Environmental Studies - Recycling

I am going to be looking at recycling and the contribution which it can make to environmental sustainability and whether it is social and economic or technological factors which are most important. I will begin by defining 'recycling' and 'environmental sustainability' and look at the dual nature of technology. I will be addressing what exactly are social and economic factors and discussing the part they play in recycling and sustainability. Technology such as CHP (Combined Heat and Power) plants and the role they play and the negative aspects of the technology. My discussion will look at recycling and what the most crucial factors are, social and economic or technology.

What is meant by the term 'recycling'? My interpretation of 'recycling' is the reprocessing of materials which have been used already, back into a useful product.

What is meant by the term 'environmental sustainability'? This is the need for human kind to maintain and support our environment, both locally and globally, from the increasing pressures which we make on the earth. For example the increasing levels of carbon dioxide which we produce from burning finite fossil fuels such as oil and gas, which have been taken from deep within the earth. Humans need to maintain and support the environment for future generations to enjoy.

The Nature of Technology

Technology is the use of scientific, engineering and other knowledge, applied to specific tasks by organisations using people and machinery.

Technology is viewed by some to be of great benefit to society but others see it as destructive and damaging to the environment. Both of these views to some extent can be true, depending on what technology is in question and how it is used by people

The dual nature of technology is in effect the positive and negative impacts which technology has on individuals, the local environment and the global environment. Every positive aspect of technology can usually be balanced with a negative, this is not indicative that certain technologies are good or bad but more about how society implements and uses technology.

If we look at the dual nature of technology in recycling for instance in Table 1., one point of view would be that this is a useful technology as it reduces pollution because less waste is disposed of into landfill and less energy is used by reprocessing waste material such as aluminium cans than would be used in extracting and processing raw aluminium. Manufacturing an aluminium product using raw materials uses 20 times the energy than using recycled material (Open University 2005a). There is a clear benefit to the environment therefore, in reduced landfill and less carbon dioxide and other gases pumped into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming. On the other hand it could also be argued that all the aluminium needs to be collected, sorted and transported to the processing point, this would all use energy for transport, put extra vehicles on the road, requiring extra land take up and by products would also be produced which would need to be disposed of. The dual nature of technology applies to all technology.

DUAL NATURE OF TECHNOLOGY (Table 1.)
RECYCLING,		TRANSPORT
Positive Impacts	Negative Impacts	Positive Impacts	Negative Impacts
-Reduced energy use -Reduced pollution -Reduction in use of natural resources	-Transport required to collect and move materials -Energy required to process materials -Unavoidable waste produced	-Able to move great distances quickly -Convenient -Gives people independence	-Causes pollution -Land use for roads and car parks -Effects on human health from pollution and traffic accidents -Global warming

Transport for example, as show in Table 1. is of great benefit to us as it allows us to travel over large distances more quickly than we could if we had to walk or cycle. We can transport large amounts of heavy goods and transport also gives us independence and the ability to go where we want, when we want. The price we pay for transport is pollution to our cities, land take up used to build roads, car parks and garages (Open University 2006a). We also suffer damage to our health, such as heart and lung disease caused by breathing the pollution from burning fossil fuels to power the transport. The pollution affects health on a local level but the production of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, from burning fossil fuels also has an effect globally by contributing to global warming.

Introduction and Definitions

What is meant by 'social and economic factors'? Social to me is taken as meaning human, culture or a section of society. Economic means the financial profit or loss either in monetary terms or material. The factor is a condition of fact which actively contributes to a result.

I see 'social and economic factors' as being the human, financial and material conditions which contribute or affect a result or outcome.

Social and economic factors of recycling for example would be that in the UK the geology lends itself to land filling our waste because there is a high clay content within the earth which stops residue from landfill from leaking out and polluting waterways. There are countless open quarries from the mining of minerals which can be filled with waste and covered over. This means that in the UK it is more cost effective to landfill our waste than it would be to build and run a waste incinerator or recycle more waste (Open University 2005b). In other parts of the world such as Japan, Switzerland, Netherlands, Austria, Belgium and Germany more waste is recycled or incinerated as shown in Table 2.

