Carrier bags
- Thread starter Bahco
- Start date
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Producing methane in a sewage works or biogas plant is great, but if you consider that bags often get littered throughout the environment, they will rot down. If they gave off methane, it would just escape into the atmosphere, which is hardly desireable.
Of those that reach landfill, yes many landfills have the methane tapped to be used, but others have methane migration, effecting nearby fields, and much of the landfill gas is not useable owing to dilution from other gases such as CO2 and hydrogen sulphides. So if there are bags that rot down without producing methane, this would be a good thing.
Landfills are not the most efficient way of producing methane as a result, and it would be better to divert potential methane producing material to a biogas plant, (something that the UK is hopelessly behind on).
Perhaps the Government should publicise this aspect of recycling then (which even people like me may participate in) rather than simply recycling for the sake of it (or under some misguided "Green" banner) and inconveniencing housholders to such an extent that they ignore it completely.
For recycling to work on a mass scale (which is the only way it adds any value) it must not add an undue burden to peoples lives and this is where I feel the Government should look to invest resources.
Also, before anyone will convince me to do anything with this agenda, countries such as the US need to be brought in line with the policies.
It matters not a jot what we do whilst the US has a carbon footprint the size of bigfoot's extremely large and bigfooted brother
MW
For recycling to work on a mass scale (which is the only way it adds any value) it must not add an undue burden to peoples lives and this is where I feel the Government should look to invest resources.
Also, before anyone will convince me to do anything with this agenda, countries such as the US need to be brought in line with the policies.
It matters not a jot what we do whilst the US has a carbon footprint the size of bigfoot's extremely large and bigfooted brother
MW
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Perhaps the Government should publicise this aspect of recycling then (which even people like me may participate in) rather than simply recycling for the sake of it (or under some misguided "Green" banner) and inconveniencing housholders to such an extent that they ignore it completely.
For recycling to work on a mass scale (which is the only way it adds any value) it must not add an undue burden to peoples lives and this is where I feel the Government should look to invest resources.
Also, before anyone will convince me to do anything with this agenda, countries such as the US need to be brought in line with the policies.
It matters not a jot what we do whilst the US has a carbon footprint the size of bigfoot's extremely large and bigfooted brother
MW
To be fair, there is no simple answer that fits all. You're quite right that recycling needs to be on a large scale.
Although the Uk Government has been appaulling on a variety of issues regarding waste, it has made some effort to improve recycle rates. Where its fallen down is in some joined up thinking, ie. making sure there is a market for the material that is being segregated. For the most efficient way of recycling is seperation at source. There are Mechanical Seperation systems that will take general waste and sort out metals, plastics etc, but the material left is far from clean, and therefore has less value, and takes energy to carry out.
There are successes, such as the incinerator in Sheffield which also has a sorting facility, but here in Hull, we've struggled against campaigners who have stopped an incinerator in Hull, and a recycling centre just outside Hull. It shows a lack of strong leadership that these things are stopped, and that many people just suck.
Personally, I see the of climate change only a secondary issue, as nearly all the actions cited to tackle climate change has other environmental benefits as well. And most of those also have financial benefits as well, such as less landfilling, less fuel consumption......
Its actually suprising how much reccycling the US actually do. Although they comsume far more than us per person. Yes they use more energy per head, and they need to change, but we can't wait for someone else to sort their own yard out first, when we can benefit by sorting ours out as well.
On the continent, they are streets ahead of us on waste. Biogas plants, incinerators/CHP, recycling plants, composting. They have battery recycling plants and metals recovery that we send to, when we could be doing it here if we hold onto the industry, and not lose even more to China.
PS. Tescos has started selling the Green Cone:
Not very nice, she could be someone's mum
It hasn't surpised me to date ... I've seen no evidence of it whatsoever and I spend over 2 months there every year. If you talk to the average yank about recycling they'd assume you meant drinking your own p**s.
Errrmmmmm ... This gets my vote as the understatement of the decade.
They use more energy per big fat burger filled head than my entire neighbourhood.
Oh really ... I think you'll find that we can actually.
What benefit would that be exactly?
Recycling is a waste of time carried out by people who have nothing better to do with their time ... The same people who put cling film over their windows to conserve heat, join car sharing clubs and ride bikes to work.
Life is for living.
MW
Its all a con to get us pay more tax, were just a grain of sand, if you look at the world map if everyone on this planet go green then fair enough, but they don't, if we all went green in the UK it won't make much difference.
if everyone on this planet go green then fair enough, but they don't, if we all went green in the UK it won't make much difference.Its all a con to get us pay more tax, were just a grain of sand, if you look at the world map
Totally agree, i will not change my life style for the green shi t that i believe the rest of britain is being conned, come on... 3 jags to start with
Does the phrase "Don't s**t in your own backyard" mean anything?
Issues such as waste, and energy usage are areas that need addressing in both the UK and US. Waste is one of the biggest threats to our environment in the UK. If we don't try to improve things, we'll be throwing money away, and filling up holes in the ground with waste at an alarming rate, and seeing increases in flytipping.
We need to find ways to reduce our waste regardless of what the US does.
As for energy, well its a similar situation. We need to reduce our fossil fuel consumption regardless of what the US does, as it will have other benefits to us. I'd rather not be reliant on Russia for our gas or some other far off country that could cut us off on a wim. The US needs to do similar things for its own benefit as well.
As above.
Cutting carbon emissions need to be tackled, as it can benefit us. Cutting down on energy use, by using more energy efficient equipment, increasing our nuclear energy, and wind energy in the UK, using biofuels (mostly from waste)... to name but a few, would give us a greater energy stability.
There are those materials that are not worth recycling, that will end up in landfill or incinerator. Then there's those materials that have a value that makes it well worth recycling, and would be insane to landfill (such as metals).
There are materials that fall somewhere between the those two categories. Where they will sometimes be landfilled, but often have the value to be recycled and will indeed be sent for reprocessing.
On balance, its worth it to recycle these generally, as the avoidance of landfill useage makes it worth while. Sometimes a load may end up in landfill and the Daily Mail will cry "oh, what's the point in it all". But fail to take in the bigger picture.
Materials such as cardboards would be better burned a lot of the time, but we don't have an incinerator around here.
The UK has a finite amount of holes to put waste in. They are an inefficient way of dealing with waste, and has resulted in us not considering a huge part of the resources of this country.
Forgive the ranting nature of this post. I've seen first hand how much a lot of us waste money and much of it is to the detrement of the environment.
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