Rethinking the Concept of Waste and Mass Consumption : Preserving Resources Through Reuse, Repair and Recycling / Richard Waite.

Cover -- Half Title -- Series Information -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- Figures and Tables -- Introduction -- Why I've Written this Book -- We're Doomed -- Who Am I to Talk About Consumerism and Household Waste? -- Notes -- 1 Consuming the Earth's Resources -- So, What's the Problem? -- How Consumerism Actually Works -- But It's Not "Waste" -- Being a Throw-Away Society Is Not Sustainable -- Holding Up a Mirror -- Simpler Times -- What Changed -- Consuming the Earth's Resources at an Unsustainable Rate -- Consumption of Non-Renewable Resources -- Rare Earth Metals -- Consumption of Renewable Resources -- Using the "Waste" Outputs From One Process as the Inputs to a Different Process -- Why "Waste" Disposal Is Problematic -- Landfill -- Energy From Waste Incineration -- Polluting the Planet Through Recycling -- Recycling Residues -- Exporting UK Household Waste Has to Stop -- So, the Problem Is … -- Notes -- 2 What We Throw Away -- What Is Meant By Household Waste? -- Pre-Consumer Waste -- Post-Consumer Waste -- What We Actually Throw Away -- Notes -- 3 Key Definitions and Concepts -- Household Waste Collection Definitions -- Kerbside Collection -- Drop-off -- Household Waste Recycling Centres -- Dry Recyclables -- A Clear Definition of What "Recyclable" Means -- Household Waste Treatment Definitions and the Waste Hierarchy -- Our Performance to Date -- Revisiting the Waste Hierarchy -- Direct and Indirect Reuse -- Recycling Vs. Recovery -- The Treatment of Organic "Waste" -- A New Name to Replace the "Waste Hierarchy" -- A Personal Example of the Three Rs in Practice -- The Problem of Focusing On Recycling -- The Players -- The Supply Chain -- Who Does What -- The Producers -- The Retailers -- The Consumers -- Local Authorities -- The "Waste" Management Industry -- The Reprocessors -- The Government.

So Many Players Are Involved -- Notes -- 4 How Our Household Waste Is Collected -- Product Collection -- Dry Recyclables Collection -- Kerbside Recycling Collection -- Kerbside Collection -- Organics - Kerbside Collection -- Garden "Waste" -- Food "Waste" -- Household Waste for Disposal -- Multiple Collection Containers -- What Happens If We Don't Kerbside Recycle? -- Drop-off -- The Contribution From Recycling Drop-Off -- Household Waste Recycling Centres -- The Ideal Approach to Household Waste Collection -- Note -- 5 How Our Household Waste Is Treated -- The Three Rs -- Reducing Household Waste -- Consume Less -- Reuse -- Direct Packaging Reuse -- Indirect Product and Packaging Reuse -- Repair -- Treatment Other Than Reduce -- Treatment Cycles -- Mechanical Materials and the Mechanical Treatment Cycle -- Recycling -- Sorting of Recyclables -- Co-mingled Material Sorting in MRFs -- Recyclable Material Reprocessing -- Design for Recycling -- Producer Responsibility -- The Three Ways of Reprocessing Recyclables: Up, Down and Around -- Circular/closed Loop Recycling -- Upcycling -- Down-cycling -- Mechanical Treatment: Conclusions -- Organic Materials and the Organic Treatment Cycle -- The Treatment of Food "Waste" By Anaerobic Digestion -- The Treatment of Garden "Waste" By Composting -- Home Composting and Wormeries -- What Happens to Treated Organic Household Waste? -- Energy Recovery -- Energy From Waste Incineration (EfW) -- How an EfW Incinerator Works -- UK EfW Incineration Capacity -- Landfill -- Landfill Sites Are Active Reactors -- The Landfill Tax -- Future Landfill Capacity -- The Loss of Valuable Materials -- Atmospheric Pollution -- The Relative Costs of Different Treatment Methods -- Conclusions -- Notes -- 6 Linear Vs. Circular Consumption -- Our Consumption Is Linear, Not Circular -- Circular Consumption.

