Dear Aunty Rubbish

I want to know how many TVs go into the dump.
Windsor, age 7

Hello Windsor,

Thanks for your question. From January to December 2011 we recycled all
56,991 TVs that were brought to our Recycling Centres. It's actually
illegal for us to landfill TVs that people bring to these sites, so if
your mum or dad has brought a dead telly to us this year, you can be sure
that it's been recycled!

All the best

Aunty Rubbish

Dear Aunty Rubbish

Do you recycle? Or do you not? Why is recycling important?
Zoe, age 7

Hi Zoe

My goodness me! I certainly do recycle. I use my recycling boxes at home and I also use the recycling banks when I go to the shops. Sometimes I will also visit my Household Recycling Centre if I’ve got bigger things to recycle. The last time I went there I took some very large cardboard boxes, a set of Christmas tree lights that had stopped working, and a printer that couldn’t be mended.

As well as recycling, I also reuse things. I love going to car boot sales, and reusing things that other people want to get rid of. I also buy clothes in charity shops, as this stops things going into the bin and also makes money for the charity. Something else I do is swap things with friends. For example, instead of buying an electric drill, I recently borrowed one from my neighbour, and gave it back when I’d finished with it.

All of these activities – recycling, reusing and borrowing – are important to me because I’m helping to reduce waste.

Hope that helps answer your question!

Aunty Rubbish

Dear Aunty Rubbish

How many land fill sites are there in the uk? How much rubbish is in the dump?
Mollie and Windsor, age 7

Hello Mollie and Windsor,

Thanks for your questions. As of March 2010 there were 447 permitted landfills in the UK, (not including any that have now closed) The total maximum amount of waste these landfill sites together can take is 137,150,043 tonnes per year. That’s a hole lot of rubbish!

Thanks

Aunty Rubbish

Dear Aunty Rubbish

I dont like people cutting down trees i want the animals to be safe and snug. I would not like it if animals cut my house down and turned it paper. PS: How could we help safe the animals?
Libby, age 9

Dear Libby,

I agree, it’s not good to destroy animals’ homes is it. By recycling as much paper as possible and reusing it, we don’t have rely on so many new trees being cut down. Let’s do all we can to encourage other people to reuse and recycle their paper!

Thanks

Aunty Rubbish

Dear Aunty Rubbish

Where does our rubbish (in Glos) go, and when does a landfill get covered up (and how)?
Wyatt, age 8

Dear Wyatt,

If you live in Gloucester, your rubbish will end up in the landfill site at Hempsted (near to the Docks). If you want to know exactly how a landfill works, this is a good explanation of the system here http://www.sita.co.uk/your-environment/understanding-waste/landfill

By recycling as much as we can, we don’t have to put all our rubbish in holes in the ground. That’s got to be a good thing hasn’t it.

Happy Recycling!

Thanks

Aunty Rubbish

Dear Aunty Rubbish

What is the heaviest type of can?
Zander, age 6

Dear Zander,

The heaviest cans are made from steel. The lighter, squashable cans (such as fizzy drinks cans) are made from aluminium. You can tell if a can is made from steel. Put a magnet to it, if it sticks it’s steel!

Thanks

Aunty Rubbish

Dear Aunty Rubbish

I was wondering do worms live in compost bins?
Emily, age 9

Dear Emily,

Yes, worms do live in compost bins. Earthworms make an excellent addition to any garden compost heap. In fact, compost provides the perfect food for earthworms so it's yet another reason to start composting waste. To keep your worms happy, make sure you keep your compost pile moist, but not too soggy. Earthworms require this to survive. And be careful when you turn your compost pile. There could be a hundred or more worms inside the pile's interior. Happy composting!

Read more: Can I Add Earth Worms to My Compost Pile? at eHow.com

Thanks

Aunty Rubbish

Dear Aunty Rubbish

Can we still get points even though we have not done it for a while?
Holly and Lottie, age 10

Dear Holly and Lottie,

Yes, your school can still get points, but your teacher must email waste@gloucestershire.gov.uk telling us which school you are, and which activities you have done!

Thanks

Aunty Rubbish

Dear Aunty Rubbish

If we did not through away things we have not eaten away how much money would we save??? would it be better if we put it on compost or to pets if they can eat it??? Holly and Lottie, age 10

Hello again Holly and Lottie,

8.3 million tonnes of food is thrown away by households in the UK every year.
Food waste is a major issue; wasting food costs the average family with children £680 a year and has serious environmental implications too. If we all stop wasting food that could have been eaten, the CO2 impact would be the equivalent of taking 1 in 4 cars off the road. Luckily we have the Love Food Hate Waste campaign in our country. This is the 'Waste Not Want Not' of the modern day, providing handy tips, advice and recipes for leftovers to help everyone waste less food. www.lovefoodhatewaste.com

And yes, you're right - if you have a compost bin, you can compost uncooked food. Also if you own pets that can eat your food waste, by all means let them have it. Just check with mum or dad that it's the right food for your pet. (Goldfish don't like roast dinners!)

Bye for now!

