J&B Recycling Knowledge

When washing your glass jars and metal cans and sorting the recyclable materials from your general waste, many of us wonder if putting the effort into doing this is actually worth it, The short answer: yes definitely, and here's why...

During the last six months in England, public confidence levels in recycling went down by 4%, with more respondents saying they had seen or heard something to impact negatively on their faith that items are actually recycled. England also had the lowest public confidence overall with only 24% of residents saying they believed items collected were actually recycled. As well as this, a survey of over 2,000 people conducted in 2021 in Britain, found that the most common reason for the lack of confidence in recycling through the UK public, is due to a lack of information.

Despite this lack of faith, The Plastics Recycling Association Recoup has revealed that 584,000 tonnes of plastic packaging was collected for recycling from households in 2020 during the pandemic, a 4% increase on the previous year.

One thing we can be sure about is that there are definitely multiple reasons as to why you should recycle your waste. Let’s explore some of them!

Recycling reduces energy from waste and landfill waste.

In most cases, landfills and incinerations contain materials such as paper, glass, plastic and food waste that could have otherwise been composted or recycled. The European Landfill Directive set targets to reduce biodegradable waste and as a response, the UK government introduced an escalating duty, in order to encourage more businesses to recycle their waste.

Recycling saves energy.

Producing new materials from recycled, uses less energy than it would making new materials. This makes a huge difference in energy consumption. For example, in the production of aluminium, producing new aluminium from old aluminium conserves roughly 95% of energy. Recycling paper saves 40% and recycling steels saves 70%.

Recycling reduces your carbon footprint.

Using recycled resources reduces your carbon footprint as it diminishes the need for raw materials to create new resources. A reliance on mass-producing virgin materials poses a far bigger climate threat than limited recycling access. As well as this, many of the raw materials needed are finite.

Recycling creates jobs.

By 2025, it is believed that in the UK, more than 50,000 jobs will be created if the recycling mark is achieved by 70%. While it may be ambitious, it is achievable and more than 30,000 jobs will be created directly in the recycling sector and 20,000 jobs in the supply chain.

Recycling protects wildlife and the ecosystem.

With an increase in recycling, the need to harvest and grow new raw materials decreases, putting less pressure on the ecosystem to produce raw materials. As a result, fewer forests are cut down, many more wild animals survive and there is less pollution of the air, soil and water pollution.

Many people think that their own efforts to recycle their waste won’t make a difference, however even a single person can inflict change on the environment. On average, 90% of the thousands of kilograms of waste that is disposed of each year by a single person, can be recycled. Get in touch to find out more about how J&B Recycling can help you and your business make a change as a renowned recycling company in the North East. If your recycling is done properly and your waste is put into the correct bins, your waste will be effectively recycled!

J&B Recycling are based in the North of England. Our commercial collection services operate from the Scottish Borders down to Hull and North Yorkshire. Our main areas for collecting and processing commercial waste include Teesside (Darlington, Hartlepool, Middlesbrough, Stockton), Durham, Gateshead, Newcastle, Sunderland, North Tyneside and Northumberland. Get in touch for more information and to request a quote.