Promoting more and better recycling

We are all familiar with the terms ‘production’ and ‘consumption’ and both are key elements in our day-to-day lives.

Goods are produced, which we then buy and use. But once a product has reached the end of its useful life, it needs to be disposed of. It is at this point that we begin to see how far away we are from achieving a sustainable circular economy, and we start to realize that the resources available to us for the production of goods are finite. There is also a significant imbalance in the costs associated with disposal, with far more money spent on the destruction of end-of-use products than on their recycling or reuse.

So why do we behave like this?

Put simply: it's the way we were brought up. For decades the motto was simply ‘sell more, buy more’ – no matter what the cost. But it wasn’t all that long ago that people felt it was wrong just to throw something away when it was no longer needed.

The long-term consequences of just dumping waste material can no longer be overlooked. The negative impact on the natural world – and thus on human society – and the financial costs involved in managing vast quantities of waste will have to borne by future  generations. The fact that significant amounts of waste are also dumped in unregistered, unknown landfills only makes the situation worse.

Waste incineration has provided a partial solution to the landfill problem by recovering thermal energy from these end-of-use materials, but as the process of combustion essentially destroys these materials it prevents them from ever being reintroduced into the production cycle.

The existence of resources centres show that other approaches are possible. But in many cases important questions such as: ‘Which end-of-use products should be collected?’, ‘How should collection be carried out?’, ‘How can the materials they contain be recovered or reused?’ remain unanswered. As a result, recycling is often not taken seriously enough, something that becomes readily apparent when one looks at the numbers of people actually going to resources centres.

This situation can be changed by identifying where the weaknesses with traditional recycling centres lie and by setting out a few guidelines on how they can be improved. This is an important step forward towards implementing a meaningful circular economy.

Modern facilities must aim to collect individual materials and end-of-use products, not quantities of mixed waste. The better these products are sorted and separated, the easier it is to reintroduce them into the circular economy. By adopting quality criteria of this kind, the efficiency with which materials are recycled and reused can be improved markedly.

The logistical structure of a collection centre is also a critical factor. Careful planning and design at an early stage avoids the need for future changes, saving significant subsequent expenditure.

If a collection centre operates smoothly and efficiently, offering visitors advice and assistance, the number of people using that facility will rise compared with other local waste collection institutions or services.

There are therefore many good reasons for improving the quality of recycling centres and giving modern, high-quality, service-oriented centres the significance and recognition they deserve. It was for these reasons that the we introduced and developed the RAL quality assurance mark ‘RAL GZ 950 Resources management’. It is the only quality audit scheme that exists in the entire sector.

Service providers who achieve the RAL GZ 950 quality mark have indicated their professionalism and expertise in this environmentally and economically important area. We look forward to helping you upgrade your collection and recycling centre to meet the needs of the circular economy.