By Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Does kerbside recycling work in the way that it is currently being done in many areas in the UK (and elsewhere)?
The short answer to this must be a definite NO. Mixed materials collection, and that does include the way paper is being collected, does not work as often, in the case of paper, thermal paper and other non-recyclable paper is included.
Many residents in the British boroughs put out all types of paper into the one bag or box that is being used for the waste paper recycling collection with the council always having the slogan “we will sort it”. But this is not, actually, a feasible way, unless the councils' waste departments have lots of people working behind the scenes sorting all that paper manually, by hand, when it comes in. I am sure, however, that this is not happening.
From what I have seen personally residents seem to throw all manner of different types of “paper” into this collection, including thermal paper, from till receipts, old-style, but still in use, fax machines, etc.
Thermal paper cannot – unless I am very much mistaken – be recycled with other paper. Neither can pages that are lightly (and not so lightly) laminated, such as gloss finished pages of heavy catalogs, and such like.
So, what's the point of kerbside recycling collections of waste paper when the paper ends up so contaminated with non-recyclable paper that the entire stuff can only go pone place. Yes, the landfill. Is it just all a sham and for show?
The above question, I am afraid to say, is a serious one and not just a rhetorical question for, unless things have changed in the last year or two, and that waste paper that arrives is meticulously sorted then it is but a farce and a sham and the paper is contaminated in such a way that recycling just simply is not possible.
With other parts of kerbside recycling collecting I can see similar problems.
Plastic bottles, etc., are all mixed up with other plastics and bottles, more often than not, still have the tops on, or at least the “ring” attached. As the cap and the “ring” are of a different plastic than the bottles the cap and/or the “ring” will have to be removed by hand. In fact, a lot of manual sorting I reckon to be required to ensure that the correct plastics reach the right locations.
So, are we all being fooled?
On the other hand it is indeed possible that this sorting all does happen but probably not anywhere locally.
I hasten to bet that this waste is shipped “as is” to some Third World country where it is then being sorted in, more often than not, appalling conditions for those sorters.
Some serious questions, I think, need to be asked as to what, actually, happens to those recyclables that are being collected at the kerbside.
© 2011
