Transcript Reuse, Renew, Recycle” - The Design Mark

“Reuse, Renew, Recycle”
YEAR 7
DESIGN TECHNOLOGY
ACTIVITIES
JUNE 2008
UNWANTED PLASTIC PACKAGING
A trip to the shops these days is likely to result
in almost as much packaging as food.
Once used, these wrappers, bags and trays
are destined for the bin.
Ever tried to find a place to recycle plastics
in the UK?
It's a fruitless mission.
Shopping list: Nectarines, kiwifruit, avocado, goat's cheese, baked potatoes,
sliced ham, olives, and cheesecake for dessert.
Rubbish generated: four plastic bags, cling film, six plastic pots, trays - one
polystyrene foam, two plastic and one pulped cardboard - a cake-shaped plastic
box and a cardboard box with plastic windows, all packed into a plastic carrier
bag.
So what to do with this lot once lunch has been eaten? Straight into the bin it
goes. While we are encouraged - and will soon be required by law - to recycle
our waste, it is not always straightforward to put this into practice.
The one tray made from cardboard is biodegradable and can be composted (by
those with gardens). While the local supermarket has a collection point for
carrier bag recycling, no other type of plastic is accepted.
PLASTICS RECYCLED
The UK's problem with recycling plastic is
not in finding a use for it. It's in getting it
from the consumer to the reprocessing
plant.
The cost of pick-up, storage and delivery
far outweighs what local authorities can
earn by taking plastics to be recycled - the
only exception is drinks bottles, which are
heavier than, say, yoghurt pots, and so
are worth more.
11.3m plastic bottles collected for recycling since 1989
49% of UK councils run collection schemes for bottles
This includes 4,100+ bottle banks and kerbside pick-up for 3.6m+ homes
RECYCLING PLASTICS
In a survey by Recoup, the UK's household plastics recycling organisation,
75% of councils without a collection scheme blame the cost.
"It's a chicken and egg situation," says Claire Wilton, of Friends of the Earth.
"There's not many reprocessors in the UK, so many councils find it's
not worth collecting plastics.
And because there's not much used plastic available, there are
not many reprocessors."
Alan Davey, of Linpac Plastics Recycling, says his firm - like the majority of
others in this field - deals mainly with commercial and industrial waste.
RECYCLING PLASTICS
"All this food packaging of yours is recoverable but there's no effective
subsidised collection system in the UK to make it worth the effort.
"If there was, we could turn it into car parts, video cassettes, shampoo bottles we have 1,100 product applications. Anything that can be made from virgin
plastic can be made from recycled plastic. The quality is the same."
Instead, much of it goes into landfill or up in smoke in an incinerator. Neither
does the environment any favours.
Plastic takes centuries to break down - not only taking up space but leaching
toxins into the soil and water. And burning plastic is like burning a fossil fuel,
as it is made from oil.
Fascinating facts about textiles
Nearly three-quarters of the world's population uses second-hand clothes,
either bought through the marketplace or distributed by charitable
organisations.
Textile recycling first got off the ground about 200 years ago in the Yorkshire
Dales, where they know a thing or two about textiles. Old clothes were
collected in the horse-drawn carts of the 'rag and bone' men, who most
probably wore second-hand clothing themselves - entrepreneurs well ahead
of their time.
Recycling textiles
Textiles such as clothing, curtains and shoes can be
recycled either by using them again, second hand, or by processing
them to re-use the materials.
Cutting down on the quantity of textiles we throw away makes a lot of
sense for a number of reasons. By recycling more of them we will:
save energy
save water
save natural resources
reduce landfill
Why recycle textiles?
Garments and shoes in reasonable condition can be
sold second-hand or donated to the world's needy. Cloth
such as curtains and bed linen can be re-used to make clothing.
Textiles in poorer condition can be shredded and used to make cushion
filling, carpet underlay and loft insulation, for example. As well as helping
large numbers of people directly, recycling old textiles has real
environmental advantages as well.
Recycling textiles saves energy because a garment re-used is a
garment that doesn't have to be manufactured. It also saves the energy
otherwise used in processing raw wool and cotton, or manufacturing
synthetic textiles.
Why recycle textiles?
Recycling textiles save water because some textile
industrial processes use an awful lot of it. If everyone in the UK bought
just one reclaimed woollen garment each year, we would save about 370
million gallons of water - more than the contents of an average UK
reservoir.
Recycling textiles saves natural resources such as the petroleumbased constituents of synthetic materials and the dyes used to colour
cotton and wool.
Recycling textiles reduces landfill because although they only make
up about 2% of household waste, that's still 2,400 tonnes to find space
for, from Rotherham alone - the weight of 340 large African elephants.
Marks & Spencer and Oxfam have launched
Britain's biggest ever clothes recycling
scheme.
The M&S and Oxfam Clothes Exchange was announced on the first
anniversary of Marks and Spencer's innovative Plan A scheme, which aims
to raise and promote environmental awareness, and eventually make the
high street store carbon neutral. By encouraging recycling, the initiative
aims to not only raise funds for Oxfam, but also reduce the amount of
unwanted clothing that ends up in landfills. The UK currently throws away 1
million tons of clothing every year.
As an incentive for prospective recyclers, anyone who donates M&S
clothing to Oxfam will receive a £5 Marks & Spencer voucher, which can
be used on purchases over £35 on any fashion, homewares or beauty
products.
HOW ARE PLASTICS CLASSIFIED?
COMPANIES WHO SELL RECYCLED ITEMS
COMPANIES WHO SELL RECYCLED ITEMS
Since TRAID launched in 1999, we
have donated over
£1.2 million to bring real
improvements to the lives of people
living in some of the poorest regions
of the world.
In 2007, TRAID pledged over
£200,000 towards remarkable
projects which are right now
increasing the supply of clean water
in villages in Kenya, enabling people
affected by HIV to run their own
micro solar businesses in Malawi,
and creating a new fishing cooperative in the Philippines.
CHARITIES WORKING WITH RECYCLING
RECYCLING THE TEXTILES IN INDIA
Here at Oxfam’s Wastesavers
depot in Yorkshire, donations are
sorted into groups: for resale in
their own charity shops; or
restyling by fashion designers; for
sale to commercial textile
recyclers for export; or to be
pulped for mattress filling, carpet
underlay and upholstery.
At a commercial textile
recycling company, clothing
is sorted for the
international market. Some
countries ban the import of
secondhand clothing, but do
permit slashed garments to
enter as a source of raw
material. Here garments are
fed into a mutilating
machine which prevents
them from being illegally
sold as clothing in the
destination countries.
India permits the import of woollen clothing as a source of fibre for the local shoddy
recycling industry. Cast-off jumpers, suits and coats are sorted by colour in large
warehouses in Panipat, north India before being recycled. Labels are removed, clothing
is then shredded, pulped and respun into shoddy yarn.
Shoddy yarn can be woven or knitted into new products such as blankets,
shawls and jumpers. The more colourful blankets feature either checks or
flower designs. The “vase of flowers” motif has been used for at least two
thousand years in south Asia.
New labels are attached. The discarded brand
names of once-coveted Western clothing are
replaced by those of Indian gods such as
Neelkanth (Siva).
In a tourist market in central Delhi, saris, shawls and blouses are
remade into bedspreads, cushion covers and bags. Such items have
become popular in the West and can be found in boutiques, markets
and festivals across the UK.