| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| Tinks |
SurprisingI was chatting to a curator at the Natural History Museum who used to work for an Environment Agency, whose belief is that recycling is a pretty bad idea.He said that emissions from the transportation and processing of waste is shocking and that the UK has such limited capacity for recyling that only a fraction of stuff gets dealt with, the rest ends up in a landfill anyhow. It does seem a bit surprising on the one hand, but I can also see how recycling might be a pretty polluting process. Has anyone here worked for a recycling centre or environment agency? Can anyone post a link to some statistical evidence? |
| tinyclanger |
Hi,
try this http://www.wrap.org.uk/applications/publications/publication_details.rm?id=698&publication=2839&programme=wrap Having worked in recycling for 14 years I find this persons attitude is both dispointing but unfortunatley not uncommon. Last year in the UK we recycled 27% of municipal waste which equates to the eqivelent of taking 3.5 million cars of the road. This includes the transport and reprocess impacts accociated with recycling activities. Emagine how much CO2 could be saved with more recycling. Tiny. |
| jema |
Sounds like the usual lame attempt to justify a "can't do" attitude.
We all know there are problems with recycling, but the answer is to solve the problems, not to not do it. |
| Mrs Fiddlesticks |
I agree with the above. I expect councils would rather not have to bother with the effort of recycling. Reusing recycled paper and making it in to new newspapers or loo roll has been shown to be more energy efficient than using brand new paper. I gather reusing glass has the same results.
Here's a thought though - if we are aiming to reduce our waste overall, the next logical step after that is to reduce the amount we chuck in to the recycling bin. I probably put about a carrier bag of recyclable plastics in the dumpster once a week; wouldn't it be better still if I didn't generate even that? |
| tinyclanger |
Jema, thats exactly it!. and one of the reasons I decided to get into the fray in the 1st place. Started off as a volenteer and now I am able to influence local and national policy. Be part of the solution not the problem is my motto.
Tiny |
| crofter |
Recycling makes people *feel* that they are doing something positive. However I would rather put my waste to landfill than send it to China to be "recycled "
http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,91179-1246242,00.html I agree that the answer is less consumption in the first place, athough recycling has a place too. |
| tinyclanger |
Crofter, thats exactly why the plastic bottles that I collect go to recycling plants in the UK only. We dont collect other plastic packagingg because there is no long term sustainable market in the UK as yet. Plastic bags, marg tubs and yoghurt pots end up going abroad as mixed plastic waste ending up in places like the article shows. The trans shipment of waste regs are currently being tightened up to prevent this kind of "recycling".
Tiny |
| alisjs |
thanks for that info....most depressed to read that article about China.
Going to email my local council to find out what they are doing with the plastic waste they collect. Will be trying much harder to REDUCE |
| alisjs |
have spoken to my council...... they sell the plastic on the open market and admit some probably goes to China. In other words they have no idea what happens after they have sold it. I think this is worrying......at the moment I'm still collecting it, but first step in trying to reduce is to seek out a milkman! |
| gnome |
what do you mean when you say recycle? i work for a re-use charity - we prefer to repair and re-use an item rather than assign it to recycling, as quite often, something cannot be recycled - pure and simple. let's put it this way - i think most people reading this will know how to combine eggs, flour, milk etc to bake a cake. but does anybody here know of a way of turning a stale old cake into half a pint of fresh milk, two eggs, and half a bag of self raising flour? it's not possible - you cannot turn back time. likewise, the production process involved in making a piece of furniture means that you cannot turn a table into a tree. in fact, due to the varnish, paint, and other chemicals used to treat the wood, there is not much you can do with an old broken table. it isn't even safe to use as firewood, and you certainly cant use it to make paper. it's waste. using it as mulch merely contaminates the soil. it is true that a great deal of municipal recycling is just a PR exercise - though to be honest, a lot of waste could be recycled, were it not for a lack of manpower - due to the fact that most recycled material costs far more money to process than it can be sold for. the real problem is that the Western World still sees recycling as a means of production, rather than a means of waste management. |
| alisjs |
letter in my local paper this week from someone complaining that alternate weekly refuse/ recycling collection (replacing weekly refuse collection) meant they had to drive to the dump with excess waste each week.
It seems to me that people are still not waking up to the fact that they are responsible for the amount of waste they are producing. They may be making efforts to recycle, but are missing the point that action is needed higher up the chain ie reduce and reuse |
| alisjs |
....and councils are not getting the message across very well. Is this because they are content to "recycle", even if it means selling stuff to China, as long as it doesn't give them (councils) a landfill bill. Different priorities...... unsurprisingly driven by money |
| James |
I visited a paper mill that purely use recycled paper to produce cardboard packaging for supermarket produce. Great, I thought- this company has made the jump into sustainable production methods and supermarkets still get their product.
One of the managers at the paper agreed that they used no new pulp in their cardboard production. However, he whent on to explain ( a little rebeliously for a manager, I thought…)that the supermarkets want a certain thickness and texture of card for their packaging. Getting this is easy if you use virgin pulp, but using second hand pulp you need to use a very large amount of starch. It was his belief that the recycled cardboard industry in the UK now uses an amount of starch that could feed a “small third world country”. I then asked if starch was necessary for the production of recycled card, and apparently it’s not. It allows for a smother finish, which aids printing fancy glossy labels, and it allows for thinner card to be used (which cuts done the weight & volume of the product). Un-starched card would be thicker and coarser. So due to the supermarket requirement for a certain weight of card with a certain finish, the UK now consumes a whole countries starch supply just so we can say the packaging is recycled. To me, this smack of a company deciding to pander to the “green” movement, without actually taking on board the holistic ethos that goes with it. Supermarkets are so two faced. |
| Behemoth |
But is needs to be smooth so the printing is legible and we can all be warned about traces of nuts. |