Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Marty Jopson: Every day of the year, the University of York produces two massive
truckloads full of waste. One is a good truck, and the other is its evil twin
The good truck contains material from the recycling bins. It isn't waste.
Every atom can be reused. It's good for the planet, and it's good for the
University. We save 100 pounds on every truckload.
The other truck, the evil truck, is full of the material that wasn't put in
the recycling bins. Every day it dumps its two-ton load here,
at the Harewood Whin Landfill site.
We'll always need landfill sites for waste that can't be recycled.
Although it doesn't look very pretty, a modern one like this does relatively little
damage to the environment. In fact, here they even collect the methane gas
that's created when the rubbish rots away and use it to create enough
electricity to power a small village.
But ground for burying waste is a limited resource, and, sadly,
a lot of rubbish here could have been recycled if only people could be bothered to
throw their stuff into a recycling bin.
So what kind of stuff is thrown away as general waste on a typical day?
Only one way to find out.
Keep coming. Keep coming, keep coming, stop, and tip. Here it comes.
Ugh.
Don't try this at home. This is very unpleasant. The most unpleasant thing, though,
is when you realise how much of this waste could have been recycled.
I mean, look at this. Somebody has gone to the effort of
collecting together a load of aluminium cans, and then chucked them in the
general waste. If we recycled every aluminium can sold in the UK,
in one week, we'd save enough waste to fill the University's Central Hall.
Paper. Here, look. Every ton of paper we recycle saves 15 full grown trees.
Glass bottles. Every glass bottle you recycle saves enough energy to power
a light bulb for 24 hours. So think before you chuck.
These new style recycling bins are appearing all around the University.
Just remember to put all recyclable waste in them. There's a very short
list of things that can't be recycled near each bin, which includes food waste,
and that's the most important thing of all. Food waste contaminates
the other rubbish and makes it useless for recycling.
That's all there is to it, apart from clearing this lot up.
This job is rubbish. Where's my agent?