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Interesting ideas of ways to recycle unwanted items.

Ways to recycle in the UK.

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• Each year we generate about 100 million tonnes of waste from households, commerce and industry.
• Recyclables are taken to a Materials Recycling Facility (MRF) and undergo the following process:

- The recycling bin, box or sack is emptied into collection vehicle
- The co-mingled materials are taken to a Material Recycling Facility and loaded onto conveyors
- The sorting process into different types of materials is done by hand or machine (or both) . It begins with the removal of incorrect items such as crisp packets and plastics bags
- A vibrating machines separates the cardboard and paper - different types of paper are sorted by hand and then baled
- The remaining recyclables continue on another conveyor where steel and tins are removed using magnets
- Different types of plastic are identified and separated using optical scanners
- A special kind of magnet is used to sort aluminium cans
- Glass is the remaining material and this drops off the end of the conveyor into a large container (Note - not all MRF's accept glass).
- Once separated they are taken for processing at specialist factories.

• The biggest problem is when incorrect items are put in the recycling container as they have to be removed by hand. This slows down the process and if these items are missed it can clog or damage the machinery and other equipment.
• All of the newsprint manufactured here in the UK is now made from 100% recycled paper;
• All of the organic (garden and kitchen) waste collected in the UK is recycled in the UK, usually quite close to where it is collected
• Over 80% of the glass collected for recycling is used in the UK, the majority of it to make new glass bottles and jars.
• How much is recycled overseas?

- 49% of paper is reprocessed in the UK, 51% abroad
- 81% of glass is reprocessed in the UK, 19% abroad
- 66% of aluminium is reprocessed in the UK, 34% abroad
- 33% of plastic is reprocessed in the UK, 67% abroad
- 100% of wood is reprocessed in the UK, 0% abroad

• Countries such as China are prepared to pay high prices for recyclables such as waste plastic; mainly because they do not have readily available sources of virgin materials (no indigenous forests or oil supplies) and they have a large manufacturing industry that requires these products. Even though exporting our recyclables means a bigger recycling loop because recyclable materials are transported further, it is still a better environmental option than using virgin, raw materials because it minimises the need to

- use our natural resources such as oil
- using recycled materials significantly reduces energy use and carbon emissions during the manufacturing process; 
- the transport impacts are reduced because the materials are transported in container ships returning to China after bringing the goods to the UK; and
- it means those materials are not being landfilled.

• "A well-run curbside recycling program can cost anywhere from $50 to more than $150 per ton...trash collection and disposal programs, on the other hand, cost anywhere from $70 to more than $200 per ton. This demonstrates that, while there's still room for improvements, recycling can be cost-effective." - Michael Shapiro, director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Solid Waste
• Up to 60% of the rubbish that ends up in the dustbin could be recycled.
• The unreleased energy contained in the average dustbin each year could power a television for 5,000 hours.
• The largest lake in the Britain could be filled with rubbish from the UK in 8 months.
• On average, 16% of the money you spend on a product pays for the packaging, which ultimately ends up as rubbish.
• As much as 50% of waste in the average dustbin could be composted.
• Researchers compared the impact of recycling with that of burying or burning particular types of waste material in 200 situations. 83% of all scenarios that included recycling, it was indeed better for the environment.
• Britain's recycling efforts reduce its carbon-dioxide emissions by 10m-15m tonnes per year. That is equivalent to a 10% reduction in Britain's annual carbon-dioxide emissions from transport, or roughly equivalent to taking 3.5m cars off the roads.
• It is expensive: The cost of collecting, transporting and sorting materials generally exceeds the revenues generated by selling the recyclables, and is also greater than the disposal costs. Exceptions do exist ... largely near ports in dense urban areas that charge high fees for landfill disposal and enjoy good market conditions for the sale of recyclables.
• Exporting to rubbish to be recycled in places like India or China may be criticised as it the long transportation process has a big carbon footprint. However recycling firms in developing countries are able to build larger factories and achieve economies of scale, recycling materials more efficiently and at lower environmental cost. However factories in developing nations may be less tightly regulated. China especially has been plagued by countless illegal-waste imports, many of which are processed by poor migrants in China's coastal regions. They dismantle and recycle anything from plastic to electronic waste without any protection for themselves or the environment. 
• All organic material has the potential to rot. However this process requires a good supply of oxygen to support the organisms responsible for the process of decomposition. Therefore when organic matter goes into a landfill and covered with other rubbish, it quickly runs out of oxygen and cannot decompose properly. A different set of organisms which do not require oxygen take over and these give off by-products including carbon dioxide and methane.

