In a previous post, I commented on several unintended consequences resulting from the move away from disposing of waste in landfill (not good) to the increasing use of EfW incinerators. For one thing, the incentive to sort waste and recycle it is diminished; operators are happy to burn as much as possible (within their permits) because they can charge local authorities by the tonne for disposal and generate more electricity which can be sold onto the power suppliers.
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| Photo 1: Doorstep Milk Delivery |
The second unintended consequence was due to the change in the composition of household waste; less food waste (EfW via anaerobic digestion) and more plastic waste. This has turned these incinerators into a major pollution source, as bad as or worse than coal-fired power stations.
Most plastic is not recycled even when it would be fairly trivial to do so. Recycling rates worldwide are slowly improving but are still below 10%. To solve this problem, we need to use less plastic and recycle a much higher percentage of what we do use. Plastics is a versatile & cheap product with an almost infinite number of uses. It can be sterilised for single use medical supplies, turned into strong lightweight containers or thin films for food protection, and many other uses. It will not be easy to wean ourselves off it. Nevertheless, we should all make more effort to use less and recycle more.
One little step we have taken is to switch from buying milk from the local supermarket (plastic and TetraPak containers) to a doorstep delivery in reusable glass bottles (Figure 1). We have also taken the opportunity to switch to non-dairy alternatives as our local milkman offers oat 'milk' in pint bottles. Milk deliveries are twice a week and our milkman delivers at midnight or just after. For obvious reasons, we haven't met our milkman, Steve!
We have also switched to plastic-free dishwasher tablets and will be looking at more options to reduce our use of plastic.
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