Recycling@UCL: a quick newsflash

Miles Irving says...

This is (another) post that it wasn't meant to be done now. However, I believe that an interesting part of blogging can be also the unpredictability of writing sequences. I mean, sometimes we have to modify a sort of planned schedule depending of what's going on around. So, what did Mr Irving say? As promised in the introduction post of this blog, I will widely discuss the recycling facilities in our University but, in the last days, the Cartographic Illustrator of the Drawing Office (UCL - Department of Geography) sent two important emails over. The former (14/11/2014) looks more like as an indisputable call to follow the basic rules of recycling and of the good manners while the latter (19/11/2014) is a clear handbook about how to recycle our waste at UCL.
For the time being, considering that the subject of the second email is exactly what I will fully investigate through the "proper post" about recycling at UCL, I want to copy here the body of the first Miles' email as I found its content so appropriate as well as strictly related to this blog:

"Dear All,

I would like to remind everyone about the Food Waste Bins, these are either the “Orange" Section of the triple banks dotted around campus, or any bin with a “Red” bin bag usually located in Kitchen areas often in a brown plastic bin.

these bins are for uncooked or cooked food waste only

including
Fruit
Banana Skins
Tea Bags (but not Tea)
Coffee Grounds (but not coffee)
Sandwiches
Yoghurt
Fish
If you would put it in your composter at home, you can put in here 

Please do not put in...

Cardboard Coffee Cups
Unwanted mail (especially with your name on it) (if you don’t want it, stop it coming from source)
Full Yoghurt Pots
Sandwich wrappers
Liquids
Cellophane and dirty food trays
Plastic Bags and bottles 

There is also a battery bin located in Pearson & Bedford Way.
this too is full of all of the above waste, it is not nice having to pick out old banana skins and coffee cups from the batteries.

As your green champion I am always happy to discuss any aspect of recycling and I will send out a full breakdown of all of our recycling opportunities next week

Thanks

Miles"

I feel like helping Miles to spread his message.

Well, in the next days I am going to resume the discussion triggered from "Digging the topic - part 3"; taking into account pro and cons of each disposal methods, I will try to understand whether or not recycling is an important tool for society and environment.

See you soon on RE-cycling!

Time Out: news and activities

America Recycles Day, Guardian Big Energy Debate & Manchester United

I decided to start the week with something that looks more relaxing compared to the lists of concepts highlighted in the previous posts. Hence, browsing the Internet, I found three nice bits related to the recycling process and, more generically, to the energy debate.

1. America Recycles Day
In 2012, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), US produced 251 million tons of Municipal Solid Waste. I think that this data is the right point to start talking about the "America Recycles Day", an initiative promoted by the non-profit Keep America Beautiful with the aim to encourage the communities increasing their recycling actions.
The official day is on November 15th of each year but it actually lasts longer than a single day. In the last few months 1053 events were planned throughout the US territory: “Plastic Bag Recycling & Household Hazardous Waste” (Hickory, North Carolina), “Recycle Cloths for the Planet” (Philadelphia, New York, New Jersey), “Stock the Pantry” (Steubenville, Ohio), “Recycled Art Contest” (Hogansville, Georgia) and many more.
Obviously, there is an online side of this initiative that runs on all social media and involves things like #RecyclingSelfie (see figures below).
Links: www.kab.org, www.americarecyclesday.org. Twitter: @kabtweet, @recyclesday

  

America Recycles Day: screenshots from my twitter account

2. Guardian Big Energy Debate
We are still on time to sign up for the “Guardian Big Energy Debate”, event scheduled for Wednesday 21st January 2015. Organized by the Guardian, the meeting represents the end of a 12-months project that has involved policy makers, industry and academics. The aim of the debate is an update on the energy situation in UK and understanding how to better address future approaches in terms of supply, costs and emissions.
Together with the Guardian’s energy editor Terry Macalister, there will be talks held by MPs as Tim Yeo and Caroline Flint.
Links: Guardian Big Energy Debate Twitter: @guardianeco (#bigenergydebate)

