Rubbish and litter is an inevitability. Everybody accumulates waste and rubbish that has to be disposed of. The average person in the United Kingdom disposes of over 5 kilos of rubbish a week in their rubbish bin – a quarter of a tonne a year.

All that waste has to go somewhere too. It is either buried in landfills, burnt or it can be recycled. However, not everything can be recycled and much of what we throw away in our rubbish bins isn’t biodegradable, meaning it can linger around landfills for decades – damaging the environment in the process.

Types of rubbish

The type of rubbish we throw away can be divided into five different categories. Some of which is biodegradable, some which isn’t:

• Plastic – Most plastics aren’t biodegradable. Many can’t be recycled either which is why the use of plastics is becoming an increasing environmental concern.
• Paper/card – from packaging to newspapers most paper can be recycled in some for or another. Paper recycling bins and recycling containers make it easy to store before it is taken away.
• Tins and metals – Most metals can be recycled and special recycling facilities exist in most towns and cities to deal with it.
• Ceramics and glass – Both can be recycled so look out for bottle banks or glass recycling bins.
• Organic waste – from lawn trimmings to the garden to food scraps fro the kitchen. The least harmful to the environment, organic waste is useful as compost and fertilisers.

Recycling

Recycling is essential if we are to keep in check our growing need for landfill and the increase in rubbish that is being discarded. Different types of recycling bins are available for both public and home use.

Household recycling bins, for inside the home, are often separated into compartments to make recycling easier. The rubbish can then be disposed of in the relevant outdoor bins. Often recycling bins are colour coded to make the process easier.

Can bank

Non-recyclable waste

Waste that is thrown in the rubbish bin and can’t be recycled can become a nuisance, especially many plastics that linger in the environment. Look to ways to reduce the amount of plastics and packaging you consume to reduce the amount of waste that ends up in landfill. You will be surprised at how little you really do need to throw away in the waste bin.

Recycling is now compulsory in many areas of the country. It is no longer something that just a few people do that are conscious about the environment. Recycling is now a prerequisite for many householders and is often enforced with fines or a refusal to collect rubbish.

But is can be a confusing issue, especially considering the different schemes that run up and down the country where different materials are accepted for recycling. Often there is a lot of disparity in the number of recycling bins and what items can go in each too which adds to the confusion.

However, if recycling is compulsory then local authority recycling bins should be provided to most householders with instructions as to what can be placed in each. In general recycled materials can be summed in the following categories:

Different Recycling Materials:

Metals – both ferrous and non ferrous, often both can be placed in the same recycling bin.

Plastics – Many local authorities can’t yet recycle plastic but there are a few that do and plastics these would therefore have to be separated from the general household waste that would go into the conventional rubbish bin.

Paper – Paper and card are recycled by most local authorities. Sometimes large tubs or containers are used rather than  paper recycling bins doesn’t cause smells of other environmental hazards.

Food/organic waste – This can’t really be recycled by your local authority but you can do so at home by composting. Food waste rots anyway so it doesn’t pose too much of an environmental hazard.

Ceramics – Again, not all authorities will recycle ceramics and some will combine it with glass recycling too.

Clothing/fabrics – A lot of clothes that aren’t worn can be distributed to needy causes but fabrics can be recycled too so enquire to what schemes are on in your area.

Glass/bottles – Some authorities expect you to go the bottle bank, others will provide you with a recycling bin for glass

Garden Waste – this can be used by local authorities and recycled and often gardening bins are provided to recycle grass cuttings and the like.

In some local authorities many of the above items can be placed in the same recycling bin, in others separate recycling bins are provided (in one local council in the UK – nine different recycling bins have been supplied to residents) so it is important to check what can go in each bin.

We are all wasteful. Each year, an average person throws out over a tonne of rubbish into our waste bins. And our rubbish bins contain everything from organic and food waste to paper, plastic and even metals.

Even though many of us now recycle and use recycling bins, most of us are aware that much of the rubbish that we throw out ends up in landfill sites, often referred to as rubbish dumps, garbage dumps or tips. But these rubbish dumps are not the scourge on the environment many of us assume and far from just being just large pits where tonnes of rubbish is piled up for all eternity, land fills are constructed after a lot of thought and consideration.

For a site to be viable for a landfill or rubbish dump it has to adhere to many requirements, which include:
Location
Type
Stability
Capacity
Environment Safeguards

Location – the location of a landfill is incredibly important. Firstly, dumps can’t be built too near to people’s homes because of smells, the effects on house prices and disapproval of local residents. But also landfills need to have good access by road or rail, be cost effective (cheap) land to buy.

Type – Rubbish dumps are built in three different guises: Pits;often using existing holes forged my mining. Canyons; using holes forged by nature; and mounds; piling rubbish above ground.

Stability – Landfills have to be on stable ground. There should be no earth quake faults, water tables, rivers, streams or flood plains.

Capacity – Any planning of a landfill requires enough capacity for the authorities that use the dump. Busy city centres where millions of rubbish bins are emptied every week will require larger capacities than smaller areas where the amount of waste discarded is less.

Environment Safeguards – land fills are built under strict guidelines to prevent as much environmental impact as possible. Soil, water systems and other effects on the environment are seriously considered before any site is allocated as a land fill. And while a former land fill site will be no good to build houses on, in fact, many land fills are often turned into nature parks once they are filled which can off-set any damage done to the environment while the landfill was in use.

Recycling has become a big industry over recent years. Not only are more and more people opting to recycle to ease their environmental conscience but also many local authorities and councils are insisting that residents and businesses start recycling. And fines and penalty notices are now being handed out to home and business owners who fail to do so.

There are now numerous recycling suppliers selling all sorts of recycling products such as the recycling bin. However, with so much variety on the market it can be quite difficult to establish the type of recycling bin that is required for your home or business.

There are a large number of recycling bins available for both the office and home and choosing the right bin can often depend on the circumstances but there are some key things to remember when buying a bin for home recycling or an office recycling bin:

*    Recycling bins are often sold in different colours to conventional waste bins This allows the users to easily distinguish between what is meant for recycling and what is normal rubbish. Different colours are often used to denote the different recycling materials such as green for garden recycling, brown for glass, white for paper, blue for kitchen waste etc. It doesn’t matter which colour you nominate for which material just as long as everybody that uses the bin is aware of the colour scheme.

*    If you only have space for one recycling bin then you can buy bins that have sperate compartments for the different recycled materials.

*    Some local authorities collect recycled material along with the other household waste so it is a good idea to ensure your bin is large enough to cope with all your recycling between collections. If a bin is too small then people may be tempted to dispose of the recycled material in a conventional waste bin which could lead to a fine in some local authorities.

*    Composting is a great method of disposing and recycling kitchen waste. Compact kitchen composers are available that can store and compost kitchen scraps while large compost bins are available to handle all the garden waste that can be recycled to provide plant feed.

Recycling bins are becoming ever increasingly more important so it is important you select the right recycling bin for your home or businesses.