Benefits of Recycling Card, Save money or potentially we will buy your waste, cardboard!!
Cardboard can, if assessed and handled correctly, be of value and offers the potential
for rebates to be paid to customers. Normally the material will need to be baled
to offer the greatest value but larger quantities of loose material still holds
much potential. Small bin size volumes are not of value in terms of rebates as the
transport costs make this unviable at present, but we at Ash Waste Services will
always offer a substantially reduced cost to collect.
An obvious use for recycled card is to make more cardboard boxes and packaging,
along with other applications such as animal bedding, office supplies and even biodegradable
coffins. Cardboard also makes excellent compost.
Despite the fibres in cardboard becoming shorter each time they are recycled, card
can be recycled four or five times.
Why Is Cardboard Recycling Important?
The market for recycling card within the UK can be drastically improved. In 2004
recycled paper and cardboard provided about 74% of the source materials for the
6.2 million tonnes of paper manufactured in the UK. However, a further 7.7 million
tonnes were imported.
Recycling paper and cardboard uses up to 70% less energy then the virgin processes
and uses less water. This is because most of the energy used in papermaking is the
pulping needed to turn wood into paper; this is immediately taken out of the system
as the input changes to waste paper and cardboard, and no longer wood.
Paper is a biodegradable material and as such people don't automatically link waste
paper and cardboard to environmental problems. However, being biodegradable means
that when it goes to landfill it rots, producing methane. Methane is a potent greenhouse
gas, 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, and it is therefore an indirect catalyst
to global warming.
In 2003/04, paper and cardboard accounted for over a quarter of all household waste
collected in England. This equates to 2.5 million tonnes of paper and cardboard
ending up in landfill sites every year.
Alarmingly in the UK alone over six million tonnes of paper and cardboard is being
used only once despite the capacity for paper recycling. This is partly due to 40%
of the UK population openly admitting that they never recycle anything.
In the future it is highly likely that the landfill tax may be extended to include
paper and cardboard, to act as an incentive to recycle more paper and cardboard.
We at Ash Waste Services are able to offer a dedicated recycling
collection service. For more information and prices, please call us on the number
above
or e-mail us at enquiries@ashwasteservices.co.uk
and one of our experienced team will contact you to discuss your potential.
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