Ever since the Waste Plan Unit's last report, "Waste not, want not" was released on twenty-seven Nov 2002, the UK has been skyrocketing recycling rates and working towards truly significant targets that will significantly cut back the tonnages of waste to landfill. Landfills which were filling at a constantly increasing rate were promising to cover the land and rise above it, eventually filling every quarry and patch of waste land in our built up areas and then utilising enormous acreages of the rural landscape as well.
Over the same period public willingness to reuse in their houses in addition has risen inspired by separate waste collections which have gradually been introduced by local authorities and which have extended the quantity and range of source separated and comingled Municipal Solid Waste diverted away from landfill.
For some time costs of contolled landfilling have been going up and rules have been getting tighter.
In the background, the Environment Agency has additionally been raising the environmental protection standards obligatory to of the landfill operators which has concurrently increased their expenditure which have been passed without a break to the landfill users. This has the result that the landfills currently disposing of the pre-treated residual wastes after recycling, whereas in spite of everything a long way away from ideal, are much better able to contain their garbage responsibility without producing the environmental emissions and bad-neighbour nuisances of the past.
The finest of these businesses have somehow survived, winning recycling contracts commercially whilst at risk from very unstable recycled items prices, and competing counter to the much lower price tag alternative of disposal to landfill.
For a long while the industry pundits have spoken of the need to reach a theoretical "tipping point" at which as the dump tax lift rises, and the mix of many other smaller regulatory effects come together, and how they will push the price of landfilling above the price of recycling. This point seems to have now been reached or is really close.
That all this was finally adding up to profitable cost competitive recycling is being confirmed by the number 1 waste recycling firms in the commercial and industrial waste sector. Finally, this year (with the extra cost of rubbish heap from 1 April), the marketplace for commercial and industrial recycling which was formerly lagging behind the city waste recycling scene is catching up. Maybe, it may soon even overtake the recycling rates achieved in municipal/household recycling?
All this adds up to a family run business like Bywaters, with its friendly and avid workers at plants like the Recycling and Recovery Facility at Bow, and for so long dedicated to sustainable business, to now also reap the industrial benefits they deserve for themselves and their clients.
As I found during a recent visit to the
Bywaters Bow Recycling Plant, staff work very closely with the waste manufacturing firms from which they accept their waste, such that quite soon after even the least "environmentally aware" organisations come on board, they are able to up their game and massively improve the purity of their customer's source segregation systems inside just a few short months
This enables real cost benefits to all parties, not least to the buyer of the much cleaner recyclate products produced, who in turn will happily pay significantly more for the higher quality recyclate material.
These improvements also assisted by their clients will continue to bump down costs, and are providing better quality recycled raw materials, of a consistency, quantity, and quality which could never have been imagined just seven years ago when "Waste not, want not" was published.
The future will see trustworthy and "main stream" bulk availability of quality controlled recycled products.
The positive feedback that will result will further stabilise and raise the markets in recycled commodities and the volatility in these markets will in turn moderate to become unremarkable.
So, for any corporations that are still not recycling their waste we say:
"Be "green" and recycle - it just appears sensible like never before.".
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