Recycle it don't just bin it!

You have just finished your meal at a fast food restaurant and you throw your uneaten food, food wrappers, drink cup, untensils and serviettes into the rubbish bin.  You don't think about that waste again.

On refuse collection day in your neighbourhood, you push your bin out to the kerb, and binmen dump the contents into a big truck and take it away. But have you ever wondered, as you watch the truck pull away, just where that rubbish ends up.

Rubbish put in a landfill will stay there for a very long time.  Inside a landfill, there is little oxygen and little moisture.  Under these conditions, rubbish does not break down very rapidly.  In fact, when old landfills have been excavated or sampled, 40 year old newspapers have been found with easily readable print.  Landfills are not designed to break down rubbish, merely to bury it.  When a landfill closes, the site, especially the groundwater, must be monitored and maintained for up to 30 years!

For information in your local area go to:  districts and boroughs.