From Waste Bin to Landfill – The story of Rubbish
When we throw things away into the waste bin, very few of us pay any attention into what happens to our rubbish after it is discarded. Many of us recycle now, but what happens to all that waste that can’t be reused, and how damaging are landfills sites to the environment?
We throw literally everything into our : packaging, paper, food, metals, nappies, crisp packets; if you can name it, it has probably been in a rubbish bin. And the amount of waste we throw out can be extraordinary too. Just think how quickly the kitchen bin or wheelie bin fills up, then imagine how many times it’s refilled throughout the year. In fact government figures suggest each UK household produces over 1 tonne of rubbish annually – that’s 31 million tonnes of rubbish each year.
And all this waste, all 31 million tonnes of it, has to go somewhere, otherwise we would all be swimming in our own rubbish. Fortunately many of us recycle now and this helps to drastically reduce the amount of annual rubbish, but not everybody does recycle, and even those that do find not everything can be put in the .
The rest of course ends up in landfills. Some local authorities do take pains to filter the rubbish and remove as many of the recyclables as possible, but unfortunately the rest has to be put into a big hole and buried.
The biodegradable waste, such as food, cardboard and paper, also rots in the landfill sites, and lets off methane – a very powerful greenhouse gas which has also detrimental effects on the environment – forcing the companies that run landfill sites, to go to great lengths to capture as much of the methane as possible before it is released into the air.
However it is not all bad news and landfills are not the monstrosity most people may think. The methane collected on landfills is uses it to supply electricity to the National Grid, which is helping reduce the UK’s carbon footprint and landfills themselves are eventually covered over and transformed into landscaped areas of natural beauty, quite often turning former quarries into nature parks.
So while it is important to recycle and be aware of what happens to the rubbish we throw away in our waste bins, its not all doom and gloom in the rubbish cycle.
Richard N Williams is interested in waste bins and rubbish removal. Please visit us website if you are interested in or other .
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