Why recycle

Why you should recycle and in what ways you can help the environment.

All councils have got to reduce the amount of waste that is going to landfill to meet statutory targets set by the Government and the EU Landfill Directive.

We have introduced a range of collection services over the last few years to help us achieve these targets. This includes the provision of a fortnightly black bin collection, fortnightly brown bin collection and green bags for paper, plastic, tins and glass which are also collected fortnightly on the same day as your brown bin.

We also provide recycling “bring sites" at key locations around the borough, details at Recycling sites in Erewash

Materials may also be recycled at the Civic Amenity site on Manners Road in Ilkeston.

This method of collection was introduced because under various UK and European legislation we are obliged to engage in “Waste Minimisation and recycling”. Landfill regulations are imposed on the waste disposal authority (Derbyshire County Council) to ensure these targets are met to reduce the amount of waste going in to landfill. Failure to meet these targets may result in fines of around £150 per tonne (for every tonne sent to landfill over the limit!). If these fines are imposed then Council Tax would have to rise considerably to help pay them. In order to prevent these fines we have joined forces with the Derbyshire District and City Councils and produced a joint integrated waste strategy.

Secondly, the Government monitors our performance using targets called Best Value Performance Indicators (BVPIs,) these are set by us but certain minimum standards are expected by the Government.

In 2010/11 the waste team collected 45,492 tonnes of waste in total. You recycled 9,507 tonnes of paper, cardboard, plastic, aluminium, tin and glass.

9,502 tonnes of garden waste was turned into compost.

This means 42% of all waste collected is recovered.

Why is waste minimisation and recycling so important?

There are many reasons why waste reduction is important, the main ones are:

Energy - removing minerals from the ground, processing them and then transporting them to the point of manufacture has a great deal of impact on the environment. Recycling reduces the amount of impact this process has on the environment particularly as there is no need for the extraction process.
Resource management - by placing re-useable resources into landfill you are effectively eliminating the ability for them to be recovered. Although some, like aluminium, are very common, others are extremely rare such as the materials used in electrical components.
Pollution - the extraction of minerals from the ground can be extremely invasive with inevitable disruption of the local ecosystem.
Sustainability - you cannot create energy and materials from nothing, in consuming them we deplete the resources available to us on the planet, eventually these resources will run out. By minimising this consumption and recovering materials and reusing them we prolong the life of the planet along with everything and everyone on it!

Why recycle

Why is waste minimisation and recycling so important?

Related documents