N. Thornton wrote:

The Natural Philosopher wrote in message ...

Pete C wrote:


I still fail to see how incinerating glass, metal and paper saves more
energy and landfill than recycling it. It may be worth doing
alongside recycling but it's not best option by any means.


Simply because the logistics of recycling it use a lot of road space and
fuel to get it to the recycling plant.


Transport is needed to get it to incineration too.



Yes, but the issue is that incineration is something that is easier to
arrange locally than a paper making plant.




Personally I think there is a great future in a machine that would grind
glass to a powder suitable for use instead of sand as building material.


I've seen claims from one council that their collected glass gets made
into bottles - I thought that was impossible though. Are they telling
fibs?



Its possible. Glass is infinirely resusable, but you cannot take out the
admixtures used to crate it in the first place. In time it probably
means all bottles end up a muddy brown.



Strikes me that a lot of emphasis is being put on recycling but not
enough on re-use. For the most part the reuse ideas around seem pretty
naive, but there are more sensible ways to do it too. I idly came up
with several possibilities, which of course may or may not stand up to
further scrutiny.


Nearly all our waste is packaging materials.

Or marketing collateral.

Basically its tins, bottles, pots, wrappers etc etc.


The odd bit of building material from the endless DIY...

The food scraps get composted, as does all garden watse.

Most wood gets burnt, one way or another.

So does a lot of the paper.

Its the things that useable things come in that need to be disposed off.





Regards, NT