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Household Waste, Recycling and Landfills |
Most of us, particularly if living in a City, consider our household rubbish as pure waste that we just want to disappear. Put your bins or rubbish bags out once a week (for the fortunate) or fortnightly (for the less fortunate) and it'll disappear into the back of a waste cart for transportation to a local dump or landfill site, where it's simply discarded. |
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Not so bad you might think. After all, in the UK you pay your council taxes and hence have a right to dispose of your household rubbish. Well, you're in for a bit of a shock. It's not as simple as that any more and it may be time to re-think just what you're putting in your rubbish bin.
Landfill sites in the UK are becomming more and more difficult to manage, control and in effect the provision of land for waste disposal is fast becomming a crisis. We're an island after all, so we've got limited land to play with. We're even exporting our waste to other countries, incinerating our waste but by far the most cost effective way to deal with your household waste is to sort it at the source. This means having five bins in your house for the following: |
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- Cardboard and paper which can be re-used.
- Cans
- Bottles and glass
- Compostable waste
- regular waste
In reality, splitting up your rubbish into these five components will result in significantly less going into your rubbish bin. It should really consist of plastic wrappers and possible shiny paper (which can't be readily re-
used).
How else are the Environment Agency, the DTI and other government bodies clamping down on landfill and making sure we recycle? Well, for a start Businesses are no longer permitted to dispose of any waste at Landfill and now have to pay for it. There are also a large number of things that can't be simply put in regular rubbish. Defined under ROHS guidelines as containing: Heavy metals such as lead, chromium, cadmium etc. Fire retardants and other toxins. The reason for this is that the Government is ensuring there won't be any polution of the Groundwater or future issues with contamination of the ground.
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