COLUMN: The truth about recycling

Let's cut the flimflam. Separating waste into different boxes does not constitute recycling; just put things in boxes. Recycling, by definition, involves the reuse of waste.

If you place a birthday present on a lovingly chosen page of the press, you reuse it. When your paper waste is stuck in cardboard, toilet paper or molded paper packaging, it is recycled.

Some materials, such as aluminum, paper, glass and cans, are recycled as easily as old jokes. Recycled paper, for example, saves millions of trees and uses less water and energy than producing paper from wood pulp. EU statistics show that in 2014 the paper recycling rate in Europe was 71.7%. Not bad.

Plastics are another story. They are sneaky and everywhere: toothpaste, wrappings, clothes, this ugly snow globe that your niece has given, furniture, rugs, window frames …

Last year, each British household excreted 40 kg of plastic waste, according to DEFRA. When you consider how light plastic packaging is, it's a lot of plastic. In the 83,000 households in York, we are talking about 3,300 tonnes of plastic waste a year. And I do not include the thousands of microplastic fibers that escape into the rivers every time we use our washing machines. Every year, 12 million tons of plastic waste float in the world's oceans, killing millions of sea creatures and even ending up on our plates.

How can we recycle more plastic? Sustainable development experts talk about the circular economy, that is to say, they mean: the place that produces the waste must reuse it. York could, for example, copy the Lancashire County Council and put plastic curbs instead of concrete curbs. A plastic edge of 500 mm weighs 13.5 kg. The council could recycle 1,000 tonnes by putting plastic curbs on 11 km of city roads.

Sorry, cynical, plastic sidewalks are stronger than concrete ones. They do not crack when heavy trucks drive them. They do not break when they fall. And they do not hurt road maintenance crews because they weigh a fraction of their concrete equivalent. By purchasing and installing plastic curbs, the council would create a market for recycled plastic and create real jobs in recycling. It's not even high technology. Making bricks from old plastic milk bottles (HDPE) is so easy that you can do it in your microwave oven.

Before blaming the board for everything (it's too easy and, by the way, our plastic waste is not dumped; non-recycled waste is burned to produce electricity) that dumped 15 millions of disposable plastic bottles. the UK every day? We do. Every day, we go out of the stores filled with plastic packaging, we take them home and we throw them in the recycling box. Be the problem of someone else.

If we want to keep our heads high, we all need to significantly reduce the amount of plastic we dump. There are solutions. And if the UN voted a law declaring that all the world's waste had to be deposited upstream? Think about it. Do we really throw garbage in the Ouse, north of York, so that everything goes right back into the city? I doubt it.

Whatever it is, here are four things we can do.

1: use less plastic. If your fruits and vegetables are delivered in a plastic package, remove the plastic once you have paid and leave it in the store. They will receive the message.

2: stop buying plastic bottles and tubes. Solid bars of shampoo wash your hair as well. Many foods come in glass jars or tubes. Choose the glass.

2: use filling stations that grow like mushrooms; Fill your old plastic bottles with dishwashing liquid, fabric softener, conditioner, and so on.

4: Ask the council to install drinking fountains in the city center so that everyone can fill their water bottles for nothing.

When we finished all this, the remaining plastic that we had to bring home was still put in our green bins. Oh, and send an email to the council for it to invest in recycled plastic sidewalks.

This is the first in a new monthly column in which Christian Vassie, Chair of the City Council's Climate Change Review Committee, gives his personal perspective on how York can do its part to deal with the climate crisis.