3. Manchester United
MNU is aware of the energy issues and realizes that its worldwide popularity could be a fundamental action to help tackling the environmental debate. The project seems to be still embryonic, but the idea would consist in spreading the environmental voice taking advantages of the huge amount of people linked with the media of the club: MUTV (Manchester United Television), Twitter (3.8 Mln followers), Facebook (62 Mln likes) and 70k people at “Old Trafford” each match-day. Another strategy would trace the basic element of the sport: competition. Promotion of green challenges, (already devised by “Fans Without Footprints”) like recycling contests, with a lists of awards.
Take 2 minutes to watch this funny video: "If we cared about the environment like we care about sports" shows perfectly the foundation of MNU project.
Source: Oliver Balch - The Guardian

Have a good week and see you soon on RE-cycling!

Digging the topic - part 3

From here to there

Hi everyone!

The last post I wrote on RE-cycling had interrupted, in a way, the "Digging the Topic" series that I was writing up. Hence, I think it's time to end the trilogy with the last piece of writing. With "Digging the topic - part 3" I will briefly give an overview on all the destinations of waste once collected from our houses, offices and premises. Therefore, following the guideline purpose of my blog, I will be focusing mainly on the MSW (Municipal Solid Waste).

Once collected, the waste starts a journey that ends up somewhere: the waste disposal methods explain in detail this somewhere taking into account all the possible options for the community to get rid of its scraps. Having a look at Figure 1, the Waste Hierarchy described in the newest Defra report “Waste Management in England” helps us to have a better idea of the term "disposal": the bottom of the arrow defines the disposal as an option with no energy recovery while, other disposal methods such as anaerobic digestion, gasification or pyrolysis, are ranked as other recovery because there is a production of reusable energy from their application.

Figure 1: waste hierarchy according to the "Waste Management in England" report (Defra) 

Recycling could be also considered as a disposal method because it is a (great) method to treat the waste. Anyway, we could generically list the disposal methods as follow:

1. Recycling (…and I don’t need to say what recycling is about)

2. Composting. The most complete definition I found out there was provided by Lau et al. in 1991: “controlled biological process which converts biodegradable solid organic matter into a stable humus-like substance” (Lau et al. 1991: 145). Another interesting paper written by Slater and Frederickson (2001), explains what composting means and involves. At this stage of the discussion, what is relevant among the huge amount of information provided is that composting refers mainly to kitchen and garden waste (more widely, it is a biodegradable-waste related method), it is a biological treatment, its output is used as fertilizers in agriculture or in reclamation projects.

3. Anaerobic digestion (AD). I am talking again about organic waste, yet treated in an oxygen-free environment (Alvarez et al. 2000). The outcomes of this technique are very interesting. In 1995, Braber presented a wide overview of the AD advantages, such as the considerable production of energy, reduction of CO₂ emission and, as well as for the composting, less land requirement.

4. Gasification and Pyrolysis. Here, taking a break in citing papers, I found an extremely useful webpage (www.gasification.org) which deals with this disposal methods. Basically, they both consist in burning waste but the former involves high temperature and an aerobic environment while the latter occurs at lower temperatures, it is anaerobic and it uses an indirect source of heat. The most important thing to say is that these methods allow high energy recovery ratios while the simple…

5. …incineration, an aerobic high-temperature waste combustion, often doesn’t. For fully understand the incineration process and its differences with gasification, I think it is time to link the first video.

6. Landfilling, which is the act of placing waste into specific portion of land. All official reports, environmental organization and, above all, the EU, describe landfilling as the last favourite way to treat waste. The reasons are quite straightforward if we consider all the disadvantages that it brings. In 1995, a number of these consequences have been listed by El-Fadel et al. as "gas and leachate generation, […] the migration of gas and leachate away from the landfill and their release into the environment, […] potential health hazards, vegetation damage, […], ground water pollution, air pollution, global warming" (El-Fadel et al. 1995: 1).

