Ben OsborneYork parents are doing their bit to help ease the UK’s landfill problems by getting involved in a recycling initiative led by health care and pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson’s.
Parents at Busy Bees Nursery in York are taking part in the ‘Wipe Out Waste’ scheme that aims to reduce landfill waste by encouraging mums and dads to send their empty packets of baby wipes (they have to be the Johnson’s Baby Wipes of course) back to the company.
The waste material will be recycled and turned back into products thus reducing landfill waste. A further benefit for good causes is that for every pack that is sent in 2p will also be donated to a charity of the sender’s choice. With 132 Busy Bees Nurseries across the country taking part that could be a lot of packaging saved from being dumped in landfill sites.
York City Council are also committed to reducing waste and with their city-wide recycling scheme and in September 2011 launched the Zero Waste York project aimed at radically reducing the amount of waste we as a city produce. Zero Waste York are raising awareness of waste issues through events and the promotion of positive people-powered change. They are focusing on some key projects including Bag Free York, aimed at reducing the number of plastic bags sent to landfill, reducing food waste, encouraging home composting and the recycling of clothes and household objects through ‘Choose2Reuse’.
According to Defra we bury 44 million tonnes of waste each year in landfill sites across the UK and the methane produced from these sites contributes to 3% of our emissions. Initiatives such as the ‘Wipe Out Waste’ scheme do help and the statistics show that in 2011 around 40% of waste from households is currently recycled which is a great increase from the 11% of household waste that was recycled in 2000/01.
Despite the improvements in recycling and environmental awareness, landfill sites are still filling up and are not considered by many to be a sustainable solution to waste management at these levels. The continued dumping of waste into the ground at these rates raises the issue of a lack of space, as old sites begin to fill-up new site have to be found raising further issues for environmental campaigners and local residents.
It’s a depressing thought that nearly every plastic bag you have ever used still exists somewhere and is most probably seeing out its retirement in a landfill site or in the sea with millions of others. It can take up to 1,000 years for a plastic bag to disintegrate and the average amount of time you and the bag will have a meaningful relationship for is only 12 minutes. The other 525,948,766 minutes of that bag’s life will literally be wasted.
Below is a fantastic short-film on plastic waste narrated by the wonderful Werner Herzog.
Image courtesy of Elfon
amazing film you've put here
one of the most beautiful and sad things I have watched in years
...although I do fear now for my empathy and relationships with personified plastic bags now
...I'm not sure I can ever use a plastic bag again.
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