is focusing on kerbside recycling (home) and recycling centres where you can take recyclable waste that is not collected kerbside(away).  Another aspect of "away" that does not appear to be addressed is the dearth of recycling options in public places.  In some countries, they standard pavement bin will have compartments for glass, metals, plastics and others but these are rare in the UK.


We really do need to encourage more recycling in the UK as we lag behind our European neighbours in terms of recycling and the proportion of waste going to landfill. We compost or recycle 34% of domestic waste compared with an average of 39% across Europe according to DEFRA figures and 55% goes to landfill compared with 40% across Europe. The figures vary significantly across the country with some areas recycling less than 20% of domestic waste and others over 50%.

Between different local authority areas recycling rates vary tremendously. The aim of recycling week is to raise awareness amongst the public and encourage participation but we should turn it around and challenge our local authorities to provide better and more comprehensive facilities and also to challenge retailers and manufacturers to make it easier for us to reduce waste.

Of course recycling isn't the whole solution, before recycling our domestic waste we should consider whether things can be reused and before that whether we actually need them in the first place.

Related Links:
http://www.recyclenow.com/
http://www.defra.gov.uk/statistics/environment/waste/wrfg08-munec/

Related Posts:

http://ecowarriorme.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/weekly-refuse-collections.html
http://ecowarriorme.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/why-cant-we-recycle-more.html
Mechanical Biological Treatment: an alternative to kerbside recycling?
"Recycling" Food Waste

Local Council Elections - 2012

In less than 24 hours the polls will open for the local council elections in throughout the UK.  Over the past couple of weeks I have reviewed the proposed policies on a number of environmental issues with a particular focus on Glasgow and found them to be generally lacking in detail, imagination or ambition. There are clearly other important issues on which the mainstream parties have focused the debate, such as education, health and employment, but these are often linked to environmental factors.  Better classrooms which can be temperature regulated well ventilated can aid concentration and hence academic achievement. Access to good quality open space, safer cycling and walking routes and clean air can improve health and decent public transport infrastructure can improve mobility and hence job opportunities, especially considering the low car ownership in the most deprived areas of the city.

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Glasgow Council Elections 2012 - Recycling

I have previously posted on the subject of Glasgow City Council's dire record on recycling: lowest recycling rates out of 32 Scottish councils and 20th place out of the UK's twenty largest cities. A new system was introduced during the past year but we have yet to see whether it has led to any significant improvements. Reducing the total amount of waste and increasing the proportion that is recycled is crucial to achieving a sustainable society. We are rapidly running out of "away" to throw our rubbish.

So what are the parties saying on this issue?

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Scottish Council Elections, 2012, An Introduction

In less than a month, Scots go to the polls to elect their councillors for the next four years. Nominations for candidates have closed and councils have published lists of the candidates, although I have not seen much campaigning yet.

The local election campaigns do not make the headlines to the same extent as a General Election but our councillors can have a significant influence on local environmental issues through local policies and their implementation of national policies. Particular environmental issues in my area include, not in any particular order:

• Fuel Poverty - a significant proportion of households are now in fuel poverty in Glasgow
• Air Pollution - Parts of Glasgow regularly fail to meet air quality standards
• Sustainable public transport - public transport use has declined over the past year and operators are threatening to cut services further
• Recycling - Glasgow has the poorest recycling record of all local authorities in Scotland
• Biodiversity - Although Glasgow is a predominantly urban local authority, biodiversity and access to open places is still important
• Local development plans - through local development plans, councilors have the ability to influence how green the city is for decades to come
• New Housing - by insisting on the highest standards for new housing, councilors can set the city on a more sustainable path.

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Plastic bags: it's not all about carbon

I recently read an article which discussed how we could tackle the problem of the 800,000 tonnes of plastic bags thrown away each year in Europe, an average of 191 for every citizen of the European Union.  It highlighted the much smaller carbon footprint of disposable single use plastic carrier bags compared with alternatives.  Part of the article described re-using plastic bags as bin liners rather than using purpose made bin liners and it had a nifty graphic .  To a point, this makes sense but considering that many people use plastic bags for almost all of their domestic purchases, then to use every carrier bag once as a bin liner would require all that was bought to be disposed of in the bin.  I know that there is a lot of waste packaging in groceries but it does generally compact down to a smaller volume than the original (unless you live entirely on tinned produce) therefore assuming that all plastic bags are re-used in this way is stretching things a bit.  To then hypothesise that they could be used three times as bin liners is clearly not relevant.

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Bag it, Bin it or Don't

I took my 6 year old daughter Christmas shopping the other week. We went to Lush, the hand made cosmetics company, looking for a gift for her mother. She was in heaven: the bright colours, the smells, the glitter and the pretty shapes of the soaps and bath bombs. There was no difficulty in choosing a gift for mother (especially one she might share), the only problem was deciding to stop!

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