Recycling

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This Hot Topic, written in response to a subscriber's request, highlights how recycling can help reduce New Zealand's waste mountain. You can register to receive Hot Topic via email for free by emailing hottopics@tki.org.nz. Please specify whether you'd prefer the plain text or the HTML-formatted version.

About 3.2 million tonnes of waste is disposed of in landfills in New Zealand each year. The amount of waste we produce is on the rise as we buy more disposable products, and eat more convenience foods with single-use containers. Population growth also adds to the amount of waste we generate.

According to Ministry for the Environment figures, around 39 percent of the waste we produce is made up of organic matter, 19 percent of paper, 17 percent from construction and demolition, 7 percent is plastic, 6 percent is metal, 2 percent is glass, and 8 percent is potentially hazardous.

A typical domestic rubbish bag could contain:

50 percent garden and kitchen waste which could be recycled by composting

20 percent recyclable paper

10 percent mostly recyclable plastics

5 percent mostly recyclable glass

5 percent metals – some of which are reusable

10 percent other

"Reduce, reuse, and recycle!" has been the catch-cry of many campaigns aimed at reducing the amount of waste we produce.

Reduce the amount of things that you buy. Buy durable products rather than ones that disintegrate after a single use. Buy things that have little or no packaging.

Reuse the things you buy, like plastic bags.

Recycle the things you have finished using if you can. Plenty of things can be remade into either the same product or into new products.

Recycling is cost effective because:

• manufacturing with recycled material uses less energy. For example, recycling aluminium uses five percent of the energy needed to produce new aluminium. Adding old glass to batches of new glass reduces the energy requirement of furnaces by up to 20 percent;
• natural resources are conserved because there is less demand for raw or virgin materials; and
• recycling schemes create jobs.

The Ministry estimates that 80 percent of the population has access to one or more recycling schemes for paper, aluminium, or glass.

As well as recycling schemes, an increasing number of local authorities have invested in community composting operations, usually at transfer stations or landfills. There are a number of commercial operations which process garden waste, and a worm composting company that is concentrating on processing organic wastes from the agricultural and food processing sectors. In addition, backyard composting and worm farms are becoming more popular as people become more aware of our waste problems.

Science: Making Sense of the Physical World
Social Studies: Place and Environment, Resources and Economic Activities
Technology and Society

Science in the New Zealand Curriculum (www.tki.org.nz/r/science/curriculum/toc_e.php), Technology in the New Zealand Curriculum (www.tki.org.nz/r/technology/curriculum/contents_e.php), and Social Studies in the New Zealand Curriculum (www.tki.org.nz/r/socialscience/curriculum/index_e.php) are available on TKI.

Energy efficiency
This recent TKI hot topic highlights the effect our society's increasing hunger for energy is having on the environment (www.tki.org.nz/r/hot_topics/energy_e.php).

Earth Day groceries project
The "decorate a grocery bag" project was held to celebrate Earth Day in April 2000 (www.earthdaybags.org/). The site has some fine examples of, and links to, environmental resources.

The Ministry for the Environment
The Ministry for the Environment's website has a "what you can do" page (http://www.mfe.govt.nz/withyou/do), facts about solid waste in landfills (http://www.environment.govt.nz/indicators/waste/landfill) and the percentage of waste that is recycled (http://www.environment.govt.nz/indicators/waste/recycle/recycling-table.html).

Councils
Most local authority websites have information about recycling and waste reduction. A complete list of sites is available through Local Government New Zealand's site (www.lgnz.co.nz/).

Recycle City
The Recycle City site, a part of the US Environmental Protection Authority's site, gives an introduction to recycling and waste management, aimed primarily at older students (www.epa.gov/recyclecity/). It also has games.

Centre for Alternative Technology
The Centre for Alternative Technology, located in Wales, is aimed at developing and promoting strategies "to achieve the best cooperation between the natural, technological and human worlds". Their site has a Green Shop, news, and virtual tours of the centre (for which you need QuickTime 3.0) (www.cat.org.uk/).

Wild Ones
The Wild Ones site is a curriculum resource for teachers in environmental sciences. It contains lesson plans and activities relating to all things environmental (www.thewildones.org/Curric/curricLib.html).