Well, the list above wanted to be an overview of the disposal methods together with a brief description of the relative main features. Therefore, concluding “Digging the topic – part 3”, I would say that this post has the double function to explain what the destiny of the rubbish is and, at the same time, to introduce automatically the following discussion: what are pro and cons for each method? In more generic terms, why is this specific sector of waste management so important? Hence, do we have to care about recycling? If yes, why? Looking back at Figure 1, it is clear how Defra wants to make clear that incineration and landfilling are the last favoured option to treat waste. At the same time, RE-RE-RE are at the top of the arrow so it looks like that a clear trail has been blazed. The following posts will be debating the questions above and I will try to understand what responsibility of the masses is within the waste process.

See you soon on RE-cycling!

2020 is getting closer and closer

Alarm bell from new Defra's report

Hi again!

Before starting out, I want to introduce this post with an apology: I realized that I haven't encouraged the discussion so far! Nothing dramatic, but obviously any comment, opinion and remark is more than welcome in RE-cycling!

Anyway, I was going to post the ending post of the "Digging the topic" series but, slightly late, I came across an important update about the recycling situation within the UK. I merely thought it was more appropriate to give fresh information rather then keep writing about definition and numbers.

On October 22nd, Adam Vaughan, the editor of environmentguardian.co.uk, published a piece of writing focused on the grade of recycled waste in England. Overlooking the debate between MPs the CEO stepped in, the article is mainly based on the recently released Defra's report "Waste Management in England".
It basically spins around the quantity of waste that has been recycled in recent years: even though the recycling rate had arose prominently between 2001 and 2007 (from 11% to 34%), it had then weakened (only 34% to 39% during the gap 2007 - 2010) and has ended up to an alarming stable value of 43% in the last years (table 1).

Table 1. Recycling rate (%) according to Defra's data (click to enlarge).

Why is this alarming? Well, here is the problem! Taking into account the "Directive 2008/98/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council", we must be able to achieve a recycling ratio of 50% no later than 2020. Article 11,2a (page 312/13):

"by 2020, the preparing for re-use and the recycling of waste materials such as at least paper, metal, plastic and glass from households and possibly from other origins as far as these waste streams are similar of waste from households, shall be increased to a minimum of overall 50 % by weight;"

Moral: we will never reach that ratio if we keep following the recent trend.

At this stage the consequent issues is: why has the recycling ratio stopped growing? Vaughan moves then across the possible causes that lead at this point, considering both the many different in-force recycling procedures in England (there are 400 of them out there!) and also the related government action, probably not strong enough anymore. Indeed, related to this aspect the MPs asserted that the Government has to lead a stronger promotion of recycling in order to redo the recycling rate rise again and match the EU target.

Thereafter, disclosing few information that I will broadly explore in future posts, Adam Vaughan touches upon two of the reasons why recycling is an important process. Following the guidelines outlined by the EU and the MPs, recycling is needed in order to:

1. reduce landfilling. Article 4,1 (L 312/10) of the Directive 2008/98 mentioned before says "the following waste hierarchy shall apply as a priority order in waste prevention and management legislation and policy: (a) prevention; (b) preparing for re-use; (c) recycling; (d) other recovery, e.g. energy recovery; and (e) disposal". Reducing disposal means reducing (also) landfilling, which thus represents the last option in terms of waste management (as we will see, landfilling causes emissions of methane and higher ground pollution hazards besides taking up huge areas of land).

2. waste as a energy resource. Quite meaningful is what the MP Anne McIntosh released discussing the Defra's report: "How are we going to get rid of our waste? How are we going to find alternative sources of energy? What would you prefer – unsightly fracking wells with thousands of lorries trundling around with waste water or would you prefer to take energy from waste, where you’re both disposing of the waste and you’re both fuelling and heating". It looks like that a lot of stuff has to be done. The challenge consists in bringing England where Wales already is: Cymru recycling rate is at 54%...they can wait 2020 chilling out. See you soon on RE-cycling!