the PeoPle - OPERC - Off-highway Plant and Equipment Research ...

SPECIAL REPORT
never
WaSte an
opportunity
Although waste is an accepted
by-product of many human
activities, we are growing
increasingly aware of the
issues related to our waste
production, such as waste
minimisation, reuse, recycling
and processing. Without due
consideration to these issues
we are in danger of literally
turning our planet into a rubbish
heap. The exact figure for
waste produced in the UK each
year varies significantly across
the various sources, with some
suggesting that the figure is as
high as 100 million tonnes of
waste each year 1 !
26
August 2010
The Department for Environment,
Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) state
that for every one tonne of household
waste produced, a further six tonnes is
created within commercial, industrial
and construction business. They further
claim that manufacturers could save
up to 1% of turnover through the use
of simple, yet effective, techniques
to minimise waste, such as reduced
packaging. The recycling information
centre www.recyle-more.co.uk 2 state
that some 30 million tones of household
waste is produced each year so
multiply this by six to include industrial
waste as per DEFRA’s figures, then
the total waste produced could be as
high as 210 million tonnes of waste
produced each year – a huge figure
by any standard! Worryingly, of this
30 million tonnes of household waste,
approximately 6.7 million tonnes is
attributed to food waste – given an
expanding global population and
anticipated food shortages (the so
called food security issue 3 ), this figure
of food waste is a major concern for
organisations such as Oxfam. Indeed,
Oxfam stated in 2009 that 1 billion
people need help right now to resolve
the global food crisis.
Given the aforementioned, a massive
depletion of natural resources, food
security, an exponential growth in the
global human population (fuelled in turn
by an aging population and higher birth
rates) and consequential environmental
“everyone’s talking about it!”
SPECIAL REPORT
concerns, the UK and other governments
around the world are in the process of
implementing strict waste management
regulations. This push to conserve
resources has inadvertently created
a boom in the increasingly profitable
recycling industry – some would even
suggest that recycling is becoming the
21st century’s equivalent to a gold rush!
Re-use or recycle
construction materials?
Fashion can be a powerful force for good
in a green revolution because bricks,
steel, glass and many other products can
simply be deconstructed and reused on
other projects. Consider the high profile
London Olympics 2012 which have
specifically designed structures that can
be de-constructed and rebuilt elsewhere
after the games – moreover many of the
components for the main stadium have
already been reused from the oil and
gas industry. The official London 2012
website 4 claims: “We aspire to host the
Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012
in compliance with the British Standard
for Sustainable Events (BS 8901). As
part of this approach we must ensure
that the events we host leading up to the
Games are as sustainable as possible.
We have published our Sustainability
Guidelines for Corporate and Public
Events to help us. A key aspect to our
Guidelines, and indeed our approach to
the Games overall, is ensuring that we
only use or hire what we need.”