Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
programme is compared to the costs of a one-use bottle system, annual savings of
$ 36 million a year are made in the province of Ontario alone (BAC
2013
). This very
successful programme has been expanded to deal with additional products, so that
many Canadian bottle depots now take all beverage containers, including those of
glass, metal, plastic and cardboard, and return a fee for each unit, although the rate
of return and use of the containers is far less than the bottles. However the success
of the programme does depend on the fact that the majority of households have a
car and can transport the containers to a depot. In other countries, such as Germany
and Sweden, retailers are obliged to take back the packaging of goods that they sold,
which substantially reduces the waste coming from households. In addition, many
countries have tried to reduce the use of plastic bags and bottles, many of which
were only used once, either ending up in the garbage, or abandoned and increasing
the amount of litter in streets. Legislation in many countries, as well as individual
cities, has required retailers to change for the use of a bag, or even banning them,
which has led to the return of shopping baskets or cloth bags, although the need, on
hygiene grounds, to frequently clean these containers is often forgotten. Some cities
are starting to ban the sale of plastic bottles in their premises, returning to far older
solutions by adding public water fountains in public places.
Although there are clearly vast variations in the extent to which this type of recy-
cling occurs in urban areas, it is apparent that a huge increase in sustainability could
be achieved if more places adopted the best re-cycling practices of successful cities.
What has been learned from the experience of these exemplars is that if sustain-
able consumerism is to flourish, it cannot depend on consumers behaving on their
environmental values alone. Economic incentives, such as the returnable deposit,
provide an important motivation for re-cycling, although it is vital for the product to
have a value as a recyclable material, especially if more private companies are to be
attracted into the business. This also involves acceptance by the public of using re-
cycled material. China is the biggest customer for waste paper, cardboard and other
products, so thousands of containers containing this material are sent there weekly
to be recycled, which does involve large transport emissions. In addition, city regu-
lations are needed in many cases to promote different sorts of recycling, such as the
way in which many municipal governments have introduced rules, such as requiring
builders to re-cycle or re-use building materials, or have sent used products such
as street lamps to recycling depots, where they are broken down into their various
components and then sold to re-coup costs. In many developing countries there are
lots of informal pickers who search garbage dumps or litter in streets for reusable
material. Although they only receive a pittance for their travail, it does provide them
with an income and helps the previously poor recycling efforts, although often at the
cost of the health of the workers.
Even when these various methods are used to separate the components of the
waste stream so that the various parts can be recycled or re-used, the question of
what to do with the general household waste remains. In countries such as Japan,
where space for landfills is at a premium, incinerators are still a popular solution
and often use new technologies to prevent harmful emissions. The new incinerators
being developed in several countries burn at over 850 ﾰC, which breaks down the