Aunty Rubbish

Dear Aunty Rubbish

How much rubbish does a family make per year? Hannah, age 9

Hello Hannah,

Well, there's not really an 'average' family, so it's hard to be accurate. Some families have lots of people living together, and some families are quite small. When it comes to rubbish, some families do better than others. Take a look at the Strauss family who live here in Gloucestershire. They have made it their mission to create NO rubbish at all. http://myzerowaste.com/ Sadly though there are still some families who don't try to reduce the amount of stuff they buy, and repair the things they already have! I'm hopeful that because you're interested in recycling, your family doesn't make much rubbish.

Bye for now!

Aunty Rubbish

Dear Aunty Rubbish

If a bag of rubbish is over flowing i think they should still take it because it will get more in it and it will get worse. Where does it go when they have collected it? Lottie, age 9

Hello Lottie,

Bags of overflowing rubbish aren't nice to look at, are they? Like you say, they can easily become a place for people to dump more rubbish, which makes our streets look horrible.
The answer, really, is for everyone to recycle as much as possible. I use my recycling boxes at home, and the recycling banks when I'm at the supermarket. I compost all my veggie peelings, and try not to buy stuff I don't really need. Doing this means that there's not a lot left over for the bin.

If everyone did this too, we wouldn't have to look at other people's rubbish. Sadly, rubbish is dumped in landfill, which is bad for our environment.

Hope this helps,

Aunty Rubbish

Dear Aunty Rubbish

How can you recycle food? Shannon, age 10

Hi Shannon,

Food waste can be 'recycled' by composting it. This turns food waste into lovely nutritious plant food.

You can compost at home, or, if your local District provides them, you can compost using special food collection caddies.

If you compost at home you can normally only compost uncooked food and garden waste. (Meat, cheese and fish tend to attract rats, so don't put these in your compost bin.)

If you have the special food caddies provided by your local Council, you can put ALL food, including cooked food, into these. Your Council then takes the food to a special 'in-vessel composter' where it is heated up to kill any bugs. After quite a long time it becomes soil conditioner, which is used on fields, to help plants grow! Brilliant isn't it!

Aunty Rubbish

Dear Aunty Rubbish

Can you recycle everything? Holly, age 9

Dear Holly,

Ooh, I could talk about this all day!

I suppose the answer is that almost everything can be recycled, if we put enough time and energy and work into doing this. However, as you probably know, there are lots of things that are very hard to recycle at the moment, eg crisp packets. This is because it would cost lots and involve many people. The best thing we can do is to make sure that we remember to 'REDUCE REUSE and RECYCLE' in that order. In other words, I don't think that recycling is the most important thing we should do. We should all be trying really hard to REDUCE the amount of stuff we buy, even if it can be recycled. It's also important to try and find another use for things before we just put them in the recycling bin. Only after we've done all that should we then try and recycle something.
I hope this helps!

Aunty Rubbish

Dear Aunty Rubbish

We are running out of space in the landfill site!! Mea, age 7

Hi Mea,

Thanks for your statement! Yes, you're right, we are running out of space. It's a big problem. However, there are things that we can all do, to help sort this out. The most important thing to do is to REDUCE the amount of things we buy in the first place. We need to REUSE the things we already have, rather than always buying more. Finally we need to make sure we RECYCLE everything that we can possibly recycle in our local areas.

Doing things differently, and breaking bad habits helps too. For example, trying to buy more clothes from a charity shop, rather than always going to town for new stuff would be a great way to reduce the need for landfill. Hope this helps!

Aunty Rubbish

Dear Aunty Rubbish

How many lorries full of cardboard (rubbish) is there in a month? Lottie and Holly, both age 9

Hi Lottie and Holly,

The county of Gloucestershire produces an average of 448 tonnes of cardboard per month (around 96 lorry loads) Of course, all of this is recycled into more cardboard.

Rubbish is a different matter. I have done some calculations and I have included fly-tipping, which is the stuff that naughty people dump in the streets. I've also included litter from street bins, as well as the rubbish from people's houses. An average month sees Gloucestershire produce 12,400 tonnes of this rubbish. Given that the average rubbish lorry carries around 8 tonnes, this would be the same as 1,549 bin lorries. That's a lot of waste! What a shame that more of this isn't recycled.

Thanks for your question!

Aunty Rubbish

Dear Aunty Rubbish

How heavy would three rubbish trucks be? Charlie, age 8

Hi Charlie,

Hard to say exactly, but we usually tell schoolchildren who visit the landfill site with us that one full rubbish lorry holds about 11 tonnes of household waste. What a lot of rubbish!

Aunty Rubbish

Dear Aunty Rubbish

What happens to scrap paper? Hermionie, age 9

Dear Hermionie,

Paper from our schools is collected by Printwaste and baled into 500kg bales in Cheltenham. It's then taken in 25 tonne loads to UK pulping mills such as SCA at Purdoe in Northumberland. From here it's turned back into paper - and could be back on your desk within a few weeks!

Best wishes

Aunty Rubbish

Dear Aunty Rubbish

How is the natural environment in balance by recycling?? Jasmine, age 10

Dear Jasmine,

What a great question from you!

