Unless you recycle your rubbish, it all ends in a large hole in the ground called a landfill site. When these holes are completely filled, they cover them up and the land is used for building homes or other purposes. The highly flammable methane gas that is produced from the rubbish has to be continuously collected and burned.Certain materials (e.g plastics) are non- biodegradable and do not decay into the soil. This is a major problem as a high proportion of our weekly waste is plastic.
However, the option of recycling cetain materials is very friendly to the environment. This mean that certain materials do not have to be dumped in landfill sites and we do not waste the raw material needed to make the plastic. For example, oil is needed to make plastic, but we a quickly running out of our supply of crude oil in this country.
Glass, cans, certain plastics and paper are all materials that are easy to recycle. Most supermarkets have recycling bins on their property.
It is also possible to burn some types of waste, which could bring an alternative to burning fossil fuels for electricty production. However, this still releases gases such as carbon dioxide (see section on global warming).
Photos from,
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/northern_
ireland/1047895.stm
www.morrisholdings.co.uk/waste
disposal.html
