Well once again, I have woken up, eaten my breakfast, thrown away the plastic jam containers, thrown away the empty washing up liquid bottle, thrown away the orange juice carton, and this is all before I have got dressed. I make my lunch, there is more plastic rubbish, empty Frubes tubes, a can of sweetcorn chucked away. Do I need to say anymore to emphasis the point?! On a typical day, I fall in to a habit of calling what is no use to me anymore, rubbish, but is it rubbish?
Many county councils across the UK have started to take a tough approach on this idea that you can’t just dump what you don’t need anymore, because this style of living is NOT sustainable. The area of landfill is decreasing every year as we; human beings are the ones who are filling it up with junk.
In the borough of Northamptonshire, the Northamptonshire Joint Municipal Waste Management Strategy has been released, in 5years (2001/02 to 2006/07) the household recycling rate for the whole of Northampton has more than doubled, from the projected figures expected to be finalised soon. This shows a huge increase in people recycling waste and would suggest a huge improvement in the areas of sustainability.
When looking at the finer picture some areas of the borough, have increased hugely with household recycling rates 4% to a mighty 43.3% (KBC) and others only improved from 44% to 47% which is still above the UK average but has DDC found a limit to recycling?
These rates vary in accordance to district for what I assume are many reasons. Each district in Northamptonshire hold their own policies and approach to environmental issues especially recycling and household waste. With differing strategies out to encourage households to recycle, some strategies are bound to work more positively than others. But also some districts i.e. DDC have already reached a rate of nearly 47% of household waste being recycled, where as some districts are still working to achieve such rates. The issue that is raised from this though is, the percentage of household recycling may be increasing, but the amount of waste is ALSO increasing therefore, probably the same amount of recycling is occurring just in larger quantities.
If efforts are made to help households to produce less waste in the first place, then this is also likely to have positive implications for the environment, as well as reducing the cost of waste management.
(page 18 of the NJMWMS Strategy Report)
Some districts use a ‘fine’ system as a deterrent so that households WILL recycle. The variations in collections, not just the timing but what each borough collects will also impact the rates of household recycling rates. If accessibility to recycling is not made easy enough for people then the likely hood is – they will not do it, and this will add to the varying rates as well as the successfulness of the borough.
When observing the summary of annual waste generation per household in 2006/07, I was horrified that roughly, 2 people in Northamptonshire each year will create 1 tonne of waste – that is crazy!! The main way I see fit to reduce this huge waste generation is to cut done primarily on things like – food packaging etc. But also, to try and re-use so many things, i.e. food waste going in to a compost heap, assuring that all foil, plastics, paper is recycled, glass is taken to be recycled and that only rubbish is chucked out.
In Northamptonshire, there could be better incentives to re-cycle, so maybe if you re-cycle; you get so much off a bus fair, which again is encouraging the use of public transport. This would be better than not to have any incentive and in the current economic climate every penny helps!
Even as a university student, if I was shown the real life weight of a tonne in rubbish or otherwise, I would probably be twice as horrified, to when I read the statistics of how much household waste is created per year. In this, a better education of what we should recycle and why, may bring a better reaction through shock. It was only a few weeks ago that I moved in to my flat, but we have in our kitchen, a bin, a green bin for paper and cardboard, a blue bin for tins and plastic and then we also have a red box for glass. This really helps to separate rubbish and recycling and for a flat that does not have ground floor access, makes it a lot easier to manage and clear, even though some students are still struggling with what should go where.
I agree with the disappearance of carrier bags at supermarkets, because it does encourage people to think about re-using bags as well as other items hopefully too.
The one thing I think that not only our university would benefit from, but more communities would, is local compost heaps. I know they may encourage little rodents but, they would cut down on some waste, and as Tesco would say ‘every little helps’.
REFERENCE
Northamptonshire Joint Municipal Waste Management Strategy
http://www.northamptonshire.gov.uk/Environment/Waste/strategy.htm
(pp.17-19 Tables 3 - 5)
Many county councils across the UK have started to take a tough approach on this idea that you can’t just dump what you don’t need anymore, because this style of living is NOT sustainable. The area of landfill is decreasing every year as we; human beings are the ones who are filling it up with junk.
In the borough of Northamptonshire, the Northamptonshire Joint Municipal Waste Management Strategy has been released, in 5years (2001/02 to 2006/07) the household recycling rate for the whole of Northampton has more than doubled, from the projected figures expected to be finalised soon. This shows a huge increase in people recycling waste and would suggest a huge improvement in the areas of sustainability.
When looking at the finer picture some areas of the borough, have increased hugely with household recycling rates 4% to a mighty 43.3% (KBC) and others only improved from 44% to 47% which is still above the UK average but has DDC found a limit to recycling?
These rates vary in accordance to district for what I assume are many reasons. Each district in Northamptonshire hold their own policies and approach to environmental issues especially recycling and household waste. With differing strategies out to encourage households to recycle, some strategies are bound to work more positively than others. But also some districts i.e. DDC have already reached a rate of nearly 47% of household waste being recycled, where as some districts are still working to achieve such rates. The issue that is raised from this though is, the percentage of household recycling may be increasing, but the amount of waste is ALSO increasing therefore, probably the same amount of recycling is occurring just in larger quantities.
If efforts are made to help households to produce less waste in the first place, then this is also likely to have positive implications for the environment, as well as reducing the cost of waste management.
(page 18 of the NJMWMS Strategy Report)
Some districts use a ‘fine’ system as a deterrent so that households WILL recycle. The variations in collections, not just the timing but what each borough collects will also impact the rates of household recycling rates. If accessibility to recycling is not made easy enough for people then the likely hood is – they will not do it, and this will add to the varying rates as well as the successfulness of the borough.
When observing the summary of annual waste generation per household in 2006/07, I was horrified that roughly, 2 people in Northamptonshire each year will create 1 tonne of waste – that is crazy!! The main way I see fit to reduce this huge waste generation is to cut done primarily on things like – food packaging etc. But also, to try and re-use so many things, i.e. food waste going in to a compost heap, assuring that all foil, plastics, paper is recycled, glass is taken to be recycled and that only rubbish is chucked out.
In Northamptonshire, there could be better incentives to re-cycle, so maybe if you re-cycle; you get so much off a bus fair, which again is encouraging the use of public transport. This would be better than not to have any incentive and in the current economic climate every penny helps!
Even as a university student, if I was shown the real life weight of a tonne in rubbish or otherwise, I would probably be twice as horrified, to when I read the statistics of how much household waste is created per year. In this, a better education of what we should recycle and why, may bring a better reaction through shock. It was only a few weeks ago that I moved in to my flat, but we have in our kitchen, a bin, a green bin for paper and cardboard, a blue bin for tins and plastic and then we also have a red box for glass. This really helps to separate rubbish and recycling and for a flat that does not have ground floor access, makes it a lot easier to manage and clear, even though some students are still struggling with what should go where.
I agree with the disappearance of carrier bags at supermarkets, because it does encourage people to think about re-using bags as well as other items hopefully too.
The one thing I think that not only our university would benefit from, but more communities would, is local compost heaps. I know they may encourage little rodents but, they would cut down on some waste, and as Tesco would say ‘every little helps’.
REFERENCE
Northamptonshire Joint Municipal Waste Management Strategy
http://www.northamptonshire.gov.uk/Environment/Waste/strategy.htm
(pp.17-19 Tables 3 - 5)
1 comment:
Nice one. Good thoughts. It is a crying shame that people need motivation to recycle, but there you go. Perhaps there's hope for the new generation?
We need to learn to live with less packaging too..but is that possible?
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