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.

Read more »

"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.

Read more »

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?

Read more »

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