People’s Daily Online, London, April 24 (Yang Bo, Daytime Travel) The history of garbage recycling in Britain can be traced back to before industrialization, when waste from burning wood and coal was collected and used as the basic material for making bricks. However, the recycling at that time was because the economic advantages of renewable resources were higher than those of original materials, and there was a lack of public waste removal system in densely populated areas.
In Britain and Ireland around 1800, beverage bottles were recycled by some beverage manufacturers.
In 1813, Benjamin Raul combined rag fibers with raw wool to pass off as wool, which can be regarded as a kind of "garbage recycling", but this material made the inferior industry in West Yorkshire last for nearly a hundred years from the early 19th century.
In the past ten years, Britain has introduced some new regulations to encourage more recycling. These measures include imposing fines on those who do not reduce household waste, and putting more emphasis on sorting waste into different recyclable materials. Each local authority has different rules.
Now about 177 million tons of waste are produced in England every year. In order to reduce expenditure and produce waste, the British government issued the Waste Prevention Plan for England in 2013. In May 2014, the "Innovation of Waste Prevention Fund" funded by the Ministry of Environment was launched.
The government will require enterprises to be responsible for the products they produce, and the law also requires some enterprises to ensure that part of the products they sell are recycled and reused. These products include packaging, batteries, electrical and electronic equipment, vehicles and so on. At the same time, the government cooperates with the garbage industry through the "waste management responsibility agreement" to ensure that enterprises recycle as simply as possible and improve household recycling and waste collection. Laws have also been introduced to crack down on crimes, including illegal dumping of waste, operation of illegal waste management sites and illegal export of waste.
Domestic waste is subdivided into three categories.
In Britain, the classification of domestic waste recycling is very detailed, and the "Domestic Waste Recycling Act 2003" requires governments all over England to provide at least two kinds of recyclable materials collection services to every family.
So now we can see that in a single-family British family with a garden, there are usually three trash cans in front of the door or backyard. The colors of the lids are different, and the types of garbage inside are different.
For example, in some places, the trash can with black lid is used to hold "general garbage", the trash can with blue lid is used to hold "recyclable garbage", and the trash can with green lid is used to hold garden and kitchen waste. In another area, the color may be different from the barrel to the lid.
In addition to general garbage, the other two kinds of garbage are classified strictly. "Recyclable garbage" can be glass bottles, paper products, cans, degradable plastic bags, etc., while "garden or kitchen waste" can only be dead leaves, weeds or food, but not soil, stones and packaging. According to the specific classification regulations, the government will issue special leaflets and stuff them into users’ mailboxes on a regular basis or directly stick them on users’ trash can lids by garbage collectors.
When it comes to the division of plastic bags, it is difficult for ordinary people to quickly identify whether they are recyclable. Fortunately, most of the packaging of articles will clearly indicate whether the packaging can be recycled. It’s just that not all people will be "selective" when throwing garbage, so there are always people who intentionally or unintentionally "foul". Once they are discovered by the "eye-catching" recyclers, you will usually "harvest" a "warning sheet" on the lid of your trash can.
People who live in apartments do not have a garden, so they need only separate the recyclable garbage list. There is a special garbage station next to the apartment, and the oversized garbage bins inside are also classified.
Generally, special garbage trucks and workers will come to collect the three kinds of garbage at a fixed time every week. The night before, people just need to push the garbage bins usually stored in the backyard or by the door to the roadside near the main street, and the next morning, they may still be dreaming, and they can hear the sound of the roaring garbage trucks coming.
To "enjoy" such on-site service, you need to pay a certain fee, which is usually included in the monthly council tax collected by local governments. However, the budget of some places is relatively tight recently, so the recycling time of garden and kitchen waste is extended from once a week to once every two weeks.
Last year, there were news reports that families with children under three years old in a region of Wales had to provide their children’s birth certificates to collect diapers every two weeks, otherwise they would collect diapers together with domestic garbage every three weeks, which was said to be for the purpose of environmental protection.
Of course, if you don’t want to pay the garbage collection fee, there is a way. You can throw it directly into the nearby "garbage dump".
When I first entered this "garbage dump", I felt a sense of "dazzling", because the types of garbage inside were too fine. Recyclable paper products were divided into paper packaging, newspapers and magazines, and old clothes and sheets should be separated. In addition, there were cooking oil, batteries, small household appliances and so on. Once you saw that you were carrying the bag in the wrong direction, the staff next to you would come forward to guide you.
