How to get the facts on recycling
As the importance of recycling becomes more apparent, questions linger about it is it's worth How It Works is recycling waste passes just in a landfill in China are some answers.
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IT IS a lot of waste Since 1960 the amount of municipal waste is collected in America has almost tripled, reaching in 2005 245 million tons According to statistics from the European Union, the amount of municipal waste generated in Western Europe increased 23 between 1995 and 2003, reaching 577 kg per person much for the waste reduction plan by person to 300 kg in 2000 the volume of waste increased, so that recycling efforts in 1980, the only recycled America 9 6 of its municipal waste; Today, the rate is 32 A similar trend can be observed in Europe, where some countries such as Austria and the Netherlands, now recycle 60 or more of their municipal recycling rate of waste of Great Brittany, 27, is low, but it increases rapidly, nearly doubling over the past three years.
Similarly, when a city has a kerbside recycling program, the sight of all recycling trucks ride around may raise doubts as to whether the collection and transportation of waste requires more energy than is used to save We are constantly asked that recycling is worth the environmental reasons said Julian Parfitt, principal analyst at Action Program WRAP waste resources, a non-profit British company that encourages recycling and develops materials markets recycled.
Studies that look at the entire life cycle of a particular material can shed light on this issue in a particular case, but WRAP decided to take a broader look, he asked the Technical University Denmark and the subject of the Danish Center on waste to conduct a review of 55 life cycle analysis, all were selected because of their rigorous methodology the researchers then examined over 200 scenarios, comparing the impact of recycling with the burying or burning certain types of waste They found that in 83 of all scenarios that recycling included, it was indeed better for the environment.
Based on this study, WRAP has calculated that recycling efforts in Britain to reduce its emissions of carbon dioxide by 10 m-15 million tons per year equivalent to a 10 reduction in carbon emissions of UK annual dioxide transportation, or roughly equivalent to taking 3 5m cars off the roads as well, the Environmental protection Agency of the United States estimates that recycling reduces carbon emissions in the country by 49m tonnes in 2005.
Recycling has many other benefits, too, he conserves natural resources It also reduces the amount of waste that is buried or burned, barely ways ideal for getting rid of dumps stuff take up valuable space and emit methane, a gas Greenhouse effect; and although incinerators are not produce pollutants such as they were, they still have harmful emissions, so that people do not like to have around, but perhaps the most valuable benefit of recycling is the economy energy and reducing greenhouse gases and pollution that occurs when waste materials are replaced by first virgin If you can use recycled materials, you do not have to mine minerals, cut trees and drill for oil as much, said Jeffrey Morris Sound management of resources, a consulting firm based in Olympia, Washington.
The extraction of metals from ores, in particular, recycling is extremely energy-intensive aluminum, for example, can reduce energy consumption by nearly 95 savings for other materials are lower, but still substantial about 70 plastic, 60 for steel, 40 for paper and 30 for glass recycling also reduces emissions of pollutants that can cause smog, acid rain and contamination of waterways.
The virtue of recycling has been enjoyed for centuries to thousands of years metallic objects were recycled by melting and reorganizes them into new weapons or tools It is said that the pieces of the Colossus of Rhodes, a statue considered one the seven wonders of the ancient world, were recycled for scrap during the industrial revolution, recyclers began forming business and professional associations later specialized in collecting, trading and processing of metals and Institute paper the Scrap Recycling Industries ISRI America, a trade association with over 1,400 member companies, traces its roots back to such an organization founded in 1913 in the 1930s many people survived the Great depression by selling pieces metal, rags and other items in the days reuse and recycling are often Economic recycling requirements have also played an important role during World War II, when scrap was turned into weapons.
While industrial companies began to produce increasing quantities of waste continues, recycling has taken on new meaning rather than recycling materials for purely economic reasons, communities have started to think about how to reduce the flow of waste in landfills and incinerators by 1970, the environmental movement has triggered the creation of America's first kerbside collection systems, but it was another 20 years before these programs really took off.
