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The Truth About Recycling...
The Guardian (UK) recently had a great article that put to bed a lot of the assumptions about the recycling of domestic waste. You can read the whole article here , but some choice cuts from the piece: "Ian Wakelin, Greenstar's CEO, offers up a passionate defence of recycling: "Yes, there is a backlash against recycling at the moment, but there is also a real lack of balance in the debate. Is recycling being landfilled, as some are claiming? Beyond the contaminated matter that we have to extract from the recyclate we receive [about 5-10% of the total weight], I think this is nonsense. I haven't talked to anyone in the recycling industry who has landfilled anything that is recyclable. The economics just don't stack up. Why would they when landfill gate fees are so high? [Currently, about £50-60 a tonne.] They can give it to me and I will readily take it off them."" |  |
| "Chris Allen is one of the reprocessors waiting keenly "downstream" for these materials to turn them back into "useful stuff". "We turn things such as newspaper, old cardboard boxes and cornflake packets into quality brown paper," he says. "The UK produces 2m tonnes of cardboard boxes a year. We should do our level best to produce these with locally recycled materials. At the moment, I'm paying £50-55 a tonne for mixed waste paper and card, whereas I'm selling it as brown paper for £280 a tonne. This is a viable business, believe me. The fibres from those trees that get cut down have a bloody good life."" |
