Is The UK Meeting its Recycling Targets - Essay Example

Governments worldwide and its residents have begun to realize that we are contaminating our natural resources at a staggering rate and efforts are necessary to put a stop to it. Business operations and household personal consumption generate a lot of waste and many of it can be put to good use. The practice of reconditioning wasted products into usable form is called recycling. Recycling is very important for our environment because it allows production of products without further utilization of natural resources, it reduces the need to store waste at landfill sites and the recycle production lines are performed in a manner to minimize the emission of gases into the atmosphere. This paper studies the current state of recycling in the United Kingdom with a special emphasis into plastic, glass and paper & board materials. It compares the government initiatives and accomplishments to other European nations. It provides a critical analysis of the effect of the EU Directive in reducing landfill contamination. Recycling glass has a beneficial impact in a country’s environment. Susan Hubbard says that every ton of cullet return to the market saves between 1.2 to 2.8 million British thermal units compared with the use of land filling and incineration (Toto, 2005). The process most commonly used to recycle glass is to remelt the material, a procedure which saves energy, reduces carbon dioxide emissions and reduce the consumption of the natural resource (Wrap, 2007). Appendix A illustrates the United Kingdom’s glass recycling rate. The country recycled 6% of the glass in 1984, but nearly 20 years later the recycling rate of the material had increased to 35% in the UK. The EU packaging waste directive set a 60% glass recycling target for the year 2006 (Glass, 2002). According to Glass Magazine countries such as Germany and Netherlands surpassed the 70% glass recycling rate before 2002, but other European nations such as the United Kingdom were struggling recycling glass a very low recycling rate of 23%. The UK is not very competitive in comparison with its European neighbors in glass recycling. One of the reasons the United Kingdom is struggling to recycle at the pace of other European nations is because the country does not have an effective glass recovery program in place to separate crystal and colour glass. There are different markets in the recycling industry for the two types of glass. If the UK establishes an efficient system to separate the products in their pickup efforts they could accelerate the process of bringing the material to the market and increase their glass recycling rate substantially. The UK realized they were lagging in this area and made a conscious effort to increase their numbers. In 2006 they were able to recycle 756,000 tons of glass, a number that still leaves them 125,000 tons short to reach the 60% European minimum target (British Glass, 2007). Despite the country not reaching the goal the environmental effects of their efforts in glass recycling were tremendous. In 2006 the United Kingdom was able to reduce CO2 emissions by 200,000 tons due to their glass recycling efforts (British Glass, 2007). Plastic is a very useful and practical material because it is biodegradable and has many applications at a very low cost. The UK is recycling or recovering about 19% of the plastic in the country (Wrap, 2007). The amount of plastic recycled is quite low in comparison with other European countries such as Germany which in the year 2000 had a plastic recycling rate of 70% (Ace, 2000). Some of the constraints within a plastic recycling operation include a high amount of capital requirement, particularly in equipment, necessary to start an operation considering the extremely low industry profit margins. One way for the United Kingdom to increase its plastic recycling rate is for the government to offer incentives for companies to enter the business. For example the government could provide an 85% reimbursement incentive in equipment purchases for new companies establishing plastic recycling operations in the UK. Some of the benefits of plastic recycling are reduction in landfill waste, reduction in consumption of oil to produce plastic and energy consumption savings (Wrap, 2007). Paper & wood recycling is very important. There is so much paper utilization for printed material worldwide that if recycling is not perform society would endanger our ecosystem by destroying our forest which are an integral part of the photosynthesis cycle that creates the air human breathe. Appendix A illustrates the amount of paper & wood recycling the United Kingdom has generated as of the year 2003. The numbers at first glace do not look bad with a 38% paper & wood recycling rate for 2003. In comparison with the rest of the European countries the United Kingdom is way behind. In 2005 the average European region paper & wood recycling rate was 55.4% with a new target established that year by the European nations to increase recycling production of these materials to a 66% rate by 2010 (Cepi, 2006). UK is way behind other European nations and the most alarming statistics illustrated in Appendix A was that the United Kingdom had cero growth in the recycling rate of paper & wood from the years 2000 to 2003. By 2005 the composite recycling standard of glass, paper and plastics in the United Kingdom was 49.6 cents by weight, a number 10.4 cents below the European standard of 60 cents by weight on the combination of these three materials (ElAmin, 2005). A possible solution to reduce the consumption of paper & wood that could go alongside the recycling strategy is to reducing the amount of paper utilized in the UK. One of the main purposes of recycling is to stop cutting down trees, so if the government