Recycling Articles : Where Does Rubbish Go?

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Very few of us ever stop to think about what happens to our waste once we have thrown it in the rubbish bin, we simply discard it and think no more about what happens to it and where it goes once it leaves our bins. For the majority of homes now, our rubbish is collected on a fortnightly basis and in addition to this we have green bins in which to put the things that can be broken down for compost, blue boxes in which to put our cans and bottles and bags in which to put our paper.

We also have the alternative of going to recycling plants ourselves if we have the mind too, however once the rubbish leaves our homes we very rarely give it a thought as to what happens to it and where it goes.

The main methods of dealing with the huge amount of rubbish that we in the UK produce every year include landfills, recycling, composting and energy. However it is how we run our of landfill space that is causing so much concern for the future, put simply if we carry on as we are doing or were doing, by just putting everything into the wheelie bin then we will simply sometime down the line run out of landfill space and have no where for the rubbish to go.

While the most basic landfill involves little more than digging a hole in the ground, burying the rubbish and filling the hole back in, landfills have grown much more complex than this today. The typical landfill process now involves lining individual cells in the ground which are then capped to prevent harmful pollutants escaping and then covered.

Of course systems have to then be installed as means to get rid of the gases and pollutants which the rotting materials cause. Recycling plants will strip down materials into various components and are then sent onto the processors depending on their type. For example the pulping and shredding of materials such as paper, granulating plastic materials and melting down metals and glass.

Recycled materials will then usually end up being resold in products such as toilet paper, bin bags, paper, stationery and fillings for such things as pillows, cushions and duvets. The majority of local councils have now set up composting schemes which aim to tackle all the waste that can be turned into such things as fertiliser.

This has shown in many estates and towns with the introduction of the green bin where you sort all your materials which could be turned into compost, another alternative is to make your own compost at home which is fairly easy to do.

Additional technologies are also in the pipeline for dealing with the vast amount of waste we have, one of these is incineration. With advancements in technology pyrolisis, gasification and anaerobic digestion are also thought to methods which could be employed when it comes to dealing with the amount of rubbish we throw away per year.

For now every household can do their bit by distributing their rubbish in accordance with the bins that their local council have designated to them and be more aware of what we actually discard instead of just simply throwing it away without a care.

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