Waste management is not so complicated,

Chat with fellow forum users. No adverts or trade links in here please.
Post Reply
User avatar
Devil
Forum Curmudgeon
Posts: 3940
Joined: Wed Dec 28, 2016 8:34 am
Location: Mosfiloti

Waste management is not so complicated,

Post by Devil »

Waste management is not so complicated, says Cyprus’ Environment Commissioner
In Cyprus, she added, there was a decrease in landfill and a slight increase in recycling and composting. However, 76% of waste ends up in landfills compared to 24% which is the EU average. At the same time only 16% of the waste is recycled, including a 2% of composting. The respective EU average is 46%.Panayiotou said that, first and foremost, there should be practices and policies that will reduce solid waste through sustainable consumption.
As a second step, she said that sorting at the source and promoting local recycling and composting programs was the most economical, environmentally and socially friendly option.
https://in-cyprus.com/waste-management- ... missioner/

In my opinion, waste management in Cyprus has been, and still is, a total failure. This problem should have been foreseen and tackled 10, 15, 20 years ago but nothing was done, so we now pay swingeing fines to the EU for non-compliance with directives. At the same time, the 'powers-that-be' sit on their thumbs, stating that closing a couple of landfills is a solution to the problem; not so, Nicosia does not know now what to do with their mountains of waste.

We should have done what other countries have done, most successfully, generate energy from the waste. I made such a proposal in a white paper over ten years ago but, of course, nothing was done. Now, we are stuck with mountains of waste that we haven't a clue what we can do with.

What has the Green Party or the two Green MPs done to resolve the problems? Nothing!
User avatar
Dominic
Site Admin
Posts: 14931
Joined: Wed Dec 28, 2016 5:00 pm
Location: Polemi
Contact:

Re: Waste management is not so complicated,

Post by Dominic »

As I understood it one of the problems Cyprus has is that there is no market for the product of recycling.

In the UK, they make park benches, fences and all-sorts out of recycled plastics. Can they not do the same here? This is a genuine question. For all I know, the temperature variation may make this impossible. Nobody wants to sit on a bench that melts. But given the scale of the plastic problem, it does seem a possible solution.
Web Designer / Developer. Currently working on Paphos Life.
Living in Polemi, Cyprus with my wife and daughter.
boycott
Posts: 364
Joined: Sat Dec 31, 2016 12:25 pm
Location: Limassol

Re: Waste management is not so complicated,

Post by boycott »

In the village I live in which is East of Limassol, the local council started a recycling area with bins for plastic/paper and glass.

It was emptied once a week but became that well used it needed emptying at least 3 times a week.

However it got closed and the reason's given was a) it was to popular, b) people from other villages were using it, c) the recycling company complained that all the recycling stuff was not in the right bins and d) it looked mess in the centre of the village.

Now there are NO public recycling areas as far as I know in Limassol, some cafes have recycling bins that I suspect are for private use of the cafes but some people use them as public ones.
User avatar
Jimgward
Posts: 3115
Joined: Fri Dec 30, 2016 8:14 pm
Location: Lanark
Contact:

Re: Waste management is not so complicated,

Post by Jimgward »

The UK has not bee good with recycling, with much put onto ships leaving to return to China - but they dumped in a landfill in West African states.

We don't create energy from waste to any scale. Scandinavia does much, much better.

" In the UK, the most common disposal method is landfill. Incineration, anaerobic digestion and other disposal methods are also used. Each year approximately 111 million tonnes, or 57%, of all UK controlled waste (household, commercial and industrial waste) are disposed of in landfill sites."

"The recycling rate for waste from households in England in 2017 was 45.2%, up from 44.9% in 2016. In 2000, the household waste recycling rate was 11%. Just 12.5% of all local authority waste was disposed to landfill in 2017/18, down by 0.9 million tonnes or 22% to 3.2 million tonnes"

"Huge amounts of packaging waste is being sent overseas on the basis that it will be recycled and turned into new products. ... Every year, British households throw 22m tons of waste into the bin. Recycling rates have stagnated at about 44% and the UK is unlikely to hit its target of 50% by 2020."

"How much of what we recycle is actually recycled?
Of that, only nine percent has been recycled. The vast majority—79 percent—is accumulating in landfills or sloughing off in the natural environment as litter. Meaning: at some point, much of it ends up in the oceans, the final sink."

"Of the 260 million tons of plastic the world produces each year, about 10 percent ends up in the Ocean, according to a Greenpeace report (Plastic Debris in the World's Oceans, 2006). Seventy percent of the mass eventually sinks, damaging life on the seabed."
User avatar
cyprusmax47
Chief Cat Spotter
Posts: 4968
Joined: Wed Dec 28, 2016 10:10 am
Location: Paphos area since 1982

Re: Waste management is not so complicated,

Post by cyprusmax47 »

It's not all negative concerning plastic recycling in Cyprus as the first plant opened recently, and others will hopefully follow soon...

https://www.plasticsnewseurope.com/news ... ling-plant

Max
User avatar
Devil
Forum Curmudgeon
Posts: 3940
Joined: Wed Dec 28, 2016 8:34 am
Location: Mosfiloti

Re: Waste management is not so complicated,

Post by Devil »

The real problem with plastics is identification. Yes, PET drink bottles used to be sent to China for recycling into fibres for ropes, insulation, clothing etc. but China is now refusing them because the cost of sorting out non-PET from the PET was prohibitive. Now the milk bottles here are mostly HDPE, also recyclable but not recycled. But what about the mountains of PVC, LDPE, PTFE, PC, PU and other plastics? You can't mix them for recycling; each has theoretically to be identified and sorted cleanly into separate bins, an impossible task. There is one way of tackling the plastics problem and it is done in many hundreds of installations throughout the world; burn them in suitably designed incinerators (along with other household and industrial waste) and use the heat for energy generation. The combustion gases are treated to strict standards to avoid emitting toxic or polluting gases. The 'ash' would be a totally inert clinker that could be used for roads, building etc. (no landfill).

I have a website on waste (written many years ago, but still largely valid). You can find it at http://bnellis.eu/waste/ : in particular have a look at the waste-to-energy section.
User avatar
Devil
Forum Curmudgeon
Posts: 3940
Joined: Wed Dec 28, 2016 8:34 am
Location: Mosfiloti

Re: Waste management is not so complicated,

Post by Devil »

I'll go slightly off-topic for a moment. Checking the ancient link in the above post, I looked at a few of my environmental pages from years ago and came across 'My Credo' video at http://bnellis.eu/green/credovid.html - it will give you an idea of what makes me tick.
smudger
Posts: 1345
Joined: Wed Dec 28, 2016 1:58 pm
Location: Tremithousa

Re: Waste management is not so complicated,

Post by smudger »

Well said Dev. I do think that the major countries in the world are beginning to come to terms with the huge mountain which needs to be climbed in waste management. The logistics of this mountain may welli fear, take much longer to compute.
smudger
Posts: 1345
Joined: Wed Dec 28, 2016 1:58 pm
Location: Tremithousa

Re: Waste management is not so complicated,

Post by smudger »

David, have you tried checking with the animal charities? They may well be happy to take the clothing for animal bedding. If the collection points you refer to are the lilac bins, then don't assume that the funds raised are returned to local charities. Find your own places to dispose of your surplus. Seriously.
I do realise that even when the clothing is used by the animal charities there is still a finite disposal problem, but at least you will have enhanced the base usage!
Post Reply