As for the "large-scale garbage" like old furniture, either make an appointment with a charity to collect it at home or pay someone to buy it. The cost may be higher than you think, and there is no service that can be sold as waste in China.
The policy focus shifts from punishment to reward.
Recently, the focus of Britain’s garbage recycling policy has shifted from punishing those who don’t recycle to encouraging more people to recycle through rewards.
WRAP, the waste and resources action plan, is a registered charity, which is jointly funded by several British government departments and the European Union.
Its website, Recyclenow, provides detailed guidance and suggestions to those who want to seriously classify garbage, and classifies recyclable garbage into six categories: sprays, food, plastic bottles, clothes, electronic equipment and medicines.
pressurized spray
For example, about 60% of waste such as used air fresheners is made of tinned steel, and about 40% is made of aluminum. Both metals can be recycled. It also contains some small plastic and rubber parts, including covers, valves and dip tubes, which can be extracted and fully recycled. If everyone in the UK can recycle an empty air freshener, the converted energy will be enough for the TV energy of 273,000 families.
food
Food recycling includes banana peel, leftovers, tea bags and so on. Usually, any cooked or raw food waste can be recycled, but it is necessary to ensure that all packaging, especially plastic packaging, is taken out.
There are several ways to treat the collected food waste. In some areas, it is mixed with garden waste and transported to local commercial composting facilities. This compost will be used in agriculture, landscaping and gardening. If food waste is collected separately, a method called anaerobic digestion is usually used to generate green electricity.
plastic bottle
It is estimated that Britain uses an average of 35.8 million plastic bottles every day, but only 19.8 million plastic bottles can be recycled every day, which means that an average of 16 million plastic bottles cannot enter the recycling station every day.
The recycling of plastic bottles requires emptying and washing articles, taking off the lid and squeezing the bottles to save space.
Clothing and textiles
Even damaged clothes and faded curtains, which are not suitable for reuse by others, can be recycled to create new items, such as cushions, cleaning cloths and industrial blankets for chairs and car seats. Charities everywhere in Britain recycle clothing and textiles, and different charities collect items slightly differently.
Some stores, such as H&M and Martha, collect old clothes in the store. Martha also collected it through charity partner Oxfam, and offered a discount the next time the donor went to Martha to buy it.
electronic equipment
Usually, when buying new electronic goods, stores will recycle old equipment, especially larger items, such as televisions and refrigerators and freezers. Other recycling methods include online junk exchange and selling websites. For unwanted mobile phones and tablets, some merchants can get cash or redeem gift certificates.
medicines and chemical reagents
Unopened, unused and expired drugs can be returned to the pharmacy for disposal. It is estimated that as much as 300 million pounds of unused or partially used drugs are wasted in Britain every year and cannot be recycled or reused. Therefore, the British medical system calls on people to think carefully before ordering duplicate prescriptions.
The road to comprehensive recycling is "long"
In addition to government regulations and services, it is equally important to raise people’s awareness of environmental protection and economy. For example, statistics for many years show that the amount of food wasted by the British is still amazing. In 2013, food worth 15.1 billion pounds was thrown into the trash can by the British. Statistics in 2014 found that up to 400 tons of food is still wasted every year, and the average person wastes up to 200 pounds of food every year.
With the continuous efforts of British government departments, the classification and recycling of garbage has made remarkable progress, but the overall household garbage recovery rate has been below 50%. According to the latest data from the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) of the British government, from 2000/01 to 2009/10, household recycling in the UK increased by 235%; In 2009/10, 23 million tons of domestic waste were generated, of which 9.4 million tons were recovered, reused or composted, with compost accounting for the largest proportion, accounting for 40% of the total. In 2015, the recycling rate of households in England was 43.9%, which was 0.9 percentage points lower than that of 44.8% in 2014. Also since 2011, the "domestic garbage recycling rate" was lower than 44% for the first time.
The British referendum decided to leave the European Union, which also brought certain policy uncertainty to garbage sorting and recycling. If Britain leaves the EU, all kinds of EU regulations and standards that regulate all walks of life will face the process of replacing them with Britain’s own. Whether to completely follow the original EU system or reset Britain’s own system will create a certain policy vacuum or delay in the short term, such as promoting garbage collection. Recently, British Prime Minister Theresa May announced that the general election will be held in advance, which will aggravate the uncertainty and delay of this policy to a certain extent. Although it will not necessarily affect the implementation of policies such as garbage collection, it will certainly have a certain impact on further promotion.
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