Proposed new recycling scheme isles-wide

[Ghostrider]

Doesn’t seem so long ago it was reported the Lerwick Incinerator was nearing the end of its useful life and required considerable investment and the council were trying to offload it to SHEP? Has it undergone some recent refurbishment and investment to make it reliable and capable of processing all this imported waste?

 

Maybe it was written by the same fellow who wrote years ago that the old Museum/Library was going to fall down literally any day.....It appeared to enjoy a similar miraculous rejuvination while being ignored, or then the fellow who wrote years later that it was good for many years yet with a little tidying up was the liar, for sure as hell both couldn't have been telling the truth.

 

If SIC senior staff excel at one thing, its the ability to manufacture 'evidence' to fit both 'crime' and 'suspect' of any given moment in time. I now don't believe one word out of one of them, as whatever they're saying today, they'll be saying the opposite tomorrow, and swearing blind that's what they always said to boot. They probably tell the truth sometimes too, but between the half truths, misinformation, outright fairy tales and double strenth bull, you have no chance in telling which is which.

[Ghostrider]

I think we must remember we did successfully recycle in Lerwick and Scalloway up until a couple of years ago, we had the specialised vehicles and coloured bags, bins etc. and it worked, it was the council not the people of Shetland who made the decision to mothball these collections and reduce the recycling rates in Shetland to a U.K low in order to feed their incinerator!

 

 

A victim of the randomly flailing axe of arbitary cuts to meet a budget I seem to remember?

 

Serious question. Was that recycling actually acheiving anything much though? From my recollection the SIC line of the day was that it wasn't viable to ship paper south to reprocess on cost grounds, steel tins etc were the same. Aluminium cans were sent for reprocessing, and if I recall some money came back from that one way or another. Glass was.....well, smashed up and used instead of rock or sand. Which I have never undertood the point of, or saw what was being gained on any front.

 

Did they collect anything else for 'recycling', and what became of what they did collect? Was anything other than the aluminium cans successfully put through 'the system'? On the face of it it came across that they were collecting stuff that theoretically could be recycled, but due to the small quantities involved and our location, going through with the actual recycling was something they neve rquite figured out how to make happen productively and viably. Am I wrong?

[Urabug]

Surely the collection and recycling of waste should be valuated (universally)as the whole of the UK.

 

In other words some areas will be able to accumulate far more waste due to the population of that said area and it will be more profitable as a result,but rural areas like we have in Shetland it will be impossible to collect and process waste at a profit.

 

This whole business of waste collection,processing and disposal has to be looked at as a national project with the more profitable built up areas supporting the smaller lesser populated areas .

 

To expect every local council to be able to act independently is not feasible in my opinion.

 

The government has to establish a national project and fund to cover the whole of the UK and just ma'be when all the bruck is collected ,sorted and sold to it's appropriate departments for recycling they might be lucky to make a profit overall.

[Guest Mr.Brown]

^It still leaves the carbon footprint issue. Surely that is the bottom line when it comes to caring for the environment?

[Ghostrider]

I'll just leave this here.....Never let it be said I'm not a problem solver.

 

Probably not for the forgetful though. 60 ishy alang da Fladdabist streights an trow da boddam o' Wharff ur trow da Kaemes with this rig might no be the best.

 

 

[Urabug]

^It still leaves the carbon footprint issue. Surely that is the bottom line when it comes to caring for the environment?

Yes that is correct but to we cannot keep replacing everything from new like aluminium,steel.brass,copper,glass ect so recycling is a necessity.that I'm fairly sure will leave less of a carbon footprint than if it was  produced from new .

 

We will run out of material eventually if we do not recycle  and everything will require energy whether produced from new or recycled.

 

Re-use of nearly all commodities is a necessity it is the best way of collecting them that is the problem.

 

Japan has been growing tomatoes in human waste for years ,they actually tasted quite good.

[Rasmie]

There are already commercial schemes in place for recycling the metals due to their high value.

 

 

Using crushed glass instead of sand for concrete is more political than valuable.

[Ghostrider]

 

^It still leaves the carbon footprint issue. Surely that is the bottom line when it comes to caring for the environment?

Yes that is correct but to we cannot keep replacing everything from new like aluminium,steel.brass,copper,glass ect so recycling is a necessity.that I'm fairly sure will leave less of a carbon footprint than if it was  produced from new .

 

We will run out of material eventually if we do not recycle  and everything will require energy whether produced from new or recycled.

 

Re-use of nearly all commodities is a necessity it is the best way of collecting them that is the problem.

 

Japan has been growing tomatoes in human waste for years ,they actually tasted quite good.

