Recycling

RECYCLING

ACCORDING TO THE Global Recycling Network, recycling refers to a “process by which materials that would otherwise become solid waste are collected, separated or processed and returned to the economic mainstream to be reused in the form of raw materials or finished goods.” Recycling turns waste into resources. In addition, it generates environmental, economical, and social benefits. Recycling is normally associated with materials such as glass, metal, plastics and paper; but the recycling concept can also be applied to water. This article will address recycling in both developed and developing countries, as well as water recycling concepts.

The amount of garbage produced today can be attributed to two legacies of the 20th century: Population explosion and the Industrial Revolution. While population growth has increased waste generation, it can also be attributed to the constant development of new or improved products, such as new car models, to stimulate consumption and, therefore, economic growth. In developed countries, many goods that could still be used fill up landfills. In the past, garbage was more organic in nature and thus assimilated easily, but many of the materials used today are inorganic (e.g., plastics) and degrade very slowly. This increase in consumerism and the limited availability of land to dispose of waste eventually led to efforts to reduce consumption and to reuse and recycle goods. The word “recycling” hardly existed in the lexicon of developed economies of the West until a few decades ago.

Recycling is one of the environmental success stories of the late 20th century. Recycling (including composting) diverted 72 million tons of material away from landfills and incinerators in 2003, up from 34 million tons in 1990. By 2002, almost 9,000 curbside collection programs served roughly half of the American population. Curbside programs, along with drop-off and buy-back centers, resulted in a diversion of about 30 percent of the nation’s solid waste in 2001.

Besides diverting wastes from landfills, some of the benefits of recycling are that it conserves resources for future generations; prevents emissions of many greenhouse gases and water pollutants; saves energy that would be used to produce material from new raw materials; supplies valuable raw materials to industry; and creates jobs and stimulates development of innovative greener technologies. Recycling has some downsides as well; boxes and bottles of brand names may be used to sell substandard or spurious products. At times, small recycling industries create more pollution.

Basil Rossi

During the 1960s, there was a move toward increasing the recycling of goods throughout Western countries, and in the 1970s, Australian expatriate Basil Rossi established the Asian Recycling Association in Manila, the Philippines, to study the possible use of recyclable waste there.

Rossi had worked in Singapore, Britain, and Spain before moving to the Philippines, and had been involved in the reuse of agricultural waste, as well as industrial waste. Central to his ideas was the use of the wormLumbricus rubellus, or the “red wriggler,” which eats organic waste. The worms themselves were largely protein and could be turned into biscuits for feeding to animals, while their droppings provided excellent fertilizer. The biscuits sold well in Taiwan, but the major problem in the Philippines was not organic waste, which decomposed quickly, but industrial waste, which did not.

The use of these worms was also tied to plans to establish a small sustainable farm on which a family produce their own food and even much of their own power. They would raise their own chickens and crops, using the chicken waste as fertilizer, leading to the smallest possible ecological footprint. The British Broadcasting Corporation made a series of radio programs about this project in the mid-1980s. Rossi included many of these concepts in his book Recycling & Non-Waste Technology 1979, which was published in Manila and co-authored with his wife Portia A. Nayve, but Rossi took ill during the late 1980s and died in the late 1990s before he was able to fully develop many of his ideas.

RECYCLABLE MATERIALS

According to a 1987 World Watch Study, every time an aluminium can is recycled, the energy equivalent to production of a half a can is saved. One ton of re-melted aluminium eliminates the need (in the original process) for four tons of bauxite ore and seven hundred kilograms of petroleum coke or pitch, while reducing emissions of air polluting aluminium fluoride by 35 kilograms. The report concluded that by doubling worldwide aluminium recovery rates, over a million tons of air pollutants would be eliminated. It has been found that making a new aluminium can from a used can takes 95 percent less energy; 20 recycled cans can be made with the energy needed to produce one can using virgin ore.

Besides the well-known materials such as plastic, paper, aluminum, and glass, other materials that can be recycled are as follows:

1. Yard waste consisting primarily of leaves, branches, and tree trimmings can be used mainly to produce compost, landscape mulch, and intermediate landfill cover or can also be used as biofuel. If the compost has to be used in agriculture or gardens, however, strict guidelines need to be followed.

2. Construction and demolition waste resulting from either renovations, construction, demolition of buildings, repairs of buildings, roads, bridges, etc., mainly consists of concrete, asphalt, bricks, dirt, wood products, paint, metals, plaster, glass, insulation material, and pipes. The main incentive to recycle or reuse most of this waste is high-tipping fees at landfill sites, where applicable.

3. Wood waste can vary depending on the source. It can be from forest clearing, yard waste, furniture shops, construction and demolition waste, paper mills, and other industries. The origin of the wood waste determines how and where it can be recycled or reused.

4. Recycling of household batteries is not easy because most plants do not have the technology to do it, but lead-acid batteries are normally crushed to recover lead, plastic, and sulfuric acid.

5. The main generators of tires are consumers changing tires, garages, automobile shops, and factories. The main recycling opportunities for tires are retreading and remanufacturing tires; use in boiler fuels in waste-to-energy recovering plants; to produce rubber-modified asphalt (though many paving contractors do not like to use it); to create artificial reefs, erosion control structures, muffler hangers, floor mats, and more.

6. Nonferrous metals such as copper, lead, nickel, steel, tin, and zinc are recovered from common household items such as kitchen cook-ware and appliances, ladders, and outdoor furniture; from construction and demolition projects; and also from commercial and industrial products. Most of the copper recovered from wire, tubing, plumbing, and fixtures can be reused. Lead, which can be recovered from tire weights, batteries, cables, and solders, can be recycled in batteries, solder, bearings, shots, and alloys. Recycled nickel can be used in high strength and corrosion-resistant alloys and stainless steel; recycled zinc can be used in galvanized products, brasses and alloys.

The limitations to what can be recycled are market demand and technical issues. To recycle economically there has to be a demand for the recycled product. Until and unless a commercial enterprise uses a recovered material to manufacture a new product, there is no point in recovering a material. Technical difficulties in recovery stem from the fact that municipal waste is heterogeneous in nature. For successful recycling there has to be separation at source or as near to source as possible. Ideally, the separation should be done either in the households by the waste generators themselves or the waste should be separated in different bins. Otherwise, separation of recyclable components from mixed waste is difficult and uneconomical. Storage facilities and costs may also limit the recycling of certain materials.

DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Recycling is different in developing countries, where small per capita incomes keep consumption low. This also encourages the reuse and eventual recycling of much material. In the recycling process, rag-pickers pick up things from litter, segregate it and sell it to either junk-dealers or middlemen. Alternatively, junk-dealers buy things from households and sell them to the middleman who in turn sells the same to primary industry. Materials such as metal, plastic, and paper get out of the stream of waste going to landfill sites.

THE CASE OF INDIA

In many Western countries, where campaigns are organized by government departments, industry and municipalities offer incentives and subsidies for the collection and separation of wastes. In India, these activities are self-organized through a chain of self-employed individuals or groups of dealers and agents for whom this work is a source of good income. The following examples are based mainly on information from Delhi, or India in general, but much of it is true for similar developing countries.

Waste paper is one of the principal raw materials used by small paper mills. The waste paper mills are estimated to constitute about 27 percent of the effective installed capacity for the manufacture of paper and paper boards. Apart from this, some of the paper collected is also used for the “hand-made paper” industry and some of it is used to make envelopes, toilet paper, tissues, and packaging materials. Large quantities of newspaper are used in the fruit industry for packing.

Most of the plastic (PVC) collected is sold to factories, while such items

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