Waste and Recycling
It costs Bournemouth council £41.59 to deal with each tonne of general household waste.
With landfill sites fast filling up and costs every increasing it is not surprising that there has been increased investment in recycling and waste reduction.
Notably Bournemouth has reduced the levels of household waste put out for collection by 18% and improved its recycling and composting rates from 20.3% to 36.3% in 2006-7. 99.8% of people in Bournemouth have access to kerbside recycling for plastics, paper, card, glass and tins.
Companies like Eco Sustainable Solutions have both aided and profited from the increase in recycling in the area. John Burchell, business manager explained what they do: "We take in all the green waste and wood from the local council and tips and recycle them into products which mainly go into landscaping and gardening. We also take in food waste which we turn into compost. All this would go into landfill if we weren't taking it."
Yet, as the diagram below illustrates, Bournemouth continues to rely on landfill waste disposal.
| Destination | Landfill | Incineration | Recycling |
| Tonnes per quarter | 63078 | 169 | 34052 |
Source: Defra and WasteDataFlow municipal waste monitoring 2006/7
And, Bournemouth's recycling system might not be the environmental success it appears. Click for more
Manufacturing products and growing food consumes valuable natural resources like fossil fuels and other raw materials.
For example, making a cardboard box requires mechanical processes to turn it from wood to card, as well as a building to do this in. This will be artificially heated and lit. Then transport is needed to take the finished box to its buyer.
When the box is used once and thrown away all the resources which went into its production are wasted. If it is thrown away in landfill, this biodegradable material will produce methane which is a powerful green house gas.
It is far better to reuse the box as many times as possible, then recycle it. Recycling uses fewer natural resources than making a brand new box from scratch.