In 1991, Germany made history when it passed an ordinance transferring lifecycle responsibility for packaging producers In response, the industry created DSD Duales System Deutschland, a company that organizes a management system separated waste that exists alongside the public waste-collection by paying a license fee for its green dot trademark, DSD pays for the collection, sorting and recycling of packaging materials While the system has proven to be expensive, it has been very influential in many European countries later adopted their own recycling initiatives incorporating a degree of producer responsibility.
In 1987, a barge loaded garbage cruising up and down the east coast of America in search of a place to unload, sparking a public debate on waste management and to be a catalyst for the growth of the movement recycling of the country in the early 1990s, many American cities have recycling programs established that the glut resulting materials have pushed the market price for kerbside recyclables fall of around 50 per ton to about 30 says Dr. Morris, who has been monitoring prices for recyclables in the northwest Pacific since the mid-1980s Like all products, the costs of recyclables fluctuate but the average price of materials has kerbside since slowly increased to about 90 per ton.
However, most recycling programs The are not financially autonomous The cost of collecting, transporting and sorting of materials usually exceeds the revenues generated by the sale of recyclable materials, and is also higher than the exceptions cost provision exist says Dr. Morris, largely near ports in dense urban areas that charge high fees for disposal from landfills and take advantage of good market conditions for the sale of recyclables.
Originally the kerbside programs asked people to put paper, glass and cans in bins separated But now the trend is co-mixed or single stream collection of about 700 of the 10,000 kerbside programs America now use this approach, says Kate Krebs, executive director of the National Recycling Coalition America But the switch can make them suspicious people there is no need to separate different materials, people may conclude that waste are simply being buried or burned in fact, the transition to the single stream collection is driven by new technologies for identifying and sorting the different materials with little or no human intervention single stream collection makes it more convenient for householders to recycle, and means that more materials are diverted from the waste stream.
San Francisco, which has changed several unique collection flows in the last few years, now has a recycling rate of 69 one of the highest in America, with the exception of garden and food waste, all the kerbside recyclables in the city are classified in a 200,000 -square-foot facility that combines machines workforce of 155 employees of the factory 38m, next to the San Francisco Bay, opened in 2003 Operated by Norcal Waste Systems, it treats an average of 750 tons of paper, plastic, glass and metals day.
The process begins when a truck arrives and dumps its load of recyclables to a building end materials are then stacked on large conveyor belts that transport them to a manual sorting station There, workers sift through everything, taking plastic bags, large pieces of cardboard and other elements that could damage or interfere with the plastic bags sorting machines are particularly troublesome because they tend to get caught in the rotating disc screens that send heavy materials such as bottles and cans, in one direction and the paper upwardly another.
Corrugated cardboard is separated from mixed paper, both of which are then baled and sold plastic bottles and cartons were torn by hand The most common types, the type of PET 1 and type 2 HDPE, are collected separately; else go to a mixed plastic-tray.
Next, a magnet removes ferrous metal, typically tin cans or steel, while the non-ferrous metals, most of the aluminum cans, are ejected by eddy separators eddy current stream being use since the early 1990s, consist of a fast revolving magnetic rotor within a long cylindrical drum that rotates at a slower speed as the aluminum cans are transported on the drum by a conveyor belt the magnetic field of the induced rotor circulating electric currents, called eddy currents, in this creates a secondary magnetic field around the cans which is repelled by the magnetic field of the rotor, literally eject aluminum cans from other waste materials .
Finally, the glass is separated by hand in the clear, brown, orange and green glass for each load, the entire sorting process from beginning to end takes about an hour, said Bob Besso, Norcal responsible recycling program San Francisco.
Although all recycling facilities still employ people, investment increases in optical sorting technology that can separate the different types of paper and developing the first plastic waste sorting systems almost infrared basic began in early 1990 to Elopak time, a Norwegian manufacturer of laminated cardboard-plastic beverage cartons, worried that he would have to pay substantial costs to meet its responsibilities producers in Germany and other European countries to reduce the overall costs of life cycle associated with its products, Elopak is set to find a way to automate the sorting of its cartons the company teamed up with the Norwegian SINTEF research center, and in 1996 sold its first unit German technology was later spun off into a company now called TiTech.
