Draft Business Waste Strategy PDF - london.gov.uk - Greater ...

110 Mayor of London
Making waste work in London The Mayor’s Draft Business Waste Management Strategy
5B Designing waste in
Introduction
5.22 London has strengthened its position as a global centre for the creative
industries, which now provide more jobs for Londoners than do financial
services 240 . Moreover, although low-value manufacturing in London
has declined significantly, high-value manufacturing, often related to
scientific, creative and design fields, remains one of London’s most
important industries 241 . London should therefore be at the forefront
of initiatives to design innovative products that prevent waste but also
incorporate recycled materials.
5.23 Environmentally, using recycled materials prevents the need to extract
raw materials and, where they are reprocessed close to the point of
production, may reduce the transport implications of material use.
Replacing virgin materials with recycled materials can additionally lower
the energy demand required to manufacture the materials, which can
help to reduce London’s contribution to climate change.
Case study 49 - Using recycling reduced energy consumption
and carbon dioxide production
There is a compelling case for using recycled materials in the manufacture
of container glass, since glass has the ability to be infinitely recycled
without compromising its quality. Using present technology the UK glass
industry has the capacity to recycle over one million tonnes of glass each
year. Despite this, 600,000 tonnes of glass bottles are thrown out from
pubs, clubs, hotels, restaurants and cafes every year (a quarter of the
UK’s waste glass containers) the majority of which are landfilled 242 .
Glass manufacture is very energy intensive with furnaces operating at
around 1,550°C. However, for every ten per cent of recycled glass in
furnace feedstock, energy consumption decreases by about two per
cent 243 . After accounting for the transport and processing needed,
recycling glass saves 315kg of carbon dioxide per tonne of recycled glass
and in addition to reducing carbon emissions, every tonne of recycled
materials used in the manufacture of new glass preserves 1.2 tonnes
of raw materials 244 .
Source: Waste Online, Waste Watch
5.24 Financially, where recycled content is used as a product or marketing
feature, using recycled materials may improve competitiveness, for
example, by winning business from the increasing number of green
consumers. The incentive to use recycled materials may be simpler
however; to use materials that may be cheaper to buy than virgin
materials. The Aggregates Levy, introduced in 2002, has increased the
cost of virgin aggregates, for example, making the use of recycled and