Pmd Recycling

[Willy Aucoin]

Recyclingis the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. This concept often includes the recovery of energy from waste materials. The recyclability of a material depends on its ability to reacquire the properties it had in its original state.[1] It is an alternative to "conventional" waste disposal that can save material and help lower greenhouse gas emissions. It can also prevent the waste of potentially useful materials and reduce the consumption of fresh raw materials, reducing energy use, air pollution (from incineration) and water pollution (from landfilling).

Recycling is a key component of modern waste reduction and is the third component of the "Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle" waste hierarchy.[2][3] It promotes environmental sustainability by removing raw material input and redirecting waste output in the economic system.[4] There are some ISO standards related to recycling, such as ISO 15270:2008 for plastics waste and ISO 14001:2015 for environmental management control of recycling practice.

Reusing materials has been a common practice for most of human history with recorded advocates as far back as Plato in the fourth century BC.[7] During periods when resources were scarce, archaeological studies of ancient waste dumps show less household waste (such as ash, broken tools, and pottery), implying that more waste was recycled in place of new material.[8] However, archaeological artefacts made from recyclable material, such as glass or metal, may neither be the original object nor resemble it, with the consequence that a successful ancient recycling economy can become invisible when recycling is synonymous with re-melting rather than reuse.[9]

In pre-industrial times, there is evidence of scrap bronze and other metals being collected in Europe and melted down for continuous reuse.[10] Paper recycling was first recorded in 1031 when Japanese shops sold repulped paper.[11][12] In Britain dust and ash from wood and coal fires was collected by "dustmen" and downcycled as a base material for brick making. These forms of recycling were driven by the economic advantage of obtaining recycled materials instead of virgin material, and the need for waste removal in ever-more-densely populated areas.[8] In 1813, Benjamin Law developed the process of turning rags into "shoddy" and "mungo" wool in Batley, Yorkshire, which combined recycled fibers with virgin wool.[13] The West Yorkshire shoddy industry in towns such as Batley and Dewsbury lasted from the early 19th century to at least 1914.

Industrialization spurred demand for affordable materials. In addition to rags, ferrous scrap metals were coveted as they were cheaper to acquire than virgin ore. Railroads purchased and sold scrap metal in the 19th century, and the growing steel and automobile industries purchased scrap in the early 20th century. Many secondary goods were collected, processed and sold by peddlers who scoured dumps and city streets for discarded machinery, pots, pans, and other sources of metal. By World War I, thousands of such peddlers roamed the streets of American cities, taking advantage of market forces to recycle post-consumer materials into industrial production.[14]

A considerable investment in recycling occurred in the 1970s due to rising energy costs.[20] Recycling aluminium uses only 5% of the energy of virgin production. Glass, paper and other metals have less dramatic but significant energy savings when recycled.[21]

Although consumer electronics have been popular since the 1920s, recycling them was almost unheard of until early 1991.[22] The first electronic waste recycling scheme was implemented in Switzerland, beginning with collection of old refrigerators, then expanding to cover all devices.[23] When these programs were created, many countries could not deal with the sheer quantity of e-waste, or its hazardous nature, and began to export the problem to developing countries without enforced environmental legislation. (For example, recycling computer monitors in the United States costs 10 times more than in China.) Demand for electronic waste in Asia began to grow when scrapyards found they could extract valuable substances such as copper, silver, iron, silicon, nickel, and gold during the recycling process.[24] The 2000s saw a boom in both the sales of electronic devices and their growth as a waste stream: In 2002, e-waste grew faster than any other type of waste in the EU.[25] This spurred investment in modern automated facilities to cope with the influx, especially after strict laws were implemented in 2003.[26]

In 2015, the United Nations General Assembly set 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Goal 12, Responsible Consumption and Production, specifies 11 targets "to ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns".[31] The fifth target, Target 12.5, is defined as substantially reducing waste generation by 2030, indicated by the National Recycling Rate.