TITECH systems 1000+ which have been installed worldwide rely on spectroscopy to identify different paper and plastic items materials are distributed on a conveyor belt in a single layer when irradiated with a halogen lamp, each type material reflects a unique combination of the wavelengths in the infrared spectrum which can be identified, such as a fingerprint by analyzing data from a sensor that detects light in both the visible and near infra -Red, a computer is able to determine the color, the type, shape and position of each air jet member are then activated to push the individual elements of a conveyor belt to another, or in a tray many types of paper, plastic or combinations thereof can thus be selected with a maximum of 98 precision.
For many materials the process of their return back into useful materials is simple metals are shredded into pieces, the paper is reduced to pulp and glass is crushed into cullet metals and glass can be melted almost indefinitely without loss of quality, while the paper can be recycled up to six times it goes through the process, its fibers get shorter and the quality deteriorates.
Plastics are made from fossil fuels, are somewhat different Although they have many useful properties, they are flexible, lightweight and can be shaped into any form, there are many different types, including most should be treated separately in 2005 less than 6 the plastic of the municipal waste stream in America was recovered and this small fraction, the only two types recycled in large quantities were PET and HDPE recycling PET bottle bottle food quality is there, but the plastic is often down-cycled into other products such as plastic lumber used in place of wood, drainage pipes and carpet fibers, which tend to end up in landfills or incinerators at the end of their useful life.
However, plastics are used increasingly not only for packaging, but also in consumer goods such as cars, televisions and personal computers Because these products are made from a variety of materials and can contain several types of plastics, metals some of the toxic, and glass, they are particularly difficult and costly to disassemble and recycle.
Europe and Japan have launched resume laws that require electronics manufacturers to recycle their products in America but only a handful of states have passed such legislation, which has caused problems for companies that specialize in recycling complex waste streams plastic and depend on the recovery of laws to obtain the raw material for Michael Biddle, head of MBA Polymers, said the absence of such laws is one of the reasons why his company only works with a pilot plant in America and has production facilities in China and Austria.
Much of recyclable materials can be treated locally, but ever comes to developing countries, especially China, the country has a large appetite for raw materials, including scrap metal, waste paper and plastics, which can all be cheaper than virgin materials most cases, these wastes are recycled into consumer goods or packaging and returned to Europe and America by container ships with its hunger for resources and the availability of cheap labor, China has become the largest importer of recyclable materials in the world.
But the practice of transport of recyclable materials in China is particularly controversial in Britain, politicians have expressed concern that some of these exports may end up in landfills Many experts disagree According to Pieter van Beukering , an economist who has studied the trade of waste paper in India and plastics waste to China as soon as someone pays for the material, you bet it will be recycled.
In fact, Dr. van Beukering argued that the import of waste, recycling companies in developing countries are able to build larger plants and achieve economies of scale, more efficient recycling of materials and lower environmental cost, it has been as in India, he said, where dozens of inefficient, polluting paper mills near Mumbai has been transformed into a smaller number of more productive plants and environmentally friendly in a few years .
However, compared to Western countries, factories in developing countries may be less tightly regulated, and the recycling industry is no exception China has especially been plagued by countless illegal waste imports, many treated poor migrants in the coastal areas of China, they disassemble and recycle all plastic electronic waste without any protection for themselves and the environment.
The Chinese government has banned these practices, but migrant workers have created a mobile cottage industry that is hard to erase, said Aya Yoshida, a researcher at the National Institute for Environmental Studies who has studied Chinese imports and waste recycling practices because this industry operates largely under the radar, it is difficult to assess its overall impact, but it is clear that the transformation of plastic and electronic waste in a crude manner releases toxic chemicals, harming people and the environment in the opposite of what recycling is supposed to achieve.
Under pressure from environmental groups such as the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, some IT managers have established rules to ensure that their products are recycled responsibly Hewlett-Packard has been a leader in this area and even operates its own recycling plants in California and Tennessee Dell, who was once criticized for the use of prison labor to recycle its machines, now takes back its old computers free of charge and last month Steve Jobs Apple plans detailed eliminating the use of toxic substances in its products.
