Rubbish is what you and I throw away- anything from unwanted old
cars to cigarette packets. Worldwide, the amount of rubbish is growing
rapidly. The time has come to think about rubbish - very seriously.
As a subject, rubbish is not particularly romantic or attractive. We
only think about it when there are shortages, such as those during a
war. In Britain in the Second World War, for example, old metal and
paper were recycled, that is re-used, because it was difficult to get new
supplies. Afterwards, people went back to throwing things away.
The rubbish you and I are likely to throw away is things like beer
cans or bottles, or packaging around things we buy. The packaging is
often there to sell the product and nothing more. You throw it away,
and it ends up in the dustbin, along with your old bottles, plastic and
cans. What still often happens then is that everything is taken away to a
rubbish dump and buried, but not always.
In the early seventies, attitudes towards rubbish began to change. In
Britain in 1971, there was an outcry when Schweppes, the soft drink
manufacturers, introduced disposable, or throwaway bottles.
Previously, you took bottles back to the shop and were paid for them.
The conservation group, Friends of the Earth, organised a protest: they
simply left thousands of the new bottles outside Schweppes' offices. In
fact, Schweppes did not change their minds, but the protest did begin to
make people think seriously about rubbish.
If you look at what a typical British dustbin contains, you will see
that most of it need not be rubbish at all. Most of the textiles, glass,
metal, paper and cardboard can be recycled and you can burn plastic,
paper and cardboard as fuel for heating, which saves energy. You can
use the vegetable waste to make compost to improve gardens. The
problem is to get authorities and governments to make it easy to re-use
what we throw away. This is because individiuals cannot recycle paper
or metal for themselves. It is a big operation.
In more and more countries, it is now quite normal to take all your
old bottles to a bottle bank, where they are collected and re-used. More
and more paper is being recycled. In Switzerland, for example, the
amount of paper being recycled is over 70%. This figure varies around
the world, but it is increasing.
Another welcome trend is that containers and packaging are now
being designed so that they are easy to recycle. Now designers don't
use plastic-covered paper wrapping or drink cans made of two different
metals. Both of these are difficult to recycle. Plain paper and single
metals are not.
