News
Hertfordshire residents recycle over 50% of their waste at HWRCs!
This feature was added on 7th June 2007
Thanks to the efforts of residents in Hertfordshire, recycling at the Household Waste Recycling Centres (HWRCs) has now exceeded 50% for the year.
With the range of different materials accepted for recycling nearing 20 in some areas, people across the County are separating more and more of their waste for recycling. This is a fantastic accomplishment of both the public being more 'WasteAware', and of operators at the HWRCs segregating materials for recycling as much as possible.
The increase is not simply due to some more materials being accepted for recycling; residents are also recycling some of the same materials more than ever! In comparison to the previous year, Hertfordshire residents recycled 18% more cardboard, 24% more paper, 34% more plastic bottles and a whopping 40% more cans!
This represents a significant increase. Recycling just one aluminium can saves enough energy to run a television for three hours, and recycling one tonne of steel can saves 75% of the energy required to manufacture from virgin steel. In light of this, recycling more than 96 tonnes of cans presents a huge contribution to sustaining our environment.
Recycling just one tonne of paper saves as much as 4000 KWh electricity – enough for an average 3 bedroom house for one year – and more than 2,600 tonnes were recycled from the HWRCs alone!
As a consequence of this increase in recycling, the County Council has sent almost 19,500 tonnes less of residual waste from the HWRCs to landfill than just three years ago. During this time, recycling at the sites has shot up by around 10%.
As well as an increase in recycling as part of kerbside collections and bring banks, recycling at the HWRCs has increased impressively over the last few years, and WasteAware is committed to encouraging people to reduce, re-use and recycle their waste wherever possible, and to continue to maximise recycling across Hertfordshire in the future.