Recycling myths
“There is no point in recycling it won’t make a difference”
The average household in Walsall throws away about one tonne of waste each year. Recycling is one of the ways you can stop rubbish being buried in landfill sites. By recycling, you are currently helping the UK save about 10-15 million tonnes of carbon emissions each year. This is the same as taking 3.5 million cars off the road.
“It just gets buried or burnt anyway”
This isn’t true. All of the materials collected from the kerbside go to a materials recovery facility where they are sorted by machine and by hand. The separated materials are then taken away to factories to be turned into new products. The materials from the household waste recycling centres are sorted on site so they are transported directly to factories to be turned into new products.
“My recycling gets sent abroad”
Some of your recycling may get sent to other countries. This is because there are not enough facilities in the UK to turn all of our recycling into new products. The materials are transported on ships making return journeys, having delivered goods to the UK. There are strict laws to ensure that the materials sent abroad are recycled. If you want more things to be made from recycled material in the UK, we all need to buy more recycled products.
“Shops and businesses aren’t doing much about recycling”
Businesses usually respond to what customers want. You can show that you want things to change by not buying over-packaged goods. Many larger companies have recycling targets set by government to recycle a proportion of their packaging materials.
“My recycling is thrown in with all the other rubbish”
This isn’t true. Your recycling is collected and kept separate from your other rubbish.
“It takes more energy to recycle than to make something from scratch”
This isn’t true. For example, making drinks can out of recycled aluminium saves up to 95% of the energy needed to make it from scratch. Recycling reduces demand on the world’s rapidly depleting natural resources, like oil, water and trees.
“The council makes a lot of money from recycling”
The council does not make a profit from the things that you recycle. Money from the sale of recyclable material is used to keep the system as cheap as possible and your council tax low.
“Recycled products are poor quality”
Most people don’t even know when things are made from recycled materials. Many newspapers, cans and bottles are already made from recycled materials.
This page was last updated on 06 November 2009