Why recycle?
Recycling helps the environment, saves energy, conserves natural resources and also creates employment opportunities. Why else is it important?
Recycling reduces landfill
In Gateshead, South Tyneside and Sunderland we produce 370,000 tonnes of rubbish every year (that's enough to fill 40,000 double-decker buses). We only recycle around 26% of our household rubbish.
Dangers of using landfill:
- Landfill produces methane, a greenhouse gas that is approx. 20 times more harmful than carbon dioxide
- Landfill effects last for generations
- We're running out of space (nationally and locally)
Changes in the law
Landfill will keep getting more expensive and this will cost you money, through your council tax. We need to see our rubbish as a resource and get value out of it -instead of just throwing it away.
Is there an alternative?
We simply cannot continue to landfill alone. We are considering nine potential solutions for treating the waste that's left. We are looking at environmental criteria, deliverability, cost to you and performance.
In the future we must:
- Double the amount of rubbish we recycle to 50% by 2020
- Drastically reduce the amount of waste going into landfill by 75% by 2020
- Develop a way of dealing with the waste that's left