• Recycling aluminium uses only around five per cent of the energy and emissions needed to make it from the raw material bauxite.  The metal can be recycled time and time again without loss of properties, so getting the aluminium recycling habit is one of the best things we can do for the environment.
• At the recycling plant aluminium cans are:

- Shredded, removing any coloured coating
- Melted in a huge furnace
- The molten metal is poured into ingot casts to set.   Each ingot can be made into around 1.5m cans

• Aluminium foil is a different alloy to aluminium cans and is usually recycled separately with other aluminium scraps to make cast items such as engine components, where it makes a big contribution to making vehicles lighter and more energy efficient.

• At the recycling plant steel cans are:

- Put into the furnace where molten iron is added
- Oxygen is then blasted into the furnace which heats up to around 1700 degrees centigrade
- The liquid metal is poured into a mould to form big slabs which are then rolled into coils
- These coils are used to make all sorts of steel products such as bikes, cars, bridges, paperclips or even new food and drink cans.

• Aluminium is the most cost-effective material to recycle, because of the huge energy savings  -  up to 95%.  In addition, all the scraps left over from the aluminium production process can be melted down and used again and again. For this reason, recycling is part of the normal lifecycle for large industrial products - around 75 per cent of all the aluminium ever made is still in circulation.

• Recycling 1kg of aluminium saves up to 6kg of bauxite, 4kg of chemical products, 14kWh of electricity

• Steel can be recycled time and time again without loss of quality, so by simply recycling our steel we can:

• - Conserve non-renewable fossil fuels
  - Reduce the consumption of energy
  - Reduce the amount of raw materials being wasted
  - Reduce the emission of gasses like carbon dioxide into the atmosphere
• In the UK our steel cans only contain 25% recycled steel, while the cans manufactured in Europe contain 54%
• New from old: Aluminium drinks cans are usually recycled into ingots at a special 'closed-loop' plant in Warrington.  This is the ultimate recycling process for environmental efficiency and used cans are often recycled, made into new cans, filled and put back on the shelf in just six weeks. Foil and other aluminium is generally recycled with other aluminium scraps such as window frames and road signs, and cast into engine components for vehicles, which makes them lighter and more fuel efficient. Recycled steel can be found in incredibly diverse variety of products including bicycle frames, pipes, train tracks, ship hulls, cars, bridges, paperclips, food and drinks cans
• Source: recyclenow.com

• Domestic waste glass (known as cullet) is easy to recycle. The UK currently recycles around 50% of container glass (like bottles and jars) and whilst this figure has doubled over the last five years it still lags behind other countries i.e.both Switzerland and Finland recycle more than 90% of their glass. The UK business sector still has a lot of work to do to recycle glass - bars, restaurants and pubs currently throw away 600,000 tonnes of glass every year, with most of it ending up in landfill. 
• Recycling two bottles saves enough energy to boil enough water for five cups of tea
• Once glass is collected and taken to be reprocessed, it is:

- Crushed and contaminants removed (mechanised colour sorting is usually undertaken at this stage if required)
- Mixed with the raw materials to colour and/or enhance properties as necessary
- Melted in a furnace
- Moulded or blown into new bottles or jars

• The production and use of glass has a number of environmental impacts. New glass is made from four main ingredients: Sand, Soda ash, Limestone and other additives for colour or special treatments. Although there is no shortage of these raw materials as yet, they all have to be quarried, which can damage the landscape, affect the environment and use more energy.
• Glass is 100% recyclable and can be endlessly reprocessed with no loss of quality.  Therefore by simply recycling our glass we can conserve non-renewable fossil fuel and reduce the emission of harmful gasses into the atmosphere.

• The addition of domestic waste glass (known as cullet) to a furnace in the glass manufacturing process, substantially reduces the energy requirement and decreases CO2 emissions. Each tonne of cullet added to the furnace saves 1.2 tonnes of raw materials - decreasing emissions still further.
• New glass takes a lot of energy to make, first in transporting the materials to the furnace and then to heat them to a high temperature. An efficient furnace burns 4 gigajoules (GJ) (unit of energy measuring heat) to melt every tonne of glass - that's the energy equivalent of burning 250kg of wood.
• Although glass is easy to recycle, there is currently some imbalance in the supply of glass for recycling compared to demand for recycled glass for manufacturing.  The prices paid for glass differ, depending on the colour (usually clear, brown, green - blue glass is collected with green glass) which is why we are asked to sort it when we recycle at bottle banks.  Mixed glass has a lower value. The main problem in the UK is that we do not recycle enough clear glass to keep up with demand.  We produce lots of clear glass, but export a lot of it as spirit bottles so it leaves our supply chain. By comparison, we import a large amount of green glass but do manage to recycle it - so the green bottles we make in the UK currently contain at least 85% recycled green glass.

