Written by Amelia Tomalin-Reeves | 06 January 2011

Let’s Recycle

“Recycling is an excellent way of saving energy and conserving the Environment”

I have recently moved to Bermuda from the U.K, having a background in waste management.  After firstly noticing the amazing Blue Sea, Sunny Sky and Lush Greenery my attention slipped towards the Bins! Not the type of thing you would expect one to concentrate on whilst being on a Sub-Tropical Island with plenty of settling in and exploring to do!

However, recycling has been increasingly highlighted in the U.K, not only in homes but also in the work place. Therefore, when disposing of my waste by force of habit I look to recycle where possible. Like any country in the world the U.K. faces major challenges if they are to manage their waste sustainably.

Recycling in the U.K. already saves the equivalent in greenhouse gas emissions of taking 3.5million cars off the roads (http://ww2.defra.gov.uk/). Recycling is available for household, commercial and industrial sectors, this enables people to recycle paper, plastic, cardboard, glass, tin, and food waste (household only). Councils provided collections and containers for the recyclable materials. Although the UK is moving forward with its recycling effort’s there is still much more waste that can be recycled, or firstly reduced and reused!

We often hear about the 3R’s but what does this actually mean? The ‘waste hierarchy’ which hosts the 3R’s, specifies the best waste disposal options and ranks them in order of their increasing environmental impact. The options towards the top of the hierarchy are more desirable than those towards the end.

Reduce: Reducing the amount of waste you produce can be achieved in a number of ways, including the amount of packing used, reduce off-cuts and rejects, send information electronically, purchase material in bulk and use returnable containers.

Re-use: To limit extra spend of buying items in, many can be re-used to reduce waste.

For example:

• Packaging - boxes can be re-used many times.
• Printer toner cartridges - choose a supplier that has a returns policy so that  they can be re-filled and used again.
• Paper - re-use paper from misprints and drafts as scrap paper in the office.
• Drums - many raw materials are delivered in drums that can be washed and returned to the supplier, or re-used on site as waste containers.
• Furniture and textiles - waste furniture and textiles may be of use to charities or to waste exchange groups.

 Recycle: Recycling is an increasing requirement through legislation in order to reduce the impact on the environment. Many items can now be recycled, speak to your local recycling centre or waste management contractor to find out the possibilities of increasing recycling options.

We all need to think about what we buy, what we use and what we throw away.  Do we need to buy things with lots of packaging? Can we reuse things again? We all need to participate fully in our local recycling collection (T.A.G) and reuse schemes to ensure valuable resources are not unnecessarily disposed of.

I moved to Bermuda two months ago and quickly picked up on the recycling practices. Yes, it is great to see that Bermuda has the curb side recycling programme which offers free once-a-week collection and recycling of Tin, Aluminium and Glass (TAG), E-Waste recycling and composting. However, the possibilities of recycling are far greater than this! With paper and plastic being a highly used material - having the opportunity to recycle them would be a step forward for Bermuda.

Having worked in the waste management industry helping organisations reduce waste to landfill and increase recycling, I understand the difficulties people face when implementing recycling, meeting targets and encouraging people to become actively involved with any environmental issue, when it is not something which is part of their day to day routines. It takes much time, educating and hard work to enforce any new policy or scheme, whether this is in a village, town, city or even a country.

I hope that Bermuda will be able to offer  more recycling possibilities in the not so distant future and put recycling in the spot light along with its many other environmental awareness programmes and achievements.

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