Where does our recycling go?
Unfortunately it's not quite as simple as 'from recycling bins to supermarket shelves'
Yesterday was Global Recycling Day! How did you celebrate? I celebrated by doing some research into the reality of recycling rules in the UK. You may be unaware, but in the UK recycling is a for-profit industry.
Recycling is such a big area that I am going to spread the topic over this week’s newsletter and next. This week I will focus on how we recycle in the UK. Next week I'll explore our recycling exports and what’s changing in the world of waste.
A recent Channel 4 Dispatches documentary uncovered the dirty secret of recycling.
We are told from a young age to reduce, reuse and recycle to save the planet. We're taught to put every piece of paper in the classroom recycling bin. Recycling is about each of us acting in our homes and businesses to enable materials to be used again and again. Sounds great, easy and effective. What could be better than diverting items from landfill and using them over and over again?
But has recycling become pointless?
When landfills became taxed in 1996, councils needed to find a new way to dispose of their rubbish. They turned to incineration - which was tax-free and funded through private finance initiatives. In England, as of 2018, we burnt more waste than we recycled because it is cheaper to incinerate than to recycle. This means that we take the time to separate items into our recycling bins, only for some of them to not be recycled at all. On average, 11% of the waste we put in our recycling bins is being incinerated.
Every council must provide a recycling service, but what each council collects varies. It doesn't matter how much you want to recycle if you don't know what you can recycle. Every council accepts different items and packaging is often unclear. This means a lot of us simply don't recycle as much as we could because it's so confusing. We put items in the recycling bin which are later removed as they can't be recycled. We put recyclable items in our general rubbish eliminating the opportunity to recycle.
For recyclable items that are sent to the right place, you can see how they recycle each material here.
There is a financial incentive to divert recyclable items into incineration.
When we burn waste to produce electricity, we create an incentive to produce waste. Incinerators are costly to build and function for decades - ‘25 years is not an uncommon assumption’ according to the government. This means there is a demand for waste to be sent to incineration for 25+ years.
This runs counter to the reduce, reuse, recycle messages that we have seen since the 90s. Only 29% of the waste collected by the North London Waste Authority was recycled in 2019-20. In the same year West London Waste Authority recycled, reused or composted 150,000 tonnes of waste. 421,000 tonnes of waste was sent to incineration or landfill. The areas of the UK with the lowest recycling rates have the highest incineration rates and vice versa. Many items sent to incineration could be recycled. But the cost of cleaning and sorting is considered prohibitive for the for-profit industry.
Incinerators need to be fed, so recycling is being diverted towards these incinerators to ensure they keep operating. DEFRA even acknowledged that energy from waste competes with recycling at the local level and admitted that:
‘The concern is that (such) changes would never take place as they would reduce the overall volume of waste going to the plant, with the need to ‘feed’ the plant undermining the case for such recycling and prevention initiatives. Indeed it is a commercial reality that such projects do require a minimum guaranteed throughput to be viable.’
Carbon dioxide emissions from waste incineration are now larger than coal in the UK and this figure is a huge underreporting. Incinerators don't pay carbon taxes - either on the waste they receive or the emissions produced. Waste incineration is bad for people and the planet. We now need to campaign to end the financial incentive to create energy from waste.
So what can we do?
Firstly, make sure you understand what you can and can't recycle. Every misplaced item is another item sent to incineration. You can find out exactly what you can recycle here.
Secondly, ask your local council what your council’s recycling facilities are. Enquire if they’re similar to neighbouring boroughs or if they plan on changing their facilities soon. Standardising recycling rules across councils and boroughs can hugely increase recycling rates.
You can compare and contrast recycling rates across the country here.
Thirdly, reduce and reuse. Better recycling is important but we should reduce the overall volume of things we use. If we use less, we have less to recycle, incinerate or landfill. Reuse and reduce wherever possible, so that landfill and incineration is the very last resort.
This week’s recommendations to read, watch and listen:
The fantastic documentary on which this article is based - Dirty Truth About Your Rubbish: Dispatches and the press release with more facts and stats
As always, please share, subscribe and have a good weekend!