 

 

How much copper and brass is in domestic rubbish, I can't think of more than a minimal amount. Aluminium, yes, and steel, but aluminium has been bought for a decent amount of pocket money by the scrappie for longer than I've been around, and that now isn't just a blink of an eye. Steel can barely pay its own freight from here to be re-smelted, hence the scrappie only taking what folk are willing to dump off at their gate - in no small part to Italy sourcing considerable amounts from ship's breakers to recycle. Among wreckers south the talk is local yards there only offer £30-£50 tonne for poor quality steel, namely car body shells - which is pretty much the same quality metal that domestic tins are made of.

 

Glass, we can keep on creating new for eternity, unless all shellfish are going to go extinct, and then we'd have a hell of a lot of more important things to worry about. Its just sand heated to high temps, and if glass were just dumped over he banks where there's a hard boddam and a lot of sea movement, it would go back to sand in a jiffy - rapid, automatic and natural recycling courtesey of mother nature herself. Yet suits with empty heads sitting polishing chairs think they know better.....

 

We've all been eating food grown on human waste for longer than anyone knows, from old Shetlanders for whom taking a dump alongside their cow in the byre and spreading the resultant mix over their rigs come voar was normal and routine, to more modern industrialised methods of direct injection of sewage sludge from sewage farms in to agricultural fields.

Edited November 9, 2017 by Ghostrider

[Urabug]

ghostrider-Do you honestly think that folk will not disguise and dump items that will not constitute domestic rubbish,but will contain brass and copper. Yes from a domestic rubbish point of view low but we all dump household goods as well and it all adds up.

 

Do not make me out to be an idiot I have spread many a barrow full of muck on the rigs.Point I'm making is everything is recyclable.

[George.]

ghostrider-Do you honestly think that folk will not disguise and dump items that will not constitute domestic rubbish,but will contain brass and copper. Yes from a domestic rubbish point of view low but we all dump household goods as well and it all adds up.

 

All metals will break down relatively quickly and disappear back into the system, but the plastic bags that they're wrapped up in will take a lot longer. Unfortunately, the plastic gets dumped along with all the rest.

[Ghostrider]

ghostrider-Do you honestly think that folk will not disguise and dump items that will not constitute domestic rubbish,but will contain brass and copper. Yes from a domestic rubbish point of view low but we all dump household goods as well and it all adds up.

 

Do not make me out to be an idiot I have spread many a barrow full of muck on the rigs.Point I'm making is everything is recyclable.

 

Of course they will, they do, are, and probably always have been, I see it happen most weeks in the local rubbish shed.

 

What the SIC are proposing though won't recover any of that, as I understand it, there's a bin for paper and another plastic, plus the everything else one. If non-domestic stuff goes in the everything else one it'll still go in the incinerator like it does now, they've not made any mention that they're intending to sort that one at all. In fact someplace among all the waffle Maggie was quoted as having said it was down to 'seperation problems' with the rubbish in the condition it is collected now, that they were having to bring in this scheme to make recycling workable.

 

If it goes in the plastics or paper bin, it'll be thrown out, as its neither. You'd hope they might create new piles with such materials and move them on to appropriate reuse facilities when an adequate amount amasses, but in the check box, 'not my job' reality of public working there's little chance of that. Whoever is working the sorting line will have instructions that only line appropriate materials go through, and everything else is picked off and shunted in to the incinerator as being 'non-recycable', simply because it ended up in the 'wrong' place. That's what seems to be pretty much industry standard across local authority rubbish reprocessing, and I can't see this lot being any better at it.

 

Yes, everything is recycable in one way or another, and once upon a time not all that long ago Shetlanders were probably among the best recyclers around - folk simply couldn't afford to be any other way. Between greater affluence removing necessity, and modern living generating a needless mass of difficult to reuse material, we've gotten very lax and need to do more. Leaving it up to legislation and governments to run it though is just taking it out of the frying pan and in to the fire, as with them common sense and reasoned logical thought are the first casualties in everything thing they do. Given our location and situation, common sense, reasoned logical thought and a bit of good old fashioned innovation are the very things that are needed for us to recycle as best we can. What works best someplace else, or what works at all someplace else, may or may not do the same here, simply due to volumes of material involved and transportation issues - and no doubt some things would give excellent result here, that would be unworkable in other places for the self same reasons. Those are the things though that legislation and governments can't seem to get in to their heads - or more likely, get in to their heads very well, as they're not all stupid, but refuse to acknowledge and accept as they're too obsessed with boxes to be ticked, and so what if getting those boxes ticked means a few thousand on a rock mid ocean are actually being forced in teh opposite direction. It and they don't matter in the bigger picture, all hail the ticking of boxes who must be obeyed.