Paper Salvage was a part of a programme launched by the British Government in 1939 at the outbreak of the Second World War to encourage the recycling of materials to aid the war effort, and which continued to be promoted until 1950.
Paper Salvage was a part of a programme launched by the British Government in 1939 at the outbreak of the Second World War to encourage the recycling of materials to aid the war effort, and which continued to be promoted until 1950.
The compulsory recycling – or, as it was known, salvage – of paper in wartime and postwar Britain focused primarily on raising household collections. The scheme formed a key part of a wider National Salvage Campaign comparable to the American Salvage for Victory campaign. It was inextricably linked to military and economic concerns and drew upon the experience of the First World War when prices had been driven up by the disruption to imports.
Drawing on this experience, a special Directorate was set up within the Ministry of Supply on 11 November 1939 and a Salvage Controller was appointed soon after. [1]
Initially the campaign focused on exhortation. Municipal authorities were required to submit targets and collection statistics to Whitehall, whilst housewives were encouraged to sort their waste.
As the war progressed controls were tightened: salvage became compulsory in late 1940 for local authorities with more than 10,000 inhabitants. This was extended to smaller towns (with over 5,000 inhabitants) a year later, [2] covering an estimated 43 million people. From 1942, those refusing to sort their waste could be fined £2500 and face two years in prison.[ citation needed ]
Locally, the scheme was run by over a hundred thousand volunteer salvage stewards who manned depots and encouraged the sorting of waste. Nationally, even the royal family became involved, with Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother) urging housewives to follow her lead. [3]
The scheme was retained after war to help hasten the transition to peace. Following an economic crisis in 1947 efforts were redoubled and newspaper adverts explained how every ton of paper saved was equal to 2,956,800 cigarettes; 12,000 square feet (1,100 m2) of ceiling board; 17,000 sheets of brown wrapping paper or 201,600 books of matches. [4] [5]
The British Records Association, concerned that over-enthusiasm might lead to the destruction of valuable archives, ran a much smaller-scale but vigorous counter-campaign to safeguard records that might be of current or future historical interest. It produced a leaflet using the slogan "Look before you throw", of which 33,000 copies had been distributed by the end of 1943. [6] [7]
According to government figures, less than 1,000 tons of scrap paper was salvaged each week in Britain before the war. By 1940, local authority collections had risen to 248,851 tons a year (30.8 per cent of total collections). This rose to a peak of 433,405 tons in 1942 (49.6 per cent of all collections); by which point 60 per cent of all new paper derived from recycled sources. [8]
Collection figures dropped to c.200,000 tons a year after the war but rose again in 1948 when 311,577 tons were collected by local authorities. [9]
With the price of scrap paper fixed at around £5 a ton for a mixed bundle (compared to 5s before the war) rising for higher grades, this contributed between £3m and £5m to the economy.
However, government interest in its enforcement fluctuated, especially after 1947. Compulsion was removed on 30 June 1949, the Office of Paper Control wound up on 31 December, the Salvage Directorate was abolished on 30 March 1950 and price controls on 24 April 1950. [10] [11]
Thereafter the scheme gradually and unevenly died away and British paper mills began to import waste paper from the Netherlands, Sweden and Norway. [12]
Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. This concept often includes the recovery of energy from waste materials. The recyclability of a material depends on its ability to reacquire the properties it had in its original state. It is an alternative to "conventional" waste disposal that can save material and help lower greenhouse gas emissions. It can also prevent the waste of potentially useful materials and reduce the consumption of fresh raw materials, reducing energy use, air pollution and water pollution.
Salvage may refer to:
Scrap consists of recyclable materials, usually metals, left over from product manufacturing and consumption, such as parts of vehicles, building supplies, and surplus materials. Unlike waste, scrap has monetary value, especially recovered metals, and non-metallic materials are also recovered for recycling. Once collected, the materials are sorted into types — typically metal scrap will be crushed, shredded, and sorted using mechanical processes.
Container-deposit legislation is any law that requires the collection of a monetary deposit on beverage containers at the point of sale and/or the payment of refund value to the consumers. When the container is returned to an authorized redemption center, or retailer in some jurisdictions, the deposit is partly or fully refunded to the redeemer. It is a deposit-refund system.
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Glass recycling is the processing of waste glass into usable products. Glass that is crushed or imploded and ready to be remelted is called cullet. There are two types of cullet: internal and external. Internal cullet is composed of defective products detected and rejected by a quality control process during the industrial process of glass manufacturing, transition phases of product changes and production offcuts. External cullet is waste glass that has been collected or reprocessed with the purpose of recycling. External cullet is classified as waste. The word "cullet", when used in the context of end-of-waste, will always refer to external cullet.
Kerbside collection or curbside collection is a service provided to households, typically in urban and suburban areas, of collecting and disposing of household waste and recyclables. It is usually accomplished by personnel using specially built vehicles to pick up household waste in containers that are acceptable to, or prescribed by, the municipality and are placed on the kerb.
A civic amenity site or household waste recycling centre (HWRC) is a facility where the public can dispose of household waste and also often containing recycling points. Civic amenity sites are run by the local authority in a given area. Collection points for recyclable waste such as green waste, metals, glass and other waste types are available. Items that cannot be collected by local waste collection schemes such as bulky waste are also accepted.
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In 2015, 43.5% of the United Kingdom's municipal waste was recycled, composted or broken down by anaerobic digestion. The majority of recycling undertaken in the United Kingdom is done by statutory authorities, although commercial and industrial waste is chiefly processed by private companies. Local Authorities are responsible for the collection of municipal waste and operate contracts which are usually kerbside collection schemes. The Household Waste Recycling Act 2003 required local authorities in England to provide every household with a separate collection of at least two types of recyclable materials by 2010. Recycling policy is devolved to the administrations of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales who set their own targets, but all statistics are reported to Eurostat.
The Green Dot is the license symbol of a European network of industry-funded systems for recycling the packaging materials of consumer goods. The logo is trademark protected worldwide.
Single-stream recycling refers to a system in which all paper fibers, plastics, metals, and other containers are mixed in a collection truck, instead of being sorted by the depositor into separate commodities and handled separately throughout the collection process. In single-stream, both the collection and processing systems are designed to handle this fully commingled mixture of recyclables, with materials being separated for reuse at a materials recovery facility.
Paint is a recyclable item. Latex paint is collected at collection facilities in many countries and shipped to paint-recycling facilities.
The Materials Innovation and Recycling Authority, formerly the Connecticut Resources Recovery Authority (1973-2014), is a quasi-public agency that provides single-stream recycling and trash disposal for Connecticut cities and towns. It owns a trash-to-energy plant in Hartford, oversees another in Preston, and financed the development of others in Bridgeport and Wallingford.
Products made from a variety of materials can be recycled using a number of processes.
The San Francisco Mandatory Recycling and Composting Ordinance is a local municipal ordinance requiring all persons located in San Francisco to separate their recyclables, compostables and landfilled trash and to participate in recycling and composting programs. Passed by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 2009, it became the first local municipal ordinance in the United States to universally require source separation of all organic material, including food residuals.
Gypsum recycling is the process of turning gypsum waste into recycled gypsum, thereby generating a raw material that can replace virgin gypsum raw materials in the manufacturing of new products.
Recycling in Australia is a widespread, but not a comprehensive part of waste management in Australia. Recycling occurs through commingled kerbside recycling collections, drop-off programs, and various other schemes. Collection and management of household recycling typically falls to local councils, with private contractors collecting commercial and industrial recycling. In addition to local councils, legislation and overarching policies are implemented and managed by the state and federal governments.
In Egypt, waste and lack of proper management of it pose serious health and environmental problems for the country and its population. There has been some governmental attempts to better the system of waste management since the 1960s but those have not proven sufficient until now. In the last 10 years focus on this issue and solutions to it has increased both from the government and civil society. Some attempts at recycling are present, and growing in the country. But these are largely informal or private actors, and government initiatives are necessary to properly manage these systems and provide them with appropriate resources.