What a load of rubbish: recycling plant fires

摘要

Like most other homeowners in the UK, every week I take the wrapping from my Sugar Puffs (cardboard and polythene), put my empty Heinz Tomato soup cans and pop bottles (PolytetraFluoroethylene) dutifully into the green bin, and leave it to the council to collect. I assume they take the waste to a collection point, store it and use it to be recycled and reused. It gives me a warm glow to think I am saving the planet (at least a little bit). It takes about 100,000 plastic bags to make a tonne of plastic waste which can be reused several times before eventually being incinerated. It is therefore of great concern that there now appears to be a trend of bypassing several steps in this recycling process by collecting the waste then having it catch fire.