OPINION: Government won’t help build our circular economy – it’s up to us!

By Mat Stewart

SunSkips has been working hard to build a reputation as a skip hire company that goes the extra mile to make sure we’re doing our best by the environment.

With increasing volumes of recyclable materials heading out from our sites in Cambridge, Stowmarket and Haverhill every month, we’re proud of the amount of waste we’re consistently able to divert from landfill.

By doing this, we’re contributing to the circular economy – avoiding landfill, which is creating serious environmental problems that’ll overwhelm us before long.

But being part of the circular economy in the UK is tough when the level of government investment necessary to build the infrastructure for it simply isn’t there.

Despite the clear warning signs that we need to be doing more to protect our planet, it’ll be businesses like SunSkips that’ll need to help build the facilities necessary to process more waste locally. Because those in power simply aren’t doing enough.

Why the circular economy is important

The world is producing so much waste that the former linear method of consuming goods and throwing them away is no longer sustainable.

Before anything is thrown away into the general rubbish, we need to consider if it can be reused or recycled before it’s sent off to rot and cause more environmental damage.

MORE: The five Rs of waste management: Refuse, reduce, reuse, repurpose, recycle

This is, of course, easier said than done. Moving towards a circular economy is expensive and requires the alignment of a lot of economic, cultural and political factors to make it happen, especially in the UK, which doesn’t have a strong infrastructure for things like recycling and EfW compared to many of our neighbours in Europe.

It’s difficult to completely overhaul the way a country manages waste, and that can be further exacerbated by long-term government contracts held with private waste firms that tie politicians’ hands.

So it’s going to take local businesses working together to understand where there’s demand for recyclable materials, build relationships and get the circular economy working ourselves.

A better infrastructure for local circular economies

While exporting waste to other countries with a stronger demand for it – as we do at SunSkips – makes sense as an alternative to landfill, increasing the demand at home would be far better for the environment.

Paying countries that have the need for recyclable materials to make packaging, or to burn for energy, is much cheaper than forking out for sky-high landfill taxes in the UK.

But transportation costs, both economically and for the environment, are an unnecessary cost that could be eliminated if we’d only see the value in waste at home. Not to mention the opportunity cost to local communities that could be building businesses around these valuable materials, keeping jobs in the local community where they belong.

Local circular economies mean that people aren’t dependent on imports to survive. We’ve already seen how fast things can go south when foreign energy supplies are cut off and how that can directly impact people on an individual level.

Bringing a circular economy to local communities helps people see the results of implementing greener waste practices. Campaigns urging people to do their bit to protect the planet can seem intangible to the average person, but seeing the difference a circular economy makes in their own community wins hearts and minds.

Reintroducing materials back into the community via the circular economy is the direction we need to be heading, and SunSkips is already on the right track.

Where SunSkips’ recycling goes

SunSkips uses a meticulous screening process to separate recyclable materials at our East Anglian sites.

Bigger items like doors, furniture and large pieces of wood are picked out by hand, before the rest is loaded onto a conveyor belt to begin more rigorous screening.

This system involves a flip flow screen (like a big, vibrating sieve), large magnets, an air classifier, further hand-picking, and a loss-on-ignition test to check the quality of soil.

What’s left are several bins filled with single waste streams ready to be reintegrated into the circular economy.

We don’t get anything rejected by our partners due to how carefully we screen it and we’re always looking at new ways we can get more value out of the waste we manage.

Cardboard

SunSkips’ cardboard is bulked in East Anglia and most of it ends up in Kent.

After it’s pulped, fibres in the cardboard pulp are separated and bleached in a chemical process. It’s then washed to remove ink before being pressed and rolled into its final form, which might be more cardboard for packaging, or paper products like napkins or printing reels.

Food waste contamination is the biggest obstacle to recycling cardboard, but even dirty cardboard can still be used as solid recovered fuel (SRF).

Wood

 

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Wood is shredded at SunSkips sites so it’s in a good condition to be sent to a local processor that makes it into wood chips.

Wood chips are easily repurposed for animal bedding, building materials, or to be burned as fuel.

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Plastic

Plastic is one of the hardest things to process domestically; it’s often exported for use in the global circular economy.

Soft plastics can be processed to be used in energy from waste (EfW) plants, and there is a small UK market for it.

But due to the low demand for recyclable plastics in the UK, and the strict criteria set by buyers, some plastic does end up in landfill.

Soil and aggregate

Inert soil and rubble is recycled back into construction at SunSkips’ own sites or sent off for use in other building projects.

Rubble and hardcore is recycled and taken to people for use as aggregate, such as in building foundations or roadways.

MORE: Soil disposal: Legislation and regulations

Metal and plasterboard

Ferrous and non-ferrous metal recycling goes to local scrap metal recyclers Whip Street in Ipswich.

Plasterboard is quite difficult to recycle, so we charge a premium for it at SunSkips, but gypsum is continually recyclable if you know what you’re doing.

MORE: How SunSkips recycling screening line works

Keeping it local

Born and raised in Bury St Edmunds, SunSkips managing director Mathew Stewart is passionate about working to make the local community more self-sufficient.

The problem is that there aren’t always local options for putting materials back into the circular economy, and it’s clear the government isn’t acting fast enough to make it happen.

As long as everything can be recycled abroad cheaper, keeping materials in the local economy is going to be tricky.

The UK simply hasn’t got enough facilities offering recycling at a cost-effective rate to dissuade private businesses from sending it overseas. And we are hopelessly short of the EfW plants we need to cope with our waste volumes, so it usually goes to Europe where they’re more than happy to take it to power their own economies.

The idea of banning all waste exports currently being floated with little forethought about how we’ll survive without first building our domestic infrastructure is a recipe for disaster.

We don’t have time to wait around for the government to pull us out of this mess. It’s going to take a community effort to support businesses that believe in the circular economy and understand the value we’re throwing away and handing off to countries that seem to have cottoned on a bit quicker.

Choosing SunSkips for your skip hire or commercial waste management is a vote for the circular economy and a better future for our environment. Get in touch today to discuss how we can make your waste management processes greener.