The recycle symbol means it is technically possible to recycle, not that it WILL be recycled if it is put in the recycle bin. The numbers by the symbol refer to the plastic type
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What are
the problems associated with landfill?
What
are the problems associated with incineration of waste?
Isn't it best to incinerate
paper?
How
many times can you recycle paper?
What
is the difference between recycling and recovery?
In 1995, Western European countries produced 450 kg of municipal waste per person, and increase of 11% from 1990.(1) Municipal waste is that collected by local authorities, which is mostly waste from households, shops and offices. During the same period, 1990 to 1995, our economy increased by only 6.5%. (2) Even worse - only 13% on average in Europe was collected separately (and possibly recycled). The rest went to landfill or incineration.
Unbelievably, filling in a big hole with rubbish is still the 'cheapest' way of disposing of our waste, despite the environmental problems. The economics of waste disposal do not yet take environmental costs into account. In the European Union a massive 60% of all waste (4) is disposed in this way. Environmental problems associated with landfill include:
Air pollution, the emission of toxic fumes and the volume of traffic generated quite rightly make local residents come out in force against the building of an incinerator in their back yard. One other aspect of incineration rarely mentioned is that after burning, the remaining ash. which is usually 20-30% of the mass of waste, still needs to be disposed of in landfill. In addition, building an incinerator is a large capital cost. Once built, it must be seen to be used, which will 'lock in' incineration as THE method of waste disposal. Some particular problems with incineration include:
It's best to use containers that can be reused. Next best option is to use a glass container and recycle it. There is a dense network established for the recycling of glass, while plastic recycling is limited.
Energy use
Plastic is made from either natural gas or oil and its manufacture uses a lot of energy. Making plastic bottles (usually made from a plastic know as PET) requires almost the same energy input as making glass bottles despite transport savings that stem from plastic’s light weight. The total energy required to produce, package, and transport a 500ml. PET container is 32 Megajoules compared to 34 Megajoules for a 500 ml. glass container - virtually the same. (1) Producing a kg of plastic resin, however, uses nearly nine times the energy of producing a kg of glass. These comparisons assume the use of virgin glass.
If
the glass container uses
50% recycled glass, the energy required to produce
it falls by a further 10% to around 30 MJ. That is 2
MJ less than what is needed for a new PET container.
AND the glass can be recycled into a new bottle, whereas
the PET bottle is more likely to be recycled as another
type of product.
Toxic emissions
"Manufacturing PET resin generates more toxic emissions (nickel, ethylbenzene, ethylene oxide, benzene) than manufacturing glass. Producing a 16 oz (500 ml). PET bottle generates more than 100 times the toxic emissions to air and water than making the same size bottle out of glass." Berkeley Ecology Center, April 1996
Recycling causes paper to deteriorate in two ways. First, the cellulose fibres which give the paper its strength are shortened, so the resultant paper is dense, stiff, less opaque, less durable and has low resistance to tearing. Secondly, impurities, mainly printer's ink, make the paper less white. If the same paper is recycled again and again, both these problems will increase each time.
The
number of cycles that paper can go through is limited
by the fact that it has to support its own weight during
the manufacturing process, otherwise it tears and production
time is wasted. The mills avoid this by adding virgin
pulp, which is perfectly legal. The National Association
of Paper Merchants allows its "Approved Recycled"
logo to be used on paper which contains only 75 per
cent "genuine waste fibre".
Paper
that is to be recycled is separated into two main categories:
pre-consumer waste (from the mill itself, for example)
and
post-consumer waste (the "real" recycling
we do at home and in the office).
Paper can be recycled into products such as packaging materials without having to be de-inked, or it can be put through a de-inking process and used to make low- grade materials such as newsprint or paper for directories. This sort of recycling is universally acknowledged to be a "good thing".
However, top-quality recycled paper, which might be used for company stationery where colour consistency is required contains up to 25 per cent virgin pulp, and up to 65 per cent pre-consumer waste. Only 10 per cent comes from post-consumer waste. Even then the post-consumer waste has to be bleached after de-inking.
In this way the paper in top-quality products can be recycled indefinitely. But many people are horrified when they discover the very low post-consumer waste content of such paper, and the additional bleaching means that the overall benefit to the environment is questionable.
No. It is better to recycle paper. There has been some debate over the years about the desirability of recycling paper. Some argue that since trees absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, burning paper is just returning the carbon dioxide to the atmosphere that was already taken from it, and incineration can in turn produce electricity. However, if paper was incinerated, new paper would have to be produced and this takes energy. A recent Commission study shows that production of this new paper would mean 25-70% more emissions than if the paper were recycled.