creates policies to eliminate paper utilization in areas in which the internet can replace paper then the original goal is being accomplished. In 2006 over 57% of households in the UK were online (National Statistics, 2006). Landfills have been historically the mostly used method of disposing of wasteful material produced by organizations and households. A landfill is basically a terrain in which biodegradable waste is dumped and accumulated until the site is complete filled. These operations have many negative consequences for our society. They include total destruction of the terrain once the landfill is full, potential leaking of hazardous waste into the soil and groundwater, litter, pest and waste of recyclable goods (Friend of Earth, 2002). Europe created a legislation called the EU landfill directive on July 16, 1999. The targets for reducing municipal biodegradable waste (BMW) are established utilizing the year 1995 as a baseline. The expected reduction in waste in European nations of BMW is 75% of the 1995 baseline by 2010, 50% by 2013 and 35% by the year 2020 (Sepa, 2007). Increasing recycling rates is the key variable that will allow the European countries to accomplish the targets set by the EU landfill directive. The reduction in waste dumping in landfills the EU landfill directive mandates has plenty of benefits. The soil erosion problem caused by them will stop spreading. The legislation protects our atmosphere since landfills create greenhouse gases such as methane and carbon dioxide. The reduction in gases will also help urban smog and stress on vegetation (Riskworld, 2002). A lot of valuable terrain can be saved for more productive utilization. A yearly production of 83 million tons of waste into landfills is the equivalent of using 26,240 acres of home sites under eight feet of waste (Epa, 2007). The global economic effects of reduced contamination are millions of euros in savings to all the nations. New jobs are created within the recycling industries and companies and individuals on many instances obtain economic rewards for providing raw materials to the recycling companies. In the United Kingdom companies dedicated to recycling biodegradable materials are generating approximately 8,000 jobs for the British economy (White, 2006). This country has accelerated its recycling efforts since the inception of the EU landfill directive. The country is still a bit behind to catch up with its European counterparts, thus there are many opportunities for entrepreneurs to take advantage of this growing market. Recycling is a great practice which is essential for the long term sustainability of our planet. The damages societies caused to our environment in the last 50 years are tremendous and now the governments must take action to protect our natural resources. The United Kingdom is trying to increase its overall recycling production. Despite the country not being at par with other European nations it is fair to say that they are realizing plenty of recycling in comparison with the American and Asian nations. The EU landfill directive was a great legislation which brought social and environmental justice. It is time all the other continents in the world to follow suit and utilize the EU landfill directive as a model to implement in their countries. References British Glass (2007). Glass Recycling Grows but Increases are Slowing. Retrieved July 1, 2007 from http://www.britglass.org.uk/NewsEvents/BGNewsCurrent/GlassRecyclingGrowsbutInc.html Cepi.org (2006). Industry launches Europe’s most ambitions recycling target yet. Retrieved July 1, 2006 from http://www.cepi.org Defra.org (2007). eDigest Statistics about: Waste and Recycling. Retrieved July 1, 2007 from http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/statistics/waste/index.htm ElAmin, A. (2005). UK to increase targets for recycling packaging waste. Retrieved July 1, 2007 from http://www.foodproductiondaily-usa.com/news/printNewsBis.asp?id=62046 Epa.gov (2007). Benefits of using CPP. Retrieved July 1, 2007 from http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/osw/conserve/c2p2/use/benefits.htm Friends of Earth (2002). EU landfill directive and waste strategy. 1. Retrived July 1, 2007 from http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/factsheets/eu_landfill_directive.pdf Glass (2002). A clearer picture of glass recycling. Retrieved July 1, 2007 from http://www.allbusiness.com/nonmetallic-mineral/glass-glass-manufacturing/426886-1.html?yahss=114-2974554-426886 National Statistics (2006). Internet Access Household and Individuals: United Kingdom. 1. Retrieved July 1, 2007 from http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/inta0806.pdf Riskworld.com (2000). Suncom Plans to Pursue Landfill Gas Opportunities. Retrieved July 1, 2007 from http://www.riskworld.com/pressrel/2000/00q2/PR00a190.htm Sepa.org (2007). Legislation: Landfill Directive 1999/31/EC. Retrieved July 1, 2007 from http://www.sepa.org.uk/wastemin/legis/landfilldir.htm Toto, D. (2005). The Pros and Cons: glass offers benefits and drawbacks to municipals recycling programs. We looked at a few approaches of collecting this contentious commodity. Recycling Today. Retrieved July 1, 2007 from http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Pros+and+cons%3a+glass+offers+benefits+and+drawbacks+to+municipal...-a0130725177 White, P. (2006). Thriving Compost Industry ‘Has Long Way to Go’. BioCycle, 47(12), 60. Retrieved July 1, 2007 from EBSCOhost database. Wrap.org (2007). Glass in Manufacturing Benefits and Opportunities. Retrieved July 1, 2007 from http://www.wrap.org.uk/manufacturing/info_by_material/glass/ Wrap.org (2007). Plastic in Manufacturing. Retrieved July 1, 2007 from http://www.wrap.org.uk/manufacturing/info_by_material/plastic/ Appendix A (Defra, 2007) Read More