Recycling / Incineration Comparison Table (Table 2.) (Open University 2005c)
RECYCLING		INCINERATION
Austria	64%	Japan	74%
Belgium	52%	Switzerland	47%
Germany	48%	Netherlands	42%
U.K.	16%	U.K.	9%

People's attitudes towards waste disposal tend to be an out of sight is out of mind attitude when it comes to rubbish. Once something is thrown in the bin it is forgotten about, if people in general knew what the environmental impact of their waste was they may think twice about discarding something that could be recycled or re-used (Open University 2005d). By educating the public about what happens to waste after it leaves our home as rubbish we could increase the quantity of recycled and re-used products. It is not only household waste that can be recycled; businesses must also be encouraged to recycle, financial incentives to encourage business waste recycling could be legislated for or charges on commercial waste disposal to encourage recycling. Only 7% of the total UK waste comes from households and 4% arises from commercial waste.

If we look at transport in the UK some of the social and economic factors would be the effects on peoples lives caused by the large amounts of vehicles on our roads. Areas with heavy concentrations of traffic can make it difficult for the elderly and also young children to get out on their own. There are also associated health concerns with this, the elderly become isolated from social support and children lead increasingly sedentary lives which can then lead to obesity and lack of fitness (Open University 2006b).

Discussion

The hierarchy of waste management shown in Figure 1. shows the various means of dealing with waste with the most environmentally sustainable, waste reduction at the top moving down to the least environmentally sustainable option, disposal, at the bottom.

REDUCTION

RE-USE

RECOVERY -Recycling -Composting -Energy (CHP)

DISPOSAL

Figure 1. Hierarchy of Waste Management (Open University 2005e)

In support of social and economic factors being important to recycling, if every household in the UK recycled more of their waste this would make a huge contribution to the UK reaching their target of recycling or composting 33% of waste by 2015 (Open University 2005f).

The UK treatment and disposal of solid waste is shown in Figure 2. below, this shows that there is a great deal of room for improvement by reducing the amount of waste which we send to landfill. In order for recycling of household waste to be successful it requires public cooperation, a large proportion of the public have an out of sight is out of mind attitude to waste and once it is thrown in to the dustbin it is forgotten about. If central and local government were to conduct a public awareness campaign to educate the public of the environmental impact of waste this would increase public willingness to recycle, local authorities must provide the infrastructure to carry out the collecting, transportation and processing of the recyclable materials. It is argued by some that the collecting, transporting and processing of recyclable materials can be more costly either financially in terms of transport costs or environmentally such as an increase in energy used to process the material (Open University 2005i).

Figure 2. UK Treatment and Disposal of Municipal Solid Waste 2002 - 2003 (Open University 2005g)

There is a belief by some that technology such as CHP (Combined Heat and Power) plants are the way forward, these plants would remove the need to transport recycling materials over large distances to be processed therefore reducing the environmental impacts associated with transport mentioned above in Table 1. Waste rather than being recycled could be incinerated at a CHP plant locally to where it is collected and the embodied energy can be reclaimed, the heat from incineration can then be used to generate electricity and provide hot water and heating to local homes and businesses (Open University 2005j). There has been research into LCA (Life Cycle Analysis) for different ways of disposing of waste paper, this research points to incineration with the energy recovered being a more environmentally sustainable option than recycling (Open University 2005k). Schemes such as CHP need to be made economically viable, as mentioned above it is more cost effective to landfill waste in the UK than it is to reuse or recycle. In order for CHP to be efficient there would need to be a large amount of local plants generating electricity and providing local heating, there would therefore be an environmental impact in building these plants, impacts such as land take up, use of natural resources to manufacture cement and aggregates and the energy used in the building process for transportation of materials. These would have to be taken into account and a BPEO assessment (Best Practicable Environmental Option) (Open University 2005l) carried out, BPEO assessments look at the least environmentally damaging options of disposing of waste and takes into account the financial costs. The incineration of waste in these CHP plants would also produce gases and dust from the incineration process, which would introduce more pollution into the atmosphere. UK and EU legislation means that systems are added to the chimneys which scrub the pollutants such as heavy metals, acidic gases and dust from the chimneys output (Open University 2005m). There could be an aesthetic impact to having these CHP plants close to people's homes and the public would potentially be against them, but there could also be a benefit in reduced energy costs for heating their homes and hot water.