• The surplus green glass is:

- Exported to make new green bottles 
- Used to make fibreglass insulation 
- Used in the manufacture of bricks 
- Used as filtration media in effluent treatment works

• Recycled glass can be used to make a wide range of everyday products and some that are completely unexpected, including new bottles and jars, 'Processed sand' - finely ground glass used in golf course bunkers and 'Glassphalt' for road surfacing
• We use many different types of glass in the UK, but at home we mostly use 'soda-lime-silica' glass for containers like bottles and jars. It is important not to mix up the different types of glass as they are re-processed differently.
• Different types of glass include:

- Borosilicate glass - used for heat-resistant cooking equipment like Pyrex
- Lead glass - for sparkling decorative glassware
- Glass fibre -for insulation and fibre optic cable
- These different types of glass are not widely recycled so do not add these into your kerbside collection container or bottle banks at the recycling centre.

• Source: recyclenow.com

• We now use about 20 times more plastic than we did 50 years ago.

• 92% of all UK local authorities now offer collection facilities for plastic bottles either from your kerbside collection scheme or at recycling centres. 
• Mixed plastics packaging (trays, tubs, pots, films etc) can be mechanically recycled and is both economically and environmentally effective to do so.  Further work is being conducted in this area and it is hoped that the UK will have comprehensive infrastructure for the collection, sorting and reprocessing of these valuable resources in the UK in the near future.
• At the recycling plant plastics are, sorted, shredded, washed, melted, pelletised

• It is a two-stage process:

- Sorting is mainly done automatically with a manual polish
- Plastic is either melted down directly and moulded into a new shape, or shredded into flakes then melted down before being processed into granulates

• By reusing and recycling plastic we are:

- Conserving non-renewable fossil fuels (oil)
- Reducing the consumption of energy used
- Reducing the amount of solid waste going to landfill
- Reducing the emission of gases like carbon dioxide into the atmosphere

• There are many different types of plastic in use, some of which we can recycle in the UK and other types - including that used to make yoghurt pots and margarine tubs for example - that require new technology which is not currently available here, to recycle it efficiently.  This means that some plastic still goes to landfill, some is incinerated and some shipped abroad for recycling and foreign manufacturing reuse.

• All plastic bottles are usually made from PET or HDPE and are easily recycled.

• There is a wide range of products made from recycled plastic, including polyethylene bin liners and carrier bags, plastic bottles, flooring and window frames, building insulation board, video and compact disc cassette cases, fencing and garden furnitur, water butts, garden sheds and composters, seed trays, fleeces, fibre filling for sleeping bags and duvets, variety of office accessories

• The American Society of Plastics Industry developed a standard marking code to help consumers identify and sort the main types of plastic. You will find the signs on the bottom of most plastic items. The main types of plastics are:

- PET1- Polyethylene terephthalate - Fizzy drink bottles and oven-ready meal trays - these are fully recyclable
- HDPE2 - High-density polyethylene - Bottles for milk and washing-up liquids - these are fully recyclable
- PVC3 - Polyvinyl chloride - Food trays, cling film, bottles for squash, mineral water and shampoo
- LDPE4 - Low density polyethylene - Carrier bags and bin liners.
- PP5 - Polypropylene - Margarine tubs, microwaveable meal trays.
- PS6 - Polystyrene - Yoghurt pots, foam meat or fish trays, hamburger boxes and egg cartons, vending cups, plastic cutlery, protective packaging for electronic goods and toys
- 07-20 - Any other plastics that do not fall into any of the above categories.  An example is melamine, which is often used in plastic plates and cups.

• Plastics can be divided into degradable, biodegradable and compostable.

- Degradable plastics - These are oil based and either eventually break down or disperse in to smaller fragments. These may then potentially biodegrade or break down further to reduce the material to water, CO2, biomass (plant matter) and trace elements.
- Biodegradable plastics - These should break down cleanly, in a defined time period, to form simple molecules found in the environment such as carbon dioxide and water.
- The predominant mechanism which decomposes biodegradable plastics is the action of micro-organisms which produces carbon dioxide, methane, water, inorganic compounds, or, biomass.
- Compostable plastics - These are a subset of biodegradable plastics which must demonstrate that they biodegrade and disintegrate completely in a compost bin or system during the 3-4 months composting process.  It refers to 'industrial composting' where the compost reaches higher temperatures than home composting .
- Degradable and biodegradable plastics will not degrade effectively in a landfill site and could potentially hinder the quality of recycled plastic if they enter a conventional plastics recycling system.

• Source: www.recyclenow.com