The main environmental benefits of recycling are as follows:
- Reduce the amount of rubbish sent to landfill.
- Reusing and recycling items means that less waste has to be buried in the ground in landfill sites, and we save valuable resources by turning waste into new products! Burying less rubbish means we have to build fewer landfill sites, which frees up another important resource: land.
- Save energy and raw materials.
- Recycling uses less energy than making items from scratch. For example, recycling an aluminium can saves 95% of the energy needed to make a completely new can.
- Help tackle climate change.
- Reducing the energy used to make and transport products means less carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere. Recycling also cuts the amounts of methane, another powerful greenhouse gas, which can be given off by biodegradable materials as they rot under pressure in landfill sites.

Dear Aunty Rubbish

What happens to old clothes after we put them in the recycling bin? Albus, age 10

Dear Albus,

As a nation we throw away about 1,500,000 tonnes a year of clothes, of which the textile recycling industry handles around 300,000 tonnes. Therefore, over 1,000,000 tonnes is going to landfill sites.

Clothes can be given to charity shops, put into clothing banks, or collected from your school by a company such as BTR or Bag2School. The collection company usually sorts through the textiles by hand in a large warehouse, with 80% of discarded clothing going for reuse as clothes. The other 20% enters the recycling industry for bed manufacture, socks, blankets and the industrial wiper trade.

Using charity shops and textile banks is a good way to dispose of unwanted clothing, raise money for your school or a charities, and it helps provide a supply of affordable clothing.

Dear Aunty Rubbish

I need to know some useful facts for my recycle project about Gloucester, do you know any? Courteney, age 12

Dear Courteney,

Thanks for asking about Gloucester's recycling services. Here are some questions and answers that will help with your project.

Why do we need to recycle?
Throwing rubbish in landfill is not cheap and it is set to become more expensive. We are currently charged £40 by the government in tax for every tonne of waste we put into landfill. This is on top of what we are charged by the landfill owners to use their sites. This year the council expects to pay approximately £6.6 million in landfill tax alone. Therefore it's vital we recycle more, and throw away less. Gloucestershire currently recycles 42% of all our rubbish, and we have a minimum target of 60% by 2020.

What can residents of Gloucester recycle at home?
Gloucester City recently rolled out improvements to the recycling scheme, which means that you can now recycle cans, glass, batteries, paper, plastic bottles and thin card in your green box every week. Garden waste is collected for composting every fortnight. Food waste is collected every week, and this goes to a special composting facility in the Forest of Dean. It is heated up to kill any bugs, and is transformed into a soil improver.

What else can residents do?
The Household Recycling Centre is near the Docks. Toasters, old spectacles, cardboard, textiles and cooking oil are just some of the things you can recycle here. Preventing waste in the first place is even more important than recycling. This means doing things like only buying what you need when you shop, having a go at home composting, stopping junk mail and giving things to charity shops. Good luck with the project!

Dear Aunty Rubbish

What do cans turn into after the recycling box? Sarah, age 8

Dear Sarah,

Thanks for your question about what happens to cans once they leave your recycling box. Your recycling crew will collect thousands of cans and take them to their depot. When they have enough, they are then transferred to a special place to be separated using an electro-magnet. The steel cans (ie baked bean tins) are sent to Corus at Port Talbot. These are melted, and turned into huge slabs of steel.Aluminium cans (such as fizzy drink ones) go to Novelis in Warrington and are also melted into slabs.

Sometimes aluminium and steel is used to make things such as bridges and bikes, and sometimes it's used as cans once again. The possibilities are endless!

Dear Aunty Rubbish

What happens to the jam jars I put in my family's recycling box? Fenella, age 9, Gloucester

Dear Fenella,

Firstly, I'm glad to hear you're already recycling!

Your recycling is collected at the kerbside and taken with loads of other glass items to a glass 'reprocessor' (this word means a recycling factory). Here it's washed, crushed and heated. It becomes so hot that it forms liquid 'gobs'. Victorian glass blowers used to put these onto long pipes, and blow the 'gobs' into new bottles.

If they could produce larger bottles, there were said to have 'big gobs!' Nowadays the gobs are mechanically moulded into new shapes, such as jars, ready to be filled with more jam. So you see, recycling is a loop, and your new jam jar can be recycled again and again.

Dear Aunty Rubbish

I don't see the point of recycling at school. I'd rather be out playing than looking for the right recycling box. What's wrong with using the rubbish bins? Troy, age 9

Dear Troy,

Thanks for your query.

Most rubbish ends up buried within one of the 800 active landfill sites in the UK. Some things, like food, card and paper will rot down anaerobically (without air) and produce methane a powerful greenhouse gas. Other things like plastic, glass and cans will sit in landfill for perhaps thousands of years - what a waste!

Getting all that food, card and plastic to your school took a lot of effort. The raw materials had to be extracted, processed and transported. All this takes a lot of energy and uses up earth's resources - many of which we cannot renew.

Binning them means no one will ever get the benefit of them again, and therefore more new materials will have to be found, processed and transported. This will obviously have a knock-on effect in the amount of pollution it causes. Also, don't forget, landfill sites use up space that could have been used for something else, like a park, or playground for you!

I hope this might make you think that perhaps it's not such an effort to recycle after all.