Bury or burn is a false debate - Real recycling is the only true way forward.
Why do have we a whole organisation with website funded by WAG to promote misinformation?
Burning/Incineration is not 'sustainable'
The European Union has a waste hierarchy which goes like this.
First reduce. Then re-use. Recycle next. And if you absolutely have to, then incinerate or dump. Wales now has one too and it is legally binding not a 'guide' as Waste
Most countries heed it well - with Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands recycling 60% of their waste. The UK has a plastics recycling rate of only 3%. In Germany the recycling rate for plastic is 70%.
Wales this week agreed a statutory recycling target of 70% by 2024/25 (see letsrecycle.com story) but councils are using phoney figures to up their recycling rates. Cardiff has a comingled collection for recycling and quotes those figures claiming that is the amount recycled. However it omits to mention the high volume of the 'recycling' collection that is of poor quality. Recycling collection must result in materials of sufficiently high quality to be recycled. And shamefully Cardiff Council collects 'bulk' rubbish from homes and sends it all to landfill. Jane Davidson lab AM minister for rubbish does not unfortunately 'intend to issue any guidance on the type or methodology of collection in the future' (more here)
More jobs less waste Number of potential new recycling jobs Wales 2617 says
FOE report on Recycling and Reuse versus Landfill and Incineration Jobs
The economic and employment benefits associated with sorting, reprocessing and recycling, in comparison to incineration or disposal to landfill, have been highlighted by a number of studies from the US (CASCADIA, 2009) and in the UK (Gray,2002; WRAP, 2006; WRAP, 2009).
Although landfilling and incineration still involve larger volumes, recycling now
generates more than twice the revenue of the waste management industry because recycling recovers greater economic value bound up in discarded products and equipment.
Per tonne of material processed, recycling provides approximately ten times more jobs than landfilling and incineration.
Incinerators only actually burn about 70% of what is put in. The remaining 30% - some of which is highly toxic ash - has to be, you guessed it... buried
Up in smoke: why Friends of the Earth opposes incineration,
more info here in Friends of the Earth 2007,
None of this information is on the phoney 'consumer' web site Waste Awarenss Lies Wales
funded by WAG. Partners are Environment Agency Wales..
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