Environmental impact of slag include copper paralysis, which leads to death due to gastric hemorrhage, if ingested by humans. It may also cause acute dermatitis upon skin exposure. [37] Toxicity may also be uptaken by crops through soil, consequently spreading animals and food sources and increasing the risk of cardiovascular diseases, cancer, cognitive impairment, chronic anemia, and damage to kidneys, bones, nervous system, brain and skin.[38]

Substituting gravel and grit in quarries has been more cost-effective, due to having its sources with better proximity to consumer markets. Trading between countries and establishment of blast furnaces is helping increase slag utilization, hence reducing wastage and pollution.[39]

Economist Steven Landsburg, author of a paper entitled "Why I Am Not an Environmentalist",[40] claimed that paper recycling actually reduces tree populations. He argues that because paper companies have incentives to replenish their forests, large demands for paper lead to large forests while reduced demand for paper leads to fewer "farmed" forests.[41]

When foresting companies cut down trees, more are planted in their place; however, such farmed forests are inferior to natural forests in several ways. Farmed forests are not able to fix the soil as quickly as natural forests. This can cause widespread soil erosion and often requiring large amounts of fertilizer to maintain the soil, while containing little tree and wild-life biodiversity compared to virgin forests.[42] Also, the new trees planted are not as big as the trees that were cut down, and the argument that there would be "more trees" is not compelling to forestry advocates when they are counting saplings.

In particular, wood from tropical rainforests is rarely harvested for paper because of their heterogeneity.[43] According to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change secretariat, the overwhelming direct cause of deforestation is subsistence farming (48% of deforestation) and commercial agriculture (32%), which is linked to food, not paper production.[44]

Other non-conventional methods of material recycling, like Waste-to-Energy (WTE) systems, have garnered increased attention in the recent past due to the polarizing nature of their emissions. While viewed as a sustainable method of capturing energy from material waste feedstocks by many, others have cited numerous explanations for why the technology has not been scaled globally.[45]

For a recycling program to work, a large, stable supply of recyclable material is crucial. Three legislative options have been used to create such supplies: mandatory recycling collection, container deposit legislation, and refuse bans. Mandatory collection laws set recycling targets for cities, usually in the form that a certain percentage of a material must be diverted from the city's waste stream by a target date. The city is responsible for working to meet this target.[5]

An alternative way to increase the supply of recyclates is to ban the disposal of certain materials as waste, often including used oil, old batteries, tires, and garden waste. This can create a viable economy for the proper disposal of the products. Care must be taken that enough recycling services exist to meet the supply, or such bans can create increased illegal dumping.[5]

Four forms of legislation have also been used to increase and maintain the demand for recycled materials: minimum recycled content mandates, utilization rates, procurement policies, and recycled product labeling.[5]

Both minimum recycled content mandates and utilization rates increase demand by forcing manufacturers to include recycling in their operations. Content mandates specify that a certain percentage of a new product must consist of recycled material. Utilization rates are a more flexible option: Industries can meet their recycling targets at any point of their operations, or even contract out recycling in exchange for tradable credits. Opponents to these methods cite their large increase in reporting requirements, and claim that they rob the industry of flexibility.[5][48]

Governments have used their own purchasing power to increase recycling demand through "procurement policies". These policies are either "set-asides", which reserve a certain amount of spending for recycled products; or "price preference" programs that provide larger budgets when recycled items are purchased. Additional regulations can target specific cases: in the United States, for example, the Environmental Protection Agency mandates the purchase of oil, paper, tires and building insulation from recycled or re-refined sources whenever possible.[5]

The final government regulation toward increased demand is recycled product labeling. When producers are required to label their packaging with the amount of recycled material it contains (including the packaging), consumers can make more educated choices. Consumers with sufficient buying power can choose more environmentally conscious options, prompting producers to increase the recycled material in their products and increase demand. Standardized recycling labeling can also have a positive effect on the supply of recyclates when it specifies how and where the product can be recycled.[5]

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