Lesson video

This lesson is called Waste and Recycling, and is from the unit Climate Change and Living Sustainably.

Hi there, my name's Mrs. McCready, and I'm here to guide you through today's lesson.

So thank you very much for joining me today.

In our lesson today, we're going to explain how to use resources more sustainably and how we might reduce waste.

Now, in our lesson today, we're gonna come across a number of keywords and they're listed up here on the screen for you now.

You may wish to pause the video and make a note of them, but I will introduce them to you as we come across them.

So in our lesson today, we're going to have a look at what happens to waste that we bury or burn, then we're gonna consider the mantra reuse, reduce, and recycle, before we consider how we might be more sustainable.

So are you ready to go? I certainly am.

Let's get started.

Well, let's consider, first of all, what waste is.

And waste comes in many different forms, as I'm sure you're probably already aware.

So it might take the form of waste food, food that we either no longer want to eat or food that we never intended to eat in the first place, like vegetable peelings.

It might also take the form of something large, like a car or a bike, something like that, or perhaps furniture, maybe chairs, bookshelves, beds, mattresses, that sort of thing.

Perhaps it's the packaging that objects came in when they arrived at your door through the post.

Maybe it's clothing that you no longer fit into, or don't want to wear anymore.

Or perhaps it's appliances like ovens and washing machines and tumble dryers that no longer work anymore.

All of these are examples of waste, and therefore, we can say that waste includes anything that we throw away, whether we've used it or not, and whether we ever intended to use it or not.

So waste is made at different stages of a product's life.

Some waste comes right at the beginning of the product's life, when it is being made.

For instance, when we're preparing dinner, some waste is generated then, when we don't eat the vegetable peelings, or we take the tops of carrots off, when we throw away the outer layers, that sort of thing.

That is waste that is made right at the beginning of the product's life, before it's even made into the food we're going to eat, for instance.

Some waste is made during the product's life.

So for instance, pencil shavings.

This is waste, and it's made as we are using the product.

And there are plenty of examples like that.

Oil from cars when it's changed.

That is waste that is being generated as part of the product's lifecycle, as part of the car's life.

And there are plenty of other examples like that as well.

And then some waste is made at the very end of the product's life, when we no longer want it, or maybe it's run out of use, maybe it's broken, maybe it's just completely finished with, whichever way, it's at the end of its lifecycle and the whole thing now is perhaps waste.

So waste is made at lots of different stages of the product's lifecycle, and can be made throughout its lifecycle.

So which of the following is waste? A banana that Aisha has put onto a compost heap, a banana skin that Lucas has left on the kitchen table, or a banana that Sofia is packing for her lunch? Which do you think are waste? I'll give you five seconds to consider.

Okay, so you should have said that both the banana that Aisha has put onto the compost and the banana skin that Lucas has left on the kitchen table are both examples of waste.

But the banana that Aisha has put onto the compost heap will turn the waste banana into something useful, into compost that can then be put onto the garden.

Well done if you got both of those.

Now, what happens to that waste? Well, some of the waste that we throw away is buried, and it's buried in specialist sites called landfill sites.

So we don't just stick them into any old hole in the ground.

We have specialist holes called landfill sites, and you can see one there in the picture, this large space where rubbish is dumped into it and buried.

Now, in the UK, in 2022, about 13 million tonnes of waste from households was buried in landfill.

That's an extraordinary amount and really difficult to imagine how heavy that amount of landfill waste is.

Now, as I said, landfill waste sites are specialist holes in the ground, and modern landfill sites are lined with clay and plastic to help to stop contamination of the items which were put into the landfill leaking into the surrounding land.

So the clay is largely water resistant and the plastic forms an impermeable layer, a layer that water can't penetrate through.

However, leaks can happen, and this occurs when the plastic gets damaged or the clay gets broken through.

Either way, leaks can occur from the landfill and this can be dangerous to the environment and also to human health, especially if the leaking substances make their way into a watercourse, like a river, which ultimately might end up being processed as fresh water and served to us via our taps.

Now, some of the waste that we put into landfill will decompose and produce a gas called methane.

Now, methane doesn't smell and methane has no colour, but methane is dangerous because it is highly flammable, and it is also a greenhouse gas.

So if it enters the atmosphere, then it is worsening the greenhouse effect and it is driving climate change.

However, we can collect methane, which is being released from landfill sites, into pipes, and then move that gas to somewhere where we might be able to use it more appropriately.

