Waste at home
Waste at home
We all
produce waste of some sort, whether it is the empty printer cartridges, or
the grass clippings from the garden. We estimate that nearly 30million tonnes
of household waste is collected in the
So where does it all go?
A total of:
- 72% of municipal waste is sent
to landfill sites - which means it's buried in the ground
- 9% is incinerated - which means
it's burnt - this is also called energy from waste
Dealing
with our rubbish in this way is not an ideal solution. When we bury or burn our
rubbish we are losing valuable natural resources and wasting energy, water and
transport costs used in its production. Landfilling and incineration can harm
the environment if not properly managed. Many landfill sites are nearly full
and we are rapidly running out of suitable land, close to where the rubbish is
produced, for new sites. In any case, these sites are often unwelcome neighbours - we keep producing the rubbish,
but we don't want it disposed of it near to where we live.
What’s the alternative?
Reduce,
Reuse, Recycle
We would
all benefit from:
- Reducing the amount of rubbish
we create
- Reusing as much of our rubbish
as possible
- Increasing the 19% of waste
that we currently recycle and compost (although the latest figures suggest
we are now recycling 23%)
That is
what the 3Rs are about - reduce, reuse, recycle.
Reducing - every year the amount of rubbish
we produce increases and this leads to increased costs for society - both
financial and environmental. The majority of the resources that we use to make
things - only to throw them away - can't be replaced. Throwing away our rubbish
puts pressure on the environment - not only from the landfills and
incinerators, but also because we have to extract and process even more
resources, and transport our new goods and our old rubbish so increasing
vehicle emissions. As consumers, we have the ability to reverse this trend -
buy only the right quantity of what we really need, choose products with less
packaging, and buy from producers employing sustainable practices.
Reusing - we can cut down on the amount of
rubbish we have to get rid of by reusing our materials. Computers, furniture,
clothing - so many items can be reused. Setting the printer to print on both
sides of a sheet of paper, repairing our broken appliances and recycling our
empty printer cartridges or finding a charity that will make use of them - we
help ourselves and others, and delay the point at which materials become waste.
Recycling - putting materials aside for
recycling helps in many ways: we send less rubbish to landfill or incineration,
and we save valuable materials and energy - for example, plastic bottles can be
converted into fleeces and garden furniture, whilst recycling aluminum cans
saves 95% of the energy used in making a new can. New technologies are
furthering our ability to recycle what was previously our waste and turn it
back into the resources that we need.
Buy recycled - If you find that a material is
not being recycled in your area, it may be because the markets are not strong
enough for the local authority to pay for collecting it. To help alleviate
this, support those industries that use recycled materials by buying recycled printer
cartridges and other products. Buying recycled 'closes the loop' in recycling -
remember that it's not enough just to recycle; buying recycled ensures that the
materials you send for recycling are actually used again.
