Waste and Resources and Action
Now in its fifth year, the campaign is run by WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Programme): a not-for-profit company supported by funding from DEFRA and the DTI, in partnership with the administrations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The week is supported by local authorities, schools and businesses, when hundreds of events take place across the UK highlighting the importance of recycling, as well as informing and raising awareness of the benefits to the community.
Recycle Now Week – 21st June to 28th June 2010
If you want to know the answers to those pressing questions about recycling such as…
What items can be recycled?
When is Compost Awareness Week?
What is the Mobius Loop?
What is the point in recycling anyway?
…then look no further!
For these are all things that can be learnt during Recycle Now Week that runs from 21st to 28th June: an annual event held to “kick start new habits that can help us all want to recycle more”.
If you want to find out what’s happening in your area, help take part or organise some of the activities, enter your post code on the Event Finder on the Recycle Now website.
While you’re on the website, it’s a great place to pick up some recycling tips and information about recycling symbols (Oh, so that’s what a Mobius Loop is!), how to reduce packaging, and cool eco products.
If simply knowing which bin to put out on which day of the week confuses you (and it does me!) – all is revealed with such infectious zeal that you’ll be motivated and enthused to “find out something new, do something new or generally do more of what you already do”.
Kerbside Enthusiasm
The good news is that nowadays nine out of every ten houses has kerbside collection: residual household waste has decreased by 22% since 2000/01, equivalent to an average of 16kg per person per year across England as a result of campaigns like Recycle Now.
Slightly worse news is that although 73% of packaging produced in the UK can be recycled, only 33% actually is – surely some room for improvement there.
But what actually happens to all our carefully sorted rubbish when it leaves the house?
If you’ve ever plaintively opined the question “why?” when rinsing out cans of cat food at the kitchen sink, the Recycle Now website can provide you with some of the answers.
Plastic Beach
Our discarded household items are being turned into commodities that are valued across the world.
Once the rubbish leaves the kerb, it’s taken to a Materials Recovery Site where all the different types of material are sorted by hand or machine, and sent to manufacturers who then transform it into brand new products so we can buy them again – adds a new meaning to materialism doesn’t it?
Millions of tonnes of material are recycled every year, with the result that all newspapers in the UK are made from recycled paper and over 80% of glass is used to make new bottles and jars.
Recyclables like plastic waste garner high prices in countries such as China, where there are not so many natural resources: there’s also the added advantage that carbon emissions are minimised, energy is reduced, and materials are not being landfilled.
Stray Toasters
The theme for this year’s Recycle Now week focuses on old electrical items: you know, those things we’ve all got hidden away at the back of cupboards, or shoved in drawers – that Walkman that was state-of-the-art back in the 80s, or the 1970s ghetto blaster you just can’t bear to throw away because you saved up for it for months!
Basically anything with a plug, a battery, that needs charging or holds a crossed out wheelie bin logo – kids’ toys, broken kettles or toasters - can all be dropped off at the local recycling centre where their valuable components of plastics, metals (including gold, silver and copper) can be recycled and turned into new electrical items.
And when you hear that last year 173 million electrical items were sold, as well as 27 million mobile phones, not to recycle waste seems like such… a waste!
External Links:
Recycle Now
About Recycling Week 2009