You must always work hard to maintain your surrounding, regardless of whether you’re an ordinary citizen or a successful business owner. Besides creating a positive impression and enhancing the beauty of your surroundings, it can help ensure everyone’s safety and protect the environment. This good habit can also help residents feel proud of their community.
Unfortunately, no matter how many waste bins and refuse facilities that are installed in public places, there will always be individuals who can’t dispose of and segregate their waste correctly. This issue is significant because the World Bank calculates that we generate about 2 billion tons of solid waste annually, and at least a third of this isn’t disposed of properly.
If you want to help to keep the United Kingdom tidy, then this article will explain how we should tackle waste sorting, and why you should do it now.
What’s the Waste Situation like in the UK?
The UK’s recycling rate was only 44.1% in 2018, which isn’t much different from 2017’s rate of 43.8%. This lack of improvement mainly happened because of the absence of proper facilities to process waste, some of which has previously been sent abroad for processing. However, since China has banned importing foreign waste, the UK may face a shortage of up to 6 million tonnes of waste treatment capacity by 2030.
What Is the Government Doing to Address This Issue?
Fortunately, the UK Government has set a goal of achieving a 65% recycling rate for municipal waste by 2035, which means incorporating many aspects of the European Union’s Circular Economy Package (EUCP) into national legislation. The initiative also aims to minimise the amount of municipal waste in landfills to no more than ten per cent.
How Can You Help In This Initiative?
While sorting waste may seem a minor thing, it can significantly impact everyone’s health. Households and businesses can help government officials achieve these recycling goals by separating their waste correctly. You can also promote economic growth and better public health by participating in recycling and composting programs. Moreover, organisations must sort their trade rubbish to ensure an effective recycling program.
What Is Waste Sorting?
Waste sorting means classifying waste based on its properties and disposal needs. While it may look insignificant, proper waste management can benefit the environment and society because it helps create a healthier and cleaner environment for everyone.
Whether you’re keen on reducing waste yourself, or a business owner wanting to implement an eco-friendly waste management system, you can exercise environmental responsibility by disposing of your rubbish correctly and hiring a professional skip hire company.
Does the UK Government Have Relevant Waste Sorting Laws?
The UK law requires businesses to store and sort their trade waste properly, keep it in a secure area, and use containers to prevent rubbish from escaping. Organisations must also label containers clearly and use waterproof bins if necessary.
Companies dealing with hazardous waste must take special precautions when storing and organising it. For starters, they should separate the dangerous rubbish from each other to prevent contamination. They should also label items like batteries, electronics, and light bulbs as hazardous waste to make recycling easier.
What Happens If You Don’t Sort Your Waste?
Proper waste segregation can help companies save money, identify reusable items, and separate those for recycling. After discussing the waste issue in the UK and waste sorting, this section will enumerate two costly consequences that can arise when you don’t sort your rubbish correctly.
1. Harmful Environmental Effects
Our planet is already facing a massive waste problem, and the last thing we want is more issues because someone didn’t dispose of their rubbish correctly.
If waste isn’t separated correctly, it will end up in landfills. This bad habit can cause waste items like food scraps, paper, and liquid waste to mix and decompose, releasing runoff into the soil and harmful gases into the atmosphere.
2. Legal Trouble
The law prohibits homeowners and businesses from mixing hazardous waste or rubbish containing high levels of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) with other dangerous or non-hazardous waste. Failure to comply with the regulations can lead to hefty fines or even risk imprisonment.
Why Businesses Should Segregate Their Rubbish Properly
Here are four good reasons companies must sort their waste correctly, regardless of their size and what they offer.
1. Minimise Waste Costs
Many assume that combining different kinds of waste can help them save money on disposal costs, however, unfortunately, that’s untrue. Mixing clean recyclable materials with hazardous waste can increase the costs of disposal, and it’s worth remembering that dangerous and general waste is costlier to dispose of than dry mix recycling, because it contains chemicals and biological contaminants.
2. Reduce Landfill Impact
Our landfills are mountains of rubbish, and they can only handle so much. Your business can reduce its environmental impact and recycle more items by sorting your waste correctly.
3. Increase the Recycling Rate
Once people realise the significance of sorting their waste and learning to separate it correctly, the recycling rate increases. That way, they can prevent recyclables from ending up with regular waste.
4. Make Money From Waste!
Waste segregation helps to identify valuable items like metals, cardboard, and plastics, which can then be sold to scrap dealers or recycling centres to earn valuable cash!
4 Reasons Everyone Should Sort Their Waste
Environmental responsibility doesn’t stop with local businesses and giant corporations. Here’s why everyone else must also do their part to ensure a cleaner and healthier environment.
1. Allow More Efficient and Effective Waste Processing
Waste sorting leads to more efficient and effective waste processing, reducing waste in landfills and conserving natural resources through recycling.
2. Prevent Accidents and Protect Public Health
Correctly organising and eliminating dangerous substances like medical waste and chemicals can help avoid mishaps and safeguard public health.
3. Create Jobs and Stimulate Economic Growth
Besides improving public health, recycling and composting create jobs, stimulate economic growth, and minimise waste disposal costs.
How to Train Your Employees to Segregate Their Rubbish Properly
You can help employees become more responsible by educating them on proper waste disposal, implementing waste policies, training, colour-coding and clear bin signages. Don’t mix different types of waste to make it easy for staff to identify the correct receptacle.
The Bottom Line
Proper waste segregation may seem minor to many, but it can significantly help improve public health and safety. You can be a more responsible homeowner or business by throwing rubbish in the appropriate bins and finding a reputable skip-hire company.
If your home or business needs a skip hire in Cheshire, let us help. Enviro Skip Hire is a family-run company ready to help our residential and commercial clients segregate their rubbish correctly. Contact us now!