Legislation should be tightened such as an increase in landfill duty to encourage local authorities to recycle or reprocess more waste.

Conclusion

"The contribution that recycling, as part of the waste management hierarchy, can make to environmental sustainability is more dependant on social and ecocnomic factors than on technological development"

I agree with this statement because even if a technological option were available to deal with all waste materials in an environmentally sustainable way, it would only work if it was economically viable and people were willing to cooperate. Local authorities are not going to collect, transport and process materials to recycle when they can landfill into old quarries which are already waiting to be filled in. With legislation in place such as an increase in landfill tax and a charge on commercial waste which goes to landfill, the infrastructure to deal with recycling of materials in place, public awareness would rise and more materials would be removed from the waste stream to recycling. Even with the most state of the art recycling technology, if people are not on side the materials will still be land filled. Technology plays a relatively small part, it is people and the economy which makes things happen. We already have the technological capability to recycle and re-use more waste materials, this has been shown by the fact that other countries are capable of recycling more as shown in Table 2. it is simply a case that we in the UK just do not recycle enough compared to other nations because we have the easy and economically viable option of landfill. We must change people's awareness of waste and make recycling an economically viable option with legislation from central and local government.

References and Sources

The Open University (2005a) T172 Working with our environment: technology for a sustainable future, Resources File 1, page 33, Milton Keynes, The Open University
The Open University (2005b) T172 Working with our environment: technology for a sustainable future, Resources File 1, page 23, Milton Keynes, The Open University
The Open University (2005c) T172 Working with our environment: technology for a sustainable future, Resources File 1, page 19 and 23, Milton Keynes, The Open University
The Open University (2005d) T172 Working with our environment: technology for a sustainable future, Resources File 1, page 20, Milton Keynes, The Open University
The Open University (2005e) T172 Working with our environment: technology for a sustainable future, Resources File 1, page 20, Milton Keynes, The Open University
The Open University (2005f) T172 Working with our environment: technology for a sustainable future, Resources File 1, page 19, Milton Keynes, The Open University
The Open University (2005g) T172 Working with our environment: technology for a sustainable future, Resources File 1, page 24, Milton Keynes, The Open University
The Open University (2005h) T172 Working with our environment: technology for a sustainable future, Resources File 1, page 21, Milton Keynes, The Open University
The Open University (2005i) T172 Working with our environment: technology for a sustainable future, Resources File 1, page 22, Milton Keynes, The Open University
The Open University (2005j) T172 Working with our environment: technology for a sustainable future, Resources File 1, page 22, Milton Keynes, The Open University
The Open University (2005k) T172 Working with our environment: technology for a sustainable future, Resources File 1, page 30, Milton Keynes, The Open University
The Open University (2005l) T172 Working with our environment: technology for a sustainable future, Resources File 1, page 18, Milton Keynes, The Open University
The Open University (2005m) T172 Working with our environment: technology for a sustainable future, Resources File 1, page 23, Milton Keynes, The Open University
The Open University (2006a) T172 Working with our environment: technology for a sustainable future, Theme 2 - Travelling Light, page 38, Milton Keynes, The Open University
The Open University (2006b) T172 Working with our environment: technology for a sustainable future, Theme 2 - Travelling Light, page 36, Milton Keynes, The Open University