Much less controversial is the recycling of glass, except, that is, in places where there are no British market, for example, is struggling with a green glass mountain is the largest wine importer in the world , bringing more than 1 billion liters annually, much of it in green glass bottles, but with only a small wine industry of its own, there is little demand for the resulting glass held which is needed is clear glass, which is transformed into bottles for spirits and often exported to other countries as a result, said Andy Dawe, WRAP director glass technology, Britain is in the unique situation of having more green glass that has the production capacity.
bottle responsible for Britain already use as much recycled green glass as they can in their furnaces to produce new bottles Thus, some of the excess glass is recycled decline in construction or sand aggregate for filtration systems, but own analysis WRAP revealed that the energy savings for the two appear to be marginal or even disadvantageous Work with industry, WRAP launched a new program called GlassRite wine in an effort to correct the imbalance instead of bottled the source, some wine is now imported in containers 24 000 liters and then bottled in the UK This may scare some wine lovers, but it solves two problems, said Dawe, it reduces the amount green glass that is imported and makes what is imported wisely it can also reduce shipping costs by up to 40.
This is an unusual case, but in general, one of the biggest obstacles to more efficient recycling is that most products are not designed with recycling in mind Addressing this problem may require a complete redesign of industrial processes said William McDonough, architect and co-author of a book published in 2002 called Cradle to Cradle Redo the Way we Make Things with Michael Braungart, author and a fellow chemist, he sets out a vision for establishing closed-loop cycles where no recycling of waste should be taken into account at the design stage, they argue, and all materials must be able to return safely to the ground or be recycled indefinitely This may seem a vow pious but Mr. McDonough has a good pedigree over the years, he has worked with companies including Ford and Google.
An outgrowth of Cradle to Cradle is the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, a non-profit working group that has developed guidelines that go beyond traditional packaging design cues to emphasize the use of materials renewable, recycled and non-toxic sources including Founded in 2003 with only nine members, the group now has nearly 100 members, including Target, Starbucks and Estée Lauder, some of which have already begun to change the design of their packaging.
sustainable packaging not only benefits the environment, but can also reduce costs last year Wal-Mart, the largest retailer in the world, announced that it wanted to reduce the amount of packaging used by 5 by 2013 , which could save the company up to 3 4 billion and cut emissions of carbon dioxide from 667,000 tonnes in addition to trying to reduce the amount of packaging, Wal-Mart also wants to recycle more two years ago the company began using an unusual process, called the ball sandwich, to collect waste in its stores and distribution centers for recycling it is to put a layer of cardboard at the bottom of a trash compactor before the complete with waste, then put another layer of cardboard on the compactor then produces a sandwich that is easier to handle and transport, said Jeff Ashby Rocky Mountain Recycling, who invented the process Wal-Mart have nsi that prevent materials disposal costs it previously sent to landfill, the company is now money selling waste at market prices.
Obviously, there are many opportunities for innovation in the recycling of new ideas and approaches will be needed, because many communities and organizations have set high targets for recycling directive on packaging Europe requires states 60 members recycle their glass and paper, metals 50 and 22 5 plastic packaging at the end of 2008 to early this year, the European Parliament voted to increase the recycling rate by 2020 to 50 municipal waste and 70 industrial waste recycling rates can be enhanced by charging households and companies more if they produce more waste, and reducing the frequency of collection of garbage while increasing the recycling collections.
Meanwhile, a number of cities and corporations including Wal-Mart, Toyota and Nike have adopted zero waste goals This may be unrealistic, but Matt Hale, director of the Solid Waste office at the Environmental Protection Agency states STATES, said he is a worthy goal and can help companies to think about better ways to manage materials it forces people to look at the entire life cycle of a product, said Dr. Hale, and ask questions can you reduce the amount of materials to start Can you design the product to make recycling easier.
If done well, it is no doubt that recycling saves energy and raw materials, and reduces pollution, as well as trying to recycle more, it is also important to try and better recycling that technologies and materials evolve, there is room for improvement and cause optimism ultimately says Ms. Krebs, waste is really a design flaw.
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