Reducing the cost of recycling

More and more waste is beginning to be recycled correctly, both on a national and local level.

While recycling is an essential step for local authorities (LAs) to take in terms of reducing pollution, it can be a costly business.

For recycling plastic, for example, the low value of scrap and high costs of recycling means that recycling plastic now costs more than manufacturing virgin plastic.

With an increase in funding cuts to LAs across the country, they are seeking new ways to recycle without unnecessarily hiking up the cost of waste management.

For many, this means waste management services will have to go through major changes over the next few years.

Anything that can be done to minimise costs, and maximise the available funding, will help local authorities to ensure they have efficient and effective services going forward.

One example of positive change in this area came in 2020, the government introduced the Circular Economy Package which includes a target to recycle 65 per cent of municipal waste by 2035 and measures to reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill or incinerated.

It restricts the materials which can be landfilled or incinerated, and includes a requirement that waste which is separately collected for recycling must not be incinerated or sent to landfill.

The government said this would pave the way for more recyclable materials to be kept in circulation within the resources and waste system, instead of being burned or buried.

As well as this, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs implemented a new scheme earlier this year which aimed to make recycling rules simpler for households and LAs.

The scheme introduced standardised expectations for the whole of England, instead of having different rules for different LAs.

The number of overall household bins has also been reduced, with new systems to make the process less complex for individual local authorities to manage.

However, all that waste has to go somewhere and be transported to the right places. There is also a need for it to be bulked as this reduces fuel consumption.

It can be difficult to find the right solutions to all recycling problems. Luckily, balers and compactors offer a useful solution for many.

This is where balers and compactors come in. We have laid out the basics on the handy devices, and explored why they can be beneficial for governments.

What are balers and compactors?

In short, a waste baler is a piece of equipment that can compress waste products into a form that’s easy to manage for recycling or disposal.

Different balers squash down different kinds of material, depending on how they should be recycled.

Compactors are a similar story. They compress recyclable waste into smaller sizes, expelling the air so that they can be kept in a contained area, where they take up less space and create a more efficient work environment.

Why should LAs use them?

In terms of making the recycling process more efficient, the use of balers or compactors can be worth considering, especially if a local authority has suitable depot space.

Although not as widely used by LAs, some have tried double shifts, increasing the hours that a vehicle is utilised during a working day, sweating the asset. This type of working pattern and operation is not something councils have traditionally used, they are starting to be used by many in an effort to reduce cost.

Baling recyclable waste before it is transported increases the load on each vehicle, resulting in fewer vehicles being required and therefore less spending.

Compactors can also be used in a similar way, reducing the amount of space needed for storage of materials prior to transport.

Additionally, they improve storage as the use of a baler machine eliminates the need for waste containers or a dumpster.

It can also help to reduce costs, as transportation is less costly and they take up less room more generally.

What does the future of recycling hold?

While the cost of recycling has been a challenge for many LAs, it is important to retain hope for the UK’s sustainability journey.

In England, around 44 per cent of our waste is recycled, with Northern Ireland coming in at 46 per cent and Scotland at 43 per cent. Wales comes out on top with 57 per cent of waste recycled, according to Defra.

Campaigns from organisations such as Keep Britain Tidy have committed to showing the next generation the importance of recycling, with the aim of making recycling second nature.

More than 2.3 million children and young people are currently actively engaged in the Eco-Schools programme, where kids take action against the climate crisis.

There is a lot to catch up on and to balance so that LAs can manage to balance dwindling budgets and an increase in recycling, but many are willing to fight for a sustainable world.