Recycling
Recycling means changing something old, into something new.
To do this, the item has to be changed or processed into another form before it can be made into another item. For example when plastic bottles are recycled they are first heated to make them into a liquid plastic. This liquid is then poured into moulds, so that when it cools, it forms plastic beads called nurdles.
Picture of a nurdle
These nurdles mean that the plastic can easily be transported to other places so it can made into other plastic items such as more plastic bottles or even fleece clothing.
Composting is another form of recycling as it changes garden and food waste into another product (compost) that can be used in the garden. Nature is a master recycler - Nothing is ever wasted. When a tree dies, beetles eat the wood and fungi break it down, returning nutrients to the soil for other plants to use. Recycling is vital to the natural world, and we are a part of that world, so we should recycle too.
Why is it good to Recycle?
Space
We cannot go on burying our rubbish in the ground forever, because we will run out of space to bury it. Devon has 3 landfill sites for household waste, but these will be full in the next few years, some counties like Hertfordshire don’t have any landfill sites. Where will we put our rubbish once ours are full?
Digging new holes in the ground to bury all of our rubbish isn't the best thing to do - the land could have been used for a woodland or a new play area and nobody really wants a new landfill site made next to their home or school.
Resources
We only have one world which gives us the resources we need. We use trees to make paper, oil to make plastics, sand to make glass and metal 'ores', found in special rocks, to make metal. Digging these things out of the ground or chopping them down can be bad for the environment and for wildlife. Some of these resources (e.g. oil) take millions of years to form and once they have been used up they cannot be replaced. If we keep wasting these useful resources by throwing them in landfill sites, we will run out of them very quickly.
Some rubbish does not rot away, ever. A glass bottle will still be in a landfill site in a million years time. What a waste of resources and energy!
Pollution
Some rubbish, like food and garden waste will rot when we put it into a landfill site, this creates gases called Methane and Carbon Dioxide which are bad for the environment. It also produces a liquid called leachate, which is harmful to wildlife. If we compost our food and garden waste then these are not produced.
It makes us feel good if we recycle as we feel we are doing our bit for the environment!
What’s not so good about recycling?
Although recycling is good, there are a few reasons why we should think about ‘reducing’ and ‘reusing’ our waste before we think about recycling it.
Energy
It takes lots of energy to recycle. Melting down metals, glass and plastic before they can be made into other items uses lots of energy, but it is still not as much as making these items from raw materials.
Pollution
When lorries collect recycling from your home, recycling centres and collection banks to take it to the factories to be processed, they produce vehicle fumes or emissions from the exhaust pipes. When the items for recycling are being processed into something new, it creates water and air pollution as well. This has to be managed carefully otherwise it can be bad for the environment.
Cost
It costs the council lots of money to collect recycling from your home. Think about how much a new dustcart costs, the workers wages and the price of all those bins, bags and boxes for you to collect all the recycling in.
Where can I recycle?
Recycling is now so common; it is hard not to recycle!
The following list shows some of the more common ways of recycling our rubbish:
Recycle from home
Where? – 99% of all homes in Devon have a recycling and/or composting collection service available them.
No matter how much you try to reduce and reuse your waste, you will usually have something that you want don’t want anymore and much of this can be recycled from your home.
In Devon, we have lots of different ways to recycle, depending on where you live. Some items are collected by the council in bags, some things in boxes and some in wheelie bins. It can be confusing, so to make sure you are doing the right thing check out your local district collections.
Compost at home
Where? - In your garden with a compost heap or compost bin, or in your yard or balcony with a wormery. Click here to find out more about composting.
Recycle with a Community Group
Where? – Devon has 400 community groups registered who run recycling and composting schemes throughout the County. Click here to find out more about community recycling or composting.
Recycle ‘on the go’
Where? – Recycling bins are everywhere – car parks or on the streets. Keep an eye out and you will see many ways of recycling on the go.
Recycle at the supermarket
Where? – Most supermarkets have an area in their car park, or entrance, to recycle everything from paper to batteries.
Recycle at a Recycling Centre
Where? Devon has 19 Recycling Centres which recycle a wide range of household items from wood to toasters. Click here to find out more. Lots of recycling centres have a resale area where you can buy other peoples unwanted items for a fraction of the cost.
The next two suggestions are ‘reuse’ but are also a great way to use your unwanted items:
Recycle for charity
Where? Charity shops will take any good quality and clean items for resale
Recycle on-line
Where? Websites like eBay, Amazon, Freecycle or Freegle are great ways of recycling practically anything!
What can I recycle?
We cannot give you a single list of items that can be recycled because there are always new items that can be added to this list and we are always looking for new ways to recycle even more! To find out what you can recycle locally, look for leaflets or stickers on containers, ask your local council or ask a question on this website.
You can also use this website to find out about recycling more common items.
What is the secret to real recycling?
We all know that recycling is easy and good for the planet; however to make a real difference we also need to buy things made from recycled materials.
If we give to a charity shop, buy from a charity shop,
If we recycle our paper, buy recycled toilet rolls or printer paper
If we compost our grass cuttings, buy compost made from local compost.
The secret to recycling is to buy recycled.
Some recycling is picked up from your home and some recycling needs to be taken to a special place where it is stored until it can all be taken to be processed.
Recycling At School
Do you know how much waste you produce in your school?
The average primary school produces 45kg of waste per student per year.
If you haven’t done so already, ask your teacher if you can do a waste audit. You can do this by collecting all of your waste in one week, including all recycling and compost, then separate it out into its different types – all the paper together, all the cardboard together. Then weigh the different types – put all these figures into a spreadsheet to make a graph showing the information. Divide the weights by the number of students in your school and times it by the number of weeks in a year. Is this more or less than 45kg?
You could do this with the help of Waste Educators who can visit your school, free of charge. Click here for more information on what they can do and how they can be booked.
Schools throw away a lot of paper. If you do not already recycle your paper in school, ask your teacher to organise a paper recycling scheme with your local council.
You can make colourful posters to stick on the collection boxes or bags, this will encourage everyone to put the right items in the right places. Otherwise the recycling will be contaminated. This means it will have items that should not be there, for example putting a glass bottle into a paper bank will contaminate the load of paper.
Once you have organised a paper recycling collection, you can set up a 'paper team / eco police' to sort through the paper to remove anything that shouldn’t be in the recycling bin e.g. paper not used on both sides (should go into the scrap paper tray), envelopes, cardboard and so on. This team can then report back to their class / school assembly on how the recycling is going.
Recycle printer cartridges and mobile phones. There are many schemes out there that will collect these and actually give you money in return or donate funds raised to charity.
If you would like to set up a free school battery collection scheme then click here.