So we can burn it in a furnace and use it to heat water, for instance, to either generate electricity or to use it for heating directly.

So we can collect the methane, but lots of it does escape into the atmosphere.

So what are the risks caused by methane gas that is produced in landfill? Is it contamination of surrounding ground, fire or explosions, or strong smells? I'll give you five seconds to decide.

Okay, so you should have said that fire or explosions is a risk caused by methane gas from landfill.

Well done if you chose that option.

So some waste is buried, but other waste is burned in specialised facilities called incinerators.

And you can see an example of an incinerator in the photograph there.

So this is where waste goes if we want to burn it.

Now, in the UK in, 2022-23, almost half of all the household waste that was produced was burnt in incinerators.

That's an enormous amount of waste that we are deliberately burning.

Now, we can use the heat that is generated when we burn waste in an incinerator to generate electricity, or we can use it for heating.

So if it's being used to generate electricity, it's essentially being used in the same way as coal, oil, gas, or biomass is within a power station.

And waste incinerators produce about 3% of the electricity and heating in the UK.

But incinerators have some significant side effects.

Firstly, they produce carbon dioxide gas and other air pollutants into the atmosphere.

And carbon dioxide gas is a greenhouse gas, so it's driving the greenhouse effect, which is driving climate change.

Also, the other air pollutants are pretty unpleasant, and burning waste is therefore the most polluting way that the UK currently has of generating electricity, by far and way, the most polluting way, far beyond even coal, oil and gas, which are themselves quite polluting.

So incinerating waste, whilst it deals with getting rid of the waste, doesn't help climate change, and it also is a pretty unpleasant polluter as well.

Yet quite substantial portions of our waste are got rid of by burning.

So what are the risks caused by burning waste in incinerators? Is it that they make more greenhouse gas? Is it that they increase air pollution? Or is it that they reduce local jobs? I'll give you five seconds to decide.

Okay, so you should have said that the risks caused by burning waste in incinerators are that they make greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide and other pollutants, for instance, and they also increase air pollution.

Well done if you selected both of those options.

So what I'd like you to do is to summarise our first part of the lesson by comparing and contrasting landfill with waste incinerators.

So you can see on the screen here that I'm going to put features that are specific only to landfill on the left, features specific only to incinerators on the right, and features that are common to both landfill and incinerators in the middle.

So pause the video and come back to me when you're ready.

Okay, let's see what you have written.

So for landfill only, you might have included that leaks can contaminate surrounding land, that landfill produces methane gas, and that rubbish remains in landfill for a very long time.

For incinerators only, you might have said that this releases pollutants into the air, that it produces carbon dioxide gas, and that it can generate electricity and be used for heating.

And then things that are common to both landfill and incinerators are that they both get rid of waste, that they both produce greenhouse gases, and that they both can cause pollution.

So just review your work.

Did you make all of those points? Perhaps you've added some extra ones that I haven't listed here.

Well done indeed, and let's move on.

Okay, let's have a look at reusing, reducing, and recycling.

So let's consider an example of reusing first.

So at school, you may well get a school dinner and it is probably served in a plastic tray, much like the one on the screen there.

Now, these plastic trays are washed up and reused every day.

And because they are plastic, if you drop them, they won't smash, so they can last for a long time.

And it means therefore that they can be used many, many times over and over again.

So this is an example of reusing something.

Now, another example is of pens.

I expect you write with a biro.

The problem with a biro is that once you've used up all of the ink in the biro, it's thrown away.

So, of course, the pen lasts for as long as you are writing with it and as long as there is ink in it, but at the end of that single-use, it is then thrown away, whereas some pens are designed to be refilled and then, therefore, reused over and over again.

So fountain pens, for instance, are an example of pens that can be refilled with ink and therefore used over and over again.

Now, when we are reusing something, we will almost certainly be reducing the amount of material that is used to make what we need, because in the example of the pen, all we are then having to replenish is the ink that we're using when we're using a fountain pen, rather than the whole pen as well.

And with the food tray, all we need to do is replace the food and not the tray as well.

So reusing things will reduce the amount of waste that we throw away because only a small part of the item itself is then being thrown away, like the leftover food, for instance.

And if we compare that to something that is entirely throwaway-able, like single-use plastic trays or single-use cardboard, you can see quite easily how the amount of waste is significantly reduced when we reuse the plastic tray rather than getting new