In addition, recycling of paper reduces air and water emissions. There is ample evidence that recycling paper is a sound environmental strategy. The problem is, as usual, that economics do not take sufficient account of environmental impacts. The price paid for waste paper is highly variable, which makes it difficult for a strong paper recycling industry to be developed.
Friends of the Earth, UK have produced an excellent briefing paper on this topic
Some statistics on recycling also include recovery. This needs careful attention as 'recovery' can include for example the recovery of energy from plastic when it is burnt in an incinerator which creates electricity.
back to topIt goes without saying that the best strategy to cut down the amount of waste we produce is to REDUCE the amount we accumulate in the first place. Use consumer choice to refuse heavily packaged products and the plastic bag they are put in ... and then ...
REUSE as much as possible. Some countries have good schemes for reusing bottles, for example. In Belgium, many beer bottles are of a standard size and can be collected in the same crate, despite them having different labels. Germany and Denmark also have good systems for collecting bottles. Bottles can be re-used around 20 times, making reusable bottles the best way (apart from not buying the product in the first place) to minimise environmental impact. It makes good environmental sense and yet some countries, such as the UK, have almost no reusable bottle schemes.
The next best strategy is to RECYCLE the material ... and this is where things start to get a little more complicated.
back to top| plastic | glass | aluminium |
| paper | steel cans | other products |
The plastic we see around us every day is mostly on a oneway trip to the incinerator or landfill. Incinerating plastic releases chlorine into the atmosphere and leaves heavy metals in the incineration ash. If plastic is put in landfill, additives such as phthalates can leak into the water supply. Yet, despite these environmental problems, recycling plastic is still very expensive because environmental costs are not included. Recycling is most definitely NOT the preferred option of most local authorities. Plastic is difficult to recycle for three main reasons:
1. There are many different types of plastic which are difficult to separate by mechanical means because they don't have sufficiently different properties and yet they can't be recycled together. Trace amounts of PVC, for example, will destroy polyethylene.
2. Plastics are very sensitive to heat and handling which can make them weak and brittle
3. Plastics often have additives to give them certain properties. Phthalates are added to PVC to make it flexible and metal salts are added to many plastics to make them more stable when heated. These additives cause problems when the plastic is recycled.
It is so difficult to get uncontaminated plastic for recycling, that it is more accurate to describe the process as DOWNcycling. Plastic drinks bottles, for example, come back to life as plant pots or garden seats which cannot be recycled a second time.
The message here is - reduce the amount of plastic you use. Until the plastics industry itself starts to consider its product as recyclable and alters its manufacturing procedures accordingly, the recycling of plastic is going to remain difficult and expensive. In Western Europe, 29 million tonnes of plastic were consumed in 1994 and only 1.5 million tonnes recycled (Europe's Environment: The Second Assessment, EEA 1998)
The recycle symbol means it is technically possible
to recycle, not that it WILL be recycled if it is put
in the recycle bin. The numbers by
the symbol refer to the plastic type
Plastic bottles don't save energy
| name | abbreviation | resin code | uses |
| polyethylene terephthalate | PET | 1 | water and soft drinks bottles |
| high-density
polyethylene | HDPE | 2 | Milk and water jugs, detergent bottles |
| polyvinyl chloride (flexible) | pPVC | 3 | soft plastic wrapping |
| polyvinyl chloride (rigid) | uPVC | 3 | buildings (windows), car components |
| [linear]
low-den- sity polyethylene | LLDPE/ LDPE | 4 | grocery bags, rubbish bags |
| polypropylene | PP | 5 | rigid containers (yoghurt pots etc) |
| polystyrene | PS | 6 | food containers |
------------------------------------------------
Recycling rates of plastic packaging by country:
% of consumption
------------------------------------------------
Germany, Austria, Switzerland 15+
Belgium/Luxembourg,
Netherlands, 10-14
Denmark, Sweden, France, Finland,
Italy, Spain, UK, Norway 5-9
Ireland, Portugal,
Greece 0-4
------------------------------------------------
Further information? Here are links to take you further.
(1)
Ecology Center Berkeley. Report of the Plastics Task
force
Economic
Evaluation of PVC Waste Management (Study for the
European Commission)
Sandstone,
limestone and soda ash are mixed together at very high
temperatures to produce glass. If glass bottles and
jars are recycled, energy use in the production process
is reduced by about
10% and air and water pollution are significantly
lowered
Bottles and jars which go to the bottle bank are first crushed (This crushed glass for recycling is known as cullet) and then passed through magnets and vacuums to remove metals and other contaminants. However, some impurities still remain. These can affect the quality of the final product and so it is usual for ordinary glass to be made from 50% cullet and 50% raw materials.
|
Fuel use in glass production Without recycled glass: 200kg/kg glass With 50% recycled glass: 180 kg/kg glass |
To find out more about glass production and recycling: UNIDO report on the glass industry
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In Europe we only recycle half of the paper we use, the rest going to landfill or incineration. In landfill the paper decomposes to release methane, and burning it produces CO2 emissions. Recycling reduces water and air pollution and energy use. In addition, recycling means less stress on the forests and could contribute to forest protection and growth if the forests are well managed.
