Recycling Waste in Richmond - Paper Example

There is a problem with regard to recycling waste in Richmond, Virginia. Some of the wastes that are available in Richmond that need to be recycled include plastics, cards, and plastic bags. Most households in Richmond have a blue-cart that is issued by the city where they put their household waste. Some of the wastes put into blue-carts include metal, cardboards, glass, plastic and paper (newspapers, magazines, etc.). However, Richmond Valley Council has come up with a three bin waste collection service that enables households to put their wastes in three bins depending on the type of waste; namely, organic waste, waste that can be recycled and rubbish waste. There is a department of public works in Richmond that collects and disposes solid waste within the city. In present years, there has been an increase of waste being disposed of in landfills. The cost of disposing of wastes in landfills has been escalating over the years. There is a need for a proper waste recycling system in Richmond, Virginia that would ensure that the city council of Richmond is saved huge amounts of money that it uses in land-filling. A proper waste management system would ensure that the city council of Richmond recycles organic wastes rather than disposing of the wastes in landfills, incurring exorbitant costs in the process. As a matter of fact, landfills are filling at fast rates creating a need to come up with alternative strategies for dealing with waste. Landfills also pollute water; this is because, with time, rain water percolates through the waste and find itself in rivers, lakes, and oceans. Recycling is the process by which waste is converted into useful products or products that can be reused. I propose that the city council of Richmond should engage in the recycling of wastes rather than put them in landfills or incinerate them as a way of reducing costs that are incurred in waste management programs. The paper critically analyzes the importance of recycling waste as an approach to reduce the cost of waste management and reducing pollutants in Richmond as well as appropriate waste recycling measures.

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Importance of recycling waste

Recycling wastes is of importance because untreated waste has a lot of deleterious effects on the environment. Recycling waste is important in reducing the effect that waste has on the environment. Dumping of waste in landfills and incineration of waste has hazardous effects on the environment. Therefore, recycling wastes will ensure that hazardous effects that wastes have on the environment are reduced (Bennett 23).

Recycling waste is important because it ensures conservation of natural resources such as forests. Recycling waste reduces the need of having new materials, and as a result, natural resources from where the raw materials are obtained are conserved. For instance, given that paper is processed from trees, recycling paper will play a major role in reducing the need to cut down trees, therefore, conserving trees. Therefore, waste recycling ensures that future generations will have abundant natural resources that they will use for their sustenance and survival (Hogue 25).

Recycling waste is important because it ensures that energy is conserved. Processing of new products requires a lot of energy. Recycling of waste is important because it ensures that energy that would have been used to process new products is conserved (Donald 21).

Waste recycling is important because it ensures that financial costs that are often incurred in manufacturing new goods and products are conserved. Manufacturing of new products and goods is financially intensive; waste recycling ensures that costs involved in manufacturing new products are conserved.

There is a need to recycle waste because the magnitude of waste is often on the increase because there is an increase in wealth across the globe that is prompting individuals to purchase more goods that is resulting in an increase in wealth.

There is a continuous production of non-biodegradable materials in the environment that are mostly used in packaging. Production of biodegradable packaging materials is expensive, and as a result, companies have resorted to the production of non-biodegradable packaging materials which are relatively cheaper.

Recycling of waste is important because it ensures the creation of jobs. Courtesy of the city council of Richmond taking part in waste recycling, there will be a creation of many jobs.

Solution to the problem of waste in Richmond

Waste recycling involves several steps. Waste recycling first starts with a collection of material that is supposed to be recycled. After collection of waste that is supposed to be recycled, the waste is sorted out. There are materials that can be recycled and there are materials that cannot be recycled. In sorting out, materials that cannot be recycled are set aside, and those that can be recycled are put in the right place as they wait to be recycled. Materials that can be recycled include magazines, cartons, metallic containers, and newspapers. The recycling that will be used for the waste depends on types of materials that the wastes are made of. Majorly, there are two types of recycling namely dry recycling and organic composting. Dry recycling involves recycling of plastic bottles, metallic containers, paper, cardboards, glasses, and textiles. Organic composting involves food waste and garden waste (Hogue 25).

In dry recycling, the waste that can be dry recycled will be sorted out into several piles and then a bulking process conducted to ensure that the material becomes easy to be transported to the site where the waste will be processed. Bulking up of the waste is important because it ensures that transporting the waste to the processing plant is cost-effective. Waste paper to be recycled is often shredded into small particles. The small particles of paper are then mixed up with water to create a mixture that is also called pulp. Decontamination is often then done for the pulp to remove adhesives, metallic items and inks from the pulp. After the decontamination process, rollers are used to remove water in the pulp. After removing water from the pulp, the pulp is then dried. After drying of the pulp, it can now be used as recycled paper for toilet paper, newspapers and other reading materials. Cards to be recycled often have to pass through a similar process that waste paper passes through. Cards are often shredded into small particles and mixed with water. Decontamination is then done followed by removing of impurities. After decontamination, water is then removed. The mixture is then dried after which it is used to make products such as cardboards. The glass to be recycled is often crushed into small pieces that are also known as cullet. The cullet is often then transported to a furnace where it is melted to temperatures of between 1,400-1600 Celsius-degrees. The glass that has been melted is often then used to make new glasses. The recycled glass is also used in road construction, in water treatment (for filtering of water) and making of glass fibers. Plastic bottles to be recycled are often based on the polymer that has been used to make the plastics. This is followed by melting of plastic containers to form pellets. The pellets can then be sent to manufacturers of plastics who use the pellets, melt it down to form new plastic products. However, it is worth noting that not all types of plastics can be recycled; there are many polymers of plastics that cannot be recycled. Metallic cans to be recycled are often crashed and put into hot furnaces. The hot furnaces then melt the metallic cans into metallic forms known as ingots. Ingots are used by manufacturers to make new metallic cans. Most of the metallic cans that are easy to recycle are those that are made up of aluminum and steel. Textiles to be recycled are often sorted out into two categories. The first category belongs to textiles that are of high quality and the second category belongs to textiles that are of low quality. Most of the time, textiles of low quality are the ones that are recycled whereas those of high quality can be donated to charity organizations that deal with homeless people and orphans. Textiles that can be reused are also sent to developing countries where they are enthusiastically worn by citizens of those countries (Donald 65).

Organic waste is often recycled by converting it into compost. Organic waste that is converted to compost includes food waste and garden waste. Food waste to be recycled will be collected in households and then transferred to an anaerobic digestion facility. The anaerobic digestion facility will turn the food waste into a type of fertilizer. In the process of turning the food waste into fertilizer, there will also be the production of electricity that will be used by the households of Richmond City, Virginia State. Garden waste will be taken to a composting facility; the compositing facility will convert the garden waste into compost (Sudol and Alvin 16).

Works Cited

Bennett, Julie. "Recycling Programs Take Root at Local Level." City & State. 7.13 (1990): 18. Print.

Donald, Rhonda L. Recycling. New York: Children's Press, 2001. Print.

Hogue, CheryL. "Recycling Waste." Chemical & Engineering News. 86.41 (2008): 11. Print.

Sudol, Frank J, and Alvin L. Zach. "Urban Recycling: Problems and Solutions." New Jersey Municipalities. 65.4 (1988). Print