vcal: unit 9 waste and recycling overview slideshow

Waste and Recycling Overview

[Licensing arrangements: Except where noted this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Australia licence. You are free to copy, communicate and adapt the work, so long as you attribute Environment Victoria and the use is for non commercial purposes. A copy of this licence is available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by‐nc/2.5/au/ or by writing to info@creativecommons.org.au. This excludes organisational logos and charts, diagrams or images which are listed as being sourced from another person or organisation (for these you will need to check the copyright requirements specified by this person/organisation).]

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• Inefficiency

• Lost resources/opportunities

• Environmental impact  ‐ greenhouse 

gases & other pollution

Why focus on waste?

Kerbside waste collection

56% garbage 30% recyclables 14% food scraps and garden waste

Figures are for Victoria for 2005-2006, from Sustainability Victoria.

Annual service cost:total $228,797,756garbage $126,746,180 recyclable $68,926,640 green $33,124,936

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490 kg garbage per house per year199 kg per person per year

490 kg

From 2005 to 2006, Victorians generated an average of nearly 500 kg of garbage per household per year. Each person generated an average of 199 kg per year, which is a 7 kg decrease from 206 kg per person the year before.

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Kerbside recycling

65% paper

28% glass and cans

7% plastic containers

Most of what was being recycled in 2005-2006 was paper, which made up 65%.

Image sources:Plastic bottle: by Whitesheep, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pet20091027.jpgSprite cans: by My100Cans, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sprite_Cans.JPGPaper: by Environment VictoriaGlass bottles: by Xahx, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Beverage_bottles.jpg

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Photo source: Environment Victoria

Plastic Carry Bags

• Australians used 3.92 billion bags in 2005

• That’s 3,920,000,000 bags

• Approximately 180 bags per person

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Photo source: Environment Victoria

Photo source: plastic bag litter in Karachi from Creative Commons,http://www.flickr.com/photos/zainub/430144883/

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Photo source: www.flickr.com/photos/worldworldworld/3314227532/ and Ron Prendergast, Melbourne Zoo

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An easy solution

Image source: Environment Victoria

Over‐packaging

Image source: Environment Victoria

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Some of the things households throw away

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The waste hierarchy

2 Reusing materials 

3 Recycling & reprocessing materials

4 Energy recovery before disposing 

5 No conservation of resources 

1 Maximum conservation of resources

Aim to do things at the top of the waste hierarchy first, and things at the bottom only when you really need to.

Avoidance – it quicker, easier and better to avoid the waste in the first placeReuse – if it has been made then it is then better to reuseRecycle – can we turn the waste into something useful?Recover energy – when something can’t be recycled, it can often still have the energy in it recovered, for example by burning it for heat, or composting it to give energy to plantsDisposal – needs to be a last resort. We need to start thinking about why we should even make something that just gets disposed of.

Waste packaging (recyclable)

Recycling factory

New products delivered to 

shops

Supermarket

Kerbside recycling collection

Products consumed at 

home

Everything that we throw “away” goes somewhere.Someone has to store it or treat it in some way. Where is “away”? Think about where items end up when we throw them “away”.Some of the richest sources in the world of some metals are now old land fills, which were used before recycling was common.

Image sources:Cleaning products http://www.flickr.com/photos/xcbiker/454221928/Supermarket fruit display http://www.flickr.com/photos/elmada/386694324/ Butter and margarine photo http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikelowe/35843660/50s packaging display photo http://www.flickr.com/photos/maddi/173718675/Doritos photo http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelb1/3900992895/Jelly tots photo commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jelly_Tots.jpgPolish vodka bottle photo http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jarzebiak_Jan_Muszynski_Lwow_1939.jpg Empty wine bottle http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/Empty_Wine_bottle.jpg&imgrefurl=http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Empty_Wine_bottle.jpg&usg=__sUm_77OL2DgmK_tkFn_Ysa8XhTo=&h=3587&w=2445&sz=3010&hl=en&start=32&sig2=a8LKY00IjAk8OFSKOybarQ&tbnid=cPOBaHN5FkmVuM:&tbnh=150&tbnw=102&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dempty%2Bbottle%26imgtbs%3Dr%26ndsp%3D18%26as_rights%3D(cc_publicdomain%257Ccc_attribute%257Ccc_sharealike%257Ccc_noncommercial%257Ccc_nonderived)%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26start%3D18&ei=ZBwBS7mFBoH67APH67TdCg Bin with empty bottles http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/QSgaX5uL5NqTMjEzmMMtgwLego recycling truck http://www.flickr.com/photos/9229859@N02/1277634907/

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