Recycling rates for paper in Europe (as % of paper consumption)
| Country | collection rate (%) 1999 |
| Austria | 65 |
| Belgium | 48 |
| Denmark | 52 |
| Finland | 63 |
| France | 41 |
| Germany | 70 |
| Greece | 21 |
| Ireland | 21 |
| Italy | 33 |
| Netherlands | 58 |
| Portugal | 42 |
| Spain | 43 |
| Sweden |
64 |
| UK | 40 |
| EU | 49 |
Source CEPI
Find out more about recycling paper
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|
From this .........
| via an energy intensive and environmentally destructive process | .... To this
|
The aluminium can you drink out of starts
life as red soil. This soil is bauxite and is found
in tropical regions of the world. Quarrying the bauxite
is a very destructive and wasteful
process. (4-5 tonnes of bauxite are needed for 1
tonne of aluminium and the 'red mud' contaminated with
caustic soda, which is a waste product of the mining,
has to be stored in ponds, which can cover a very large
area - not to mention the destruction of rain forest
cover to get at the bauxite inf the first place). What's
more, the final stage of the process involves electrolysis
which is extremely energy intensive. (An average of
15.7 kWh of electricity is used to produce 1 kg of aluminium
in this process (3))
The good news is that aluminium is recyclable ... again and again without loss of quality. Recycling aluminium saves 95% of the energy inputs for manufacture alone ... and saves on the destructive bauxite mining process. Some European countries have taken this message on board and have good recycling rates - but there are still too many aluminium cans going to landfill and incinerators. AND the amount of aluminium cans used is increasing. In Europe, the amount we used increased by 11% during the year 2000.
One great problem about aluminium cans is that they cannot easily be separated from general waste. Aluminium is not magnetic and has to be separated by more sophisticated machines than giant magnets that are used to separate steel cans. In addition, many cans have a steel body, but aluminium top and bottom, making sorting more difficult.
European league table of recycle rates.
| Country | aluminium can recycling rate Year 1999(%) | aluminium can recycling rate Year 2000(%) |
| Switzerland | 90 | 91 |
| Finland | 95 | 91 |
| Sweden | 90 | 86 |
| Norway | 82 | 85 |
| Iceland | 82 | 85 |
| Germany | 72 | 80 |
| Benelux | 70 | 70 |
| Austria | 50 | 50 |
| Turkey | 50 | 50 |
| UK | 36 | 42 |
| Italy | 42 | 42 |
| Greece | 36 | 36 |
| France | 19 | 23 |
| Spain | 19 | 22 |
| Portugal | 20 | 21 |
Data from European Aluminium Association (www.eaa.net)
To find out more:
Description of the environmental damage of bauxite mining, Jamaica American University, Washington
Aluminium trade association - description of manufacturing process
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can do" page
Steel cans are often called "tins", because of the very thin layer of tin - 0.00036mm thick - which protects the surface of the can. On average, each person in the country uses 240 steel cans per year, and these form about 3.7% of household waste. Steel cans are now much lighter than they used to be. For example, a soft drinks can is 30% lighter than 10 years ago. However, throwing them away still wastes valuable resources and adds to the amount of waste having to be landfilled. In Europe only 40% of steel cans are recycled even though they are easy to extract from waste with magnets.
Recycling
steel cans reduces the amount of waste being landfilled,
reduces the need for raw materials such as iron-ore,
coking coal and limestone, and saves energy. A report
from the Warren Spring Laboratory concluded that recycling
1 tonne of tinplated steel means a saving of 1.5 tonnes
of iron ore, 0.5 tonnes of coke and 40% of the water
required in production. For each kilo of tinplated steel
recycled, mining waste is reduced by 1.3kg. The energy
savings in using scrap steel instead of iron ore are
over 70%, with emissions being reduced by about 30%
to air and by between 60% and 70% to water.
References:
1. Europe's Environment:The Second Assessment, EEA, 1998, published Elsevier Science Ltd
2Environmental Signals 2000: European Environment Agency Regular Indicator Report EEA, Copenhagen 2000, ISBN 92-9167-205-X
3.World Aluminium Organisation
4Waste Management Options and Climate Change, (table 12, page 55) Commission 2001 ISBN 92 894 1733 1
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