Challenging the Supply Chain -- Circular Treatment of Products -- Circular Treatment of Packaging -- Conclusions -- Notes -- 7 Consumerism and Economic Growth -- Human Evolution and Hard-Wiring in Our Brains -- Social Pressure and Our Creation of the Consumer Society -- Economics, Capitalism and Our Obsession With Economic Growth -- The Role of Capitalism in Driving Economic Growth -- De-growth? -- Planetary Boundaries -- Doughnut Economics -- The Future of Global Economics -- Notes -- 8 Let's Talk About Packaging -- Why Packaging Is Needed -- Different Levels of Packaging -- Reuseable Packaging -- Recycled Content -- Excess Packaging -- Inappropriate Packaging -- Packaging Labelling -- Recycled Content -- Packaging Design -- Conclusions On Packaging -- Notes -- 9 A Focus On Plastics -- An Introduction to Plastics -- A Little History -- The Problem With Plastics -- The Plastics Pact -- Some Statistics -- Plastic Film -- The Markets for Recyclable Plastics -- Biodegradable Plastics and Why They Are a Bad Idea -- Plastics Labelling -- The Future Role of Plastics -- The Future of Consumer Plastics -- Conclusions On Our Use of Plastics -- Notes -- 10 What We Need to Do Differently -- The Materials Hierarchy -- Cost and the Materials Hierarchy -- The Relative Costs of the Materials Hierarchy -- Looking Through the Wrong End of the Telescope -- Fundamental Or Incremental Change? -- Reduce Household Waste -- Reduce Household Waste Through Reduced Consumption -- We All Need to Buy Less Stuff -- We All Need to Buy More Carefully -- Impulse Buying -- Desperation Buying -- Emotional Spending -- Buying More Carefully -- Buy, Borrow Or Rent -- Buy-with-the-end-in-mind -- Fast Fashion -- Reduce Household Waste Through Product and Packaging Reuse -- Design for Reuse, Repair and Recycling -- Direct Packaging Reuse -- Deposit Return Schemes.

Indirect Packaging Reuse -- Product Reuse -- Reuseable Alternatives to Replace Single-Use Products -- Reduce Household Waste Through Repair -- Increasing Product Repair -- Reducing Household Waste - Summary -- Recycling of Packaging -- A New Definition of "Recyclable" -- Collection and Sorting -- Recycling Collection Has to Be Done at Scale and Kept Simple -- KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) -- My Proposed Simplified Household Waste Collection System -- Collection Frequency -- The Materials That Are Actually Recyclable -- Packaging Recycling and Organic Recovery -- Summary of Recycling Changes Required -- Should We Include WEEE in Co-Mingled Collection? -- The Recycling of Products -- Recovery -- Recovery of Organic Materials -- Anaerobic Digestion of Food "Waste" -- Composting of Garden "Waste" -- Home Composting -- Centralised Composting of Garden "Waste" -- Recovery of Energy Through Energy From Waste Incineration -- The Problem of Excess EfW Incineration Capacity -- Landfilling of Waste -- The Nub of the Problem -- A Word About Waste Water -- Reduce Water Usage -- Recover Water -- The Materials We Should Consume -- Circular Materials -- Renewable Materials -- Material Production Methods -- Non-recyclable, Non-Renewable Materials -- England -- Scotland -- Wales -- Northern Ireland -- How We Should Deal With "Problem" Materials -- We Need an Overall Strategy and Plan for Change -- What I Would Like to See in These Strategies -- Bottle Deposit Return Schemes (DRS) -- England, Wales and Northern Ireland -- Scotland -- Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) -- Recycled Plastic Content Targets in Packaging -- Summary of What Needs to Change -- How Change Could Be Achieved in Practice -- Notes -- 11 What We Could Achieve If We Changed -- The Key Changes Required -- The Data -- The Impact of These Changes -- The Impact of Making the Proposed Changes.

The Impact On EfW Recovery -- A Dose of Realism -- What We Could Realistically Achieve -- The Risk of Spurious Accuracy -- In Summary -- The Infrastructure Required -- Reuse -- Repair -- Recycling and Organic Recovery -- Funding the Infrastructure Required -- The Role of Extended Producer Responsibility -- Paying for the Treatment of Kerbside Collected Materials -- Repurpose Some Or All of the Proceeds From the Landfill Tax -- Introduce and Hypothecate a Household Waste Incineration Tax -- Conclusions On Funding -- What Our Targets Should Be -- History -- An Alternative Way of Measuring Success -- Conclusions On Targets -- The Art of the Possible -- Notes -- 12 A Proposed Way Forward -- In Summary -- National Targets -- A Revised National Approach -- A National Strategy and Plan -- The Players -- Government Responsibilities -- Producer Responsibilities -- Retailer Responsibilities -- Bricks and Mortar Retailers -- Online Retailers -- Consumer Responsibilities -- Local Authority Responsibilities -- Waste Collection Authorities (WCAs) -- Waste Disposal Authorities -- Waste Management Industry Responsibilities -- Reprocessing Industry Responsibilities -- Education -- Educating Children -- Educating Adults -- Final Conclusions -- If You Take Away Nothing Else, These Are My Key Points -- Can We Change? -- Tick Tock -- Notes -- Annex I: How Individual Materials Are Reprocessed -- Organics -- Food "Waste" -- Garden "Waste" -- Dry Recyclables -- Paper and Cardboard -- Glass -- Metals -- Textiles -- WEEE -- The Amount of WEEE That We Generate -- The Products That Make Up WEEE -- Untreated Wood -- Annex II: Tips to Help You to Help the Planet -- What Can I Do? -- Reduce -- Reuse -- Repair -- Recycle and Recover -- Recycle -- Recover -- Index.

This book presents hard facts to highlight our unsustainable consumption of the Earth's resources and the limitations of the UK's current management of waste and recycling. Of interest to manufacturers, retailers, consumers, local authorities, policy makers, students and professionals looking to reduce our impact on the environment.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2025. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.