(by Ruth Kamnitzer - Sustainability Coordinator) Pulling up at the back gate this first morning back after mid-term break, it was encouraging to see the number of families emptying trunk loads of milk jugs, cardboard boxes, cans and the like into the recycling bins. My car was similarly loaded. Despite my best efforts to cut down on packaging, I still end up with a mountain of mostly food packaging and I’m glad that we have the facilities to recycle at least some of these hard-to-avoid items.
Reducing and reusing need to be our first strategies, but recycling also plays an important role in conserving resources and reducing energy consumption. Yet communicating the proper place of recycling in the 3 R trilogy can be challenging. On the one hand, a mantra of ‘hey, I can just recycle it!’ can turn into rationale for using small water bottles and other unnecessarily wasteful items; on the other hand, faults in the recycling chain and an attitude of ‘it probably won’t get recycled anyways’ lead people to be less diligent in separating their waste, and valuable resources get thrown in the landfill (or worse). As recycling is still in its infancy in Oman, our challenge of finding a midpoint between these attitudes is even greater – and more important.
So here are the facts, as I know them. You can draw your own conclusions.
For all materials, recycling yields benefits. Recycling generally uses less energy (compared to production from new materials), from a whopping 95% energy saving for aluminum, 70% for paper, slightly less for plastic and down to 15% for glass. Recycling also uses less water, creates less air pollution, and by passes the impacts associated with mining (of minerals and oil). And those benefits are only in the production stage; on the disposal side, recycling materials means they don’t end up in the landfill or blowing out to sea. Overall, the reasons to recycle are clear.
Whilst it is possible to recycle a very wide range of products (with the list growing all the time), how and what gets recycled depends on the country you are in. Here’s our situation at the school.
Our main contact for recycling is Plasbin, an Omani owned company that has been around for a number of years. They supply our large bins at the back gate, and collect all our materials (except paper). Plastic is processed at their facility in Samail. Currently, the company has the capacity to process some plastic types; these are shredded and turned into pellets (the raw material for recycled plastic products), before being sold internationally for manufacture. In the long term, the company plans to process all material types in country including all plastics, cardboard, glass and metal. Until those machines can be purchased (or other facilities are developed in country), these materials are compacted and stored at their facility.
Our paper is collected by the Muscat Daily, who send it onwards to (I believe) to the UAE (and from there it likely goes further abroad). Clean recyclable paper is valuable, so you can be confident that it is being recycled efficiently. The Muscat Daily will also collect directly from offices and homes, and the contact number for this is on their website.
Cereal boxes are always good for crafts; if you pass them on to the class teacher, I promise they will find a second life (perhaps ending up back on your shelves!).
A quick word on aluminum cans. These have such a high value for recycling that you will see the city garbage collectors searching for them in the back of the garbage truck, so if you can’t bring them into the school bins, you can hang them off your curbside dumpster in a bag and someone will probably take them. Steel/tins cans have a lower value on the recycling market here, so unlike aluminum cans, they won’t be rescued from your curbside bin, and they should be brought into the school. Large metal items may get collected by roving scrap metal trucks that honk as they circle the neighborhoods. A couple of weeks ago I saw one of these trucks stop at a mattress which was lying next to a dumpster, and the driver slit the mattress to salvage the metal springs inside.
Finally, I know that collecting and storing materials at home can take a fair amount of commitment. For those of us coming from Europe or North America, where curbside recycling is the norm it can even seem archaic. I console myself with the memory that in recycling’s early days in Canada, we did the same thing. So when my cupboards at home are overflowing with rinsed out milk bottles, tomato sauce jars and chick pea cans, and I become tempted by how easy it would be to simply chuck it all in the dumpster, I just google ‘why recycle’ or look at the plastic around down at the beach and my motivation level comes right back up. So keep collecting, keep bringing your stuff into school – I promise, it is worth it.
To find out more about OurPlanet School visit http://www.ourplanet-muscat.com/
