It is time to end the exporting or disposing of British waste, experts say.
In a recent government-funded report, From Waste to Resource Productivity, waste is described as an “enormous opportunity,” and recycling is hailed as the way forward. This, even if not revolutionary, will soon have important repercussions, as both DEFRA and the Government Office for Science have already endorsed and published the report.
We, at KwikSweep, have read through it, and as experts in waste removal we definitely like it.
The study proves, firstly, that there is opportunity with waste, which is something KwikSweep believes in. As the report claims, the majority of waste is “a potential resource that can be recovered and reused in a huge number of different ways,” which matches KwikSweep’s ethos.
Most importantly, the report notes that more needs to be done to meet recycling targets.
In it, we can read that “achieving a 70% recycling rate would require councils to ensure that almost every household recycled virtually all their packaging at the kerbside, captured their food waste separately, and used mechanisms such as special collections to place bulky items into recycling streams.”
The KwikSweep team knows very well that recycling is tough, and meeting its targets is not easy. However, it is not impossible either. Our teams always endeavour to recycle all reusable materials, which is why we take the waste we remove to specialised recycling facilities.
That said, this report is not perfect. It does, in fact, hold that recycling plastics may not be convenient. In it, we read that “For some abundant materials, like plastics, it usually takes less energy to manufacture them from primary sources than to remake them from waste. For other materials, like some metals, the case for recovery from waste is more straightforward.”
This is a pessimistic view of recycling. If all thought of recycling in this way, then the prospect of meeting recycling targets and saving our planet would be a flawed one. The consequences of making plastic products always from primary sources would, in terms of pollution, be disastrous.
At KwikSweep, we believe waste is a resource, and everything should be recycled, if possible. If our London-based waste removal business has successfully managed to implement a strict recycling scheme, then everybody can at least give it a try.
Waste is a resource. Let’s get rid of it together.
