Every year, residents of the UK dispose of millions of tonnes of waste, twenty per cent of which is collected for recycling. Although this figure is comparatively low, many European countries recycle nearly half of their waste, it has steadily improved.
However, there is much work to be done and mountains of waste that shamefully end up in landfills rather than being delivered to recycling plants. Why is this? Well, perhaps part of the problem is that people simply do not understand the importance of recycling. Sure, they put out their bottles and cans and newspapers every other week, but how many residents actually stop to think about why they are doing what they do? In all likelihood, many of them recycle simply because they will be fined if they fail to.
So, why is recycling important? Without going into any technical process, recycling makes sense because it saves energy and reduces pollution. Simply put, it takes more energy to make a new bottle or can or to cut down a tree to make paper than it does to simply recycle these items. Recycling has also been a boon to waste management facilities, as they often struggle to find a place to store all of the waste.
While some of the waste produced by residents of the UK is in fact burned, most of it is buried in massive landfills. The obvious flaw with this method is that there is only a certain amount of land and once they run out, the government might consider buying up private property or dumping the garbage in the water.
What about burning or taking the waste to combustion facilities? Well, not only is this method more expensive than simply burying the refuse, but it also creates more pollution. It must be noted, however, that recycling is far from a perfect process. It does create its fair share of pollution, primarily due to the trucks that transport recyclables to the plant. Still, it is by far the most cost effective and least environmentally harmful way to dispose of waste.
