Forum topic: Recycling – are we not so bad rather than bad?

Retain an open mind and never stop learning and questioning seems good advice. Yesterday I was with a senior from the NLWA (waste authority). Discussing the hot topic of recycling he highlighted an issue with the traditional measurement technique being based on weight. (Our collective recycling performance has been less than spectacular on this metric.) But consider packaging technology and in particular its change over past years – less of it, invariably lighter, something not least supermarkets have driven hard. (Long since their contracts would be no longer than 12mths due to the pace of change in packaging technology.) Now consider, we could each be recycling more items absolutely (I do) but less in weight terms (me - no idea). If non recyclate – furniture, rubble, stuff generally - has maintained a relatively constant weight then the percentage of recycling would fall even if we were recycling more items. Good shout I said. They don’t know the answer to that one but I will buy the argument as a clear maybe.
Where might that leave us with the incinerator argument? Well, no change I suggest: there is no landfill space in London and extremely unlikely to be so, and landfill space outside of London is fast filling, generally disappearing and, as all Duty to Cooperate statements show between us and key shire counties, is not going to expand to meet London’s stuff. So if all our non-recycled stuff is not to be landfilled, where will it go? One to keep questioning because I’m yet to hear an answer.

We shouldn't focus that much on recycling waste but rather on not producing any. In Germany, for example, you need to license (= pay a fee) the packaging material used during shipment ( www.lizenzero.de/en/blog/german-packaging-act-in-the-uk-obligations-when-shipping-to-germany/ ). As a consequence people try to pack as simple as possible. Newspapers can be used as protective filling, packages or shoe boxes can be reused if they are not too damaged, etc.

I’ll 100% agree with Debra Terry about where the real focus needs to be. That said packaging is only marginal in waste totals so what is really needed is systemic change – goods made to have a future life, either in total or as parts or as raw material. That has to come from government and will be neither quick nor I imagine as cheap as current, at least for a number of years. One thing probably worth pointing out, pausing and reflecting the new Edmonton plant includes by implication a continuation of incineration, I’d guess for at least a decade, possibly more. There’s no easy way out of this one while we have an economy and lifestyles based on consuming. Pausing the incineration plans wouldn’t pause our waste generation.