Recycling could add to global warming.

[wetkingcanute]

Recycling could be adding to global warming rather than helping reduce it, a senior government adviser said today.
Peter Jones, a former director of waste firm Biffer and now an adviser to environment ministers, said the amount of greenhouse gases produced from the collection, transporting and processing of recycled rubbish was defeating the point. He called for a review of Labour's policy on waste and suggested Britain's rubbish could simply be burned to generate electricity.
He said local incineration might have a lesser impact on global warming.

The ministers said "don't you start talking sense to us mate...you can't Tax common sense".

[Beachcomber]

I can't afford to recycle. I'm a self employed Kitchen & Bathroom Fitter and I'm no longer allowed to visit my local recycling centre 'cos I drive a van !

ANY rubbish (including household waste) in the back of a van is deemed as 'Industrial Waste'. You have to be licenced just to transport it and no recycling centre accepts Industrial waste.

I used to take all the old kitchen units, worktops, baths, sinks etc to be recycled - Now I have to hire a skip and it is dumped in a Landfill.

The crazy thing is If I use my wifes hatchback I can recycle it all at the weekend.

[Victor Meldrew]

He said local incineration might have a lesser impact on global warming.

What that actually means is that demand for recycled goods has dropped and so has the price for recycled materials. Therefore, it is now far too expensive to recycle as a comparison to its' sale value (i.e. they make a loss at current rates).

It is far cheaper to burn the trash, so the official line they'll now put out is that it's better for the environment to burn than recycle. Of course, what they actually mean is the operation will be cheaper.

As a local councillor, it never ceases to amaze me how often our County Council tries to bring in crackpot ideas which everyone knows has been designed as a cost saving measure, and try to disguise it with the environment issue.

An example, they were recently looking at turning off some street lights at night throughout the county (obviously to save money with the rising cost of electricity) but would never admit that it had anything to do with cost. Instead, they wheeled out some survey showing how much they could save in carbon emissions by turning the lights out. People's safety came a poor second. They did scrap the plan though, but only because of a little matter called the local elections. .

[justmyopinion]

Glass bottle recycling requires a huge amount of resource and energy if it is melted and reformed into a new bottle. It doesn't require anywhere near as much if the bottles are cleaned and reused - like they used to be in the old days.

Of course, we can't manage that now and there's probably H&S issues to consider.

[Beachcomber]

We still have a daily milk delivery around here and all our empty milk bottles are still put out for collection and re-use.

[omnipleasant]

I think we're past the point of no return with climate change.

Best to focus on local 'environmental' issues like recycling.

[VikingHumpingWitch]

Jan 29, 2009 12:54:38 GMT justmyopinion said:

Glass bottle recycling requires a huge amount of resource and energy if it is melted and reformed into a new bottle. It doesn't require anywhere near as much if the bottles are cleaned and reused - like they used to be in the old days.

Really? Why do we do it then?

[justmyopinion]

Because of government targets for recycling, glass is an easy target, and the fact that it used to be cheaper to make new and dump the old in landfill.

[Victor Meldrew]

Best to focus on local 'environmental' issues like recycling.

But as I said, the problem with that is local (county) councils often shift their environmental stance 180 degrees depending on the financial benefit to them on whatever issue they debate.

I mentioned the street lights thing, where it's environmentally beneficial to turn them off (nothing to do with saving a few bob) even though it could jeopardise the safety of residents. On the other side of the coin, they are shutting down all middle schools and going to a two tier system thereby putting far more coaches on the road each day, ferrying kids to super schools across the county. Again, this is purely for the sake of educational standards and nothing to do with the land sales from closed middle schools. When asked about the environmental issue of all these extra coaches, their stock reply is "no comment".

[VikingHumpingWitch]

Jan 29, 2009 14:10:16 GMT justmyopinion said:

Because of government targets for recycling, glass is an easy target, and the fact that it used to be cheaper to make new and dump the old in landfill.

Maybe in the UK but Sweden is big into it as well, and they don't seem to be crippled by targets, they just all recycle cos it's what you do. Surely if it was detrimental they'd be re-using rather than getting us to chuck the bottles into a giant tip where they will inevitably break.

[omnipleasant]

It's not "financial benefit to them", Meldrew. It's the fact that they haven't got enough cash to do everything we want them to do because we all whinge about paying too much taaaaaaxxx wah wah.

[Libby]

Typical! I recycle everything and feel really good about it, because i think i'm doing something useful for the planet - glass, plastics, cardboard & paper, you name it! Now i'm being told i'm actually making the situation worse!

I wish they'd make their minds up!

[flatandy]

Glass recycling almost never turns the glass back into bottles. It's usually crushed down and turned into aggregates for things like road surfaces and so on.

Also, lots of recycling gets dumped in landfill once it's been stored long enough to no longer be on a council's books, so they collect it and it gets added to their targets, then they sit on it for a couple of years, the audit trail stops, and they can thrown it in the dump.

Of course, it's not exactly surprising that the guy from Biffa waste is trying to tell us to just use normal waste systems rather than recycling. I notice his rather nuanced use of language "recycling might increase global warming".

First there's the "might", a very critical statement. Recycling aluminium saves tons of energy, as the energy cost of extracting it from ore is so high. As mentioned up-thread, turning glass back into bottles is deeply inefficient. Washing bottles and re-using them is actually fairly efficient.

It very much depends on what you're doing and how you're doing it.

The other thing worth noting is that he's talking exclusively about climate change.

We don't recycle just because of climate change. We've been recycling for long before that. We do it partly to save money, and partly to save limited natural resources, and partly to reduce chemical cost in production from raw materials (in some cases), and only in small part because of the climate change aspect.

[mids]

So glass is recycled to make more roads for more cars? I see.

[Libby]

Quote from Fat Andy ~

We don't recycle just because of climate change. We've been recycling for long before that. We do it partly to save money, and partly to save limited natural resources, and partly to reduce chemical cost in production from raw materials (in some cases), and only in small part because of the climate change aspect.

Good point Andy!

[Muz]

Sod it, I'm off to set fire to a giant panda.

[flatandy]

Jan 29, 2009 14:36:54 GMT mids said:

So glass is recycled to make more roads for more cars? I see.

Also to make the stuff they put under railway tracks, and to make breezeblocks, and all the other stuff they use aggregates for.

[flatandy]

Jan 29, 2009 14:40:20 GMT Muz said:

Sod it, I'm off to set fire to a giant panda.

Wasteful.

Recycle it as dinner.

[Libby]

Well that's good enough reason to recycle all our glass!

[VikingHumpingWitch]

What does one do with a breezeblock anyway? I've always wondered.