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Related Topics:Reuse
Reuse is the putting of an item to another use after its original function has been fulfilled. There are two types of re-use possible:
- Conventional reuse - where the product is used a number of times for the same function before becoming obsolete or unusable.
- New life reuse - where a new use is found for the item
The classic example of conventional reuse is the doorstep delivery of milk in reusable bottles, other examples include: the retreading of tyres, the use of plastic delivery trays (transit packing) in place of cardboard cartons. New life reuse seems more restricted and the best examples the governments white paper could suggest were: using tyres as boat fenders, steel drums as feeding troughs, and plastic carrier bags as bin liners.
In the past reuse played an important part in our lives and deposit refund schemes for items such as glass bottles were the rule rather than the exception, as was the daily delivery of milk to the doorstep. Changes in the way we live and shop coupled with changes in commercial practice have now seen the demise of many such schemes - in deed we have gone a long way down the road to being a disposable society.
Current environmental awareness is gradually changing attitudes and regulations, such as the new packaging regulations, are gradually beginning to reverse the situation.
Advantages and disadvantages
Reuse has certain potential advantages which can be summarised:
- energy and raw materials savings - replacing many single trip products with one re-usable one reduces the need for manufacture of new products.
- reduced disposal needs and costs.
- cost savings for business and consumers as reusable products need less frequent replacement than single trip products.
- present new market opportunities, e.g. refillable products.
Disadvantages are also apparent:
- They require an infrastructure including transport - may lead to environmental costs
- Practical difficulties in collecting and cleaning
- Increased materials use - have to produce more durable products
- Reduced market opportunities for disposable products.
Example schemes
Reuse is distinguished from recycling, where the good is reduced to a raw material and used in the making of a new good (example: crushing of bottles to make glass for new bottles). Refillable bottles are used extensively in many European countries; for example in Denmark, 98% of bottles are refillable, and 98% of those are returned by consumers. * These systems are typically supported by deposit laws and other regulations.
In some developing nations like India and Pakistan, the cost of new bottles often forces manufacturers to collect and refill old glass bottles for selling cola and other drinks. India and Pakistan also have a way of reusing old newspapers: "Kabadiwalas" buy these from the readers for scrap value and reuse them in packaging or in recycling plants. These scrap intermediaries also help in disposing other articles and metals from the consumers and is a lucrative business for the resellers.
In the former East Germany, organic household waste was collected and used as fodder for pigs. This integrated system was made possible by the state's control of agriculture; the complexities of continuing it in a market economy after German reunification meant the system had to be discontinued.
Promoting reuse
It is the governments view that this might be achieved through education and awareness initiatives both at a household and commercial level. Practical schemes that might be considered, and examples of these are, are:
Deposit refund schemes
These have already been mentioned historically. They offer financial incentive for customers to participate. Although no longer common in the UK international experience is showing that they can still be an effective for manufacturers and consumers to co-operate in ensuring the reuse of some post consumer products. Providing financial incentive may not be enough, statistics show that on average a milk bottle is returned 12 times whereas a lemonade bottle with a 15p deposit is returned on average only 3 times. Financial incentive, unless great, may be less of an incentive than convenience. Sainsbury Ltd have operated a plastic carrier bag cash refund scheme in 1991 - “the penny back scheme”. The scheme is reported to save 970 tonnes of plastic per annum. The scheme has now been extended to a penny back on a voucher which can be contributed to schools registered on the scheme; it estimates this will raise the savings in plastic to 2500 tonnes per annum.
Closed loop schemes
These apply primarily to items of packaging, for example, where a company is involved in the regular transportation of goods from a central manufacturing facility to warehouses or warehouses to retail outlets then there is considerable benefit in using reusable “transport packaging” such as plastic crates or pallets. Tesco have established a series of nine recycling service units which wash returnable plastic trays; it is estimated that this operations saves around 50,000 tonnes of packaging per annum. Marks and Spencer operate a similar scheme with 90% reuse or recycle of transit packaging. 65% of their foods are transported on reusable plastic trays saving 25,000 tonnes of cardboard per year; they also have a 3 year plan to eliminate transit packaging on textiles and home furnishing product lines saving another 28,000 tonnes per annum. The same company started a coat hanger reuse scheme in 1993 and now reuse over 20 million of these annually saving 1,200 tonnes of plastic.
The benefits of closed loop recycle are primarily due to virtually no additional transport costs being involved, the empty lorry returning with the empty crates. There have been some recent attempts to get the public to join in on closed loop reuse schemes with the so called “blue basket” schemes (green in the case of Safeway) where shoppers use reusable plastic baskets in place of carrier bags for transporting their goods home from the supermarket; these baskets fit on specially designed trolleys making shopping supposedly easier.
Internalising environmental costs
This is an economists way of saying introduce an environmental tax. In effect a charge would be placed on items which reflects the environmental costs of its disposal once it becomes waste. This means that a higher charge would be placed on single use items compared to re-usable ones. Charges have been introduced in some countries with the revenue used to internalise the full social costs of reuse and disposal. Such schemes are said to encourage reuse. There have been some market led initiatives to encourage reuse by companies introducing refill packs of certain commodities (mainly soap powders and cleaning fluids) with the savings in packaging being past onto the customer by lower shelf prices. Such schemes appear to meet with the approval of customers and could possibly be extended.
Waste exchange
This has already been mentioned under waste minimisation of raw materials. This sort of scheme needs to have a far broader base than is currently the case, it requires organisation and the setting up of waste brokerages where lists of currently available wastes are and the quantities available. One of the problems is once a demand for a waste is known or shown then the material is no longer a “waste” but a sellable commodity which often prices itself out of the market, c.f waste cement kiln dust and N-viro (lime conditioned sewage sludge fertiliser)
Recycling
Recycling introduces a further real difficulty into the calculations. In the case of materials like steel and aluminium which can technically be recycled an indefinite number of times (with some melt losses), there is no longer a graveyeard. And in the case of paper, which can theoretically be reprocessed four or five times before fibres are too short to have viable strength, should calculations assume that it will be recycled four times, or not? What return rates, for example, should be assumed for factory-refillable containers? For both refillable containers and materials sent for recycling, the transport distance in each specific case is a major influence in the environmental impacts associated with the process. An LCA which concludes that recycling of low-value renewable materials in one city is environmentally preferable may not hold good for a different, more remote city where reprocessing facilities incur large transport impacts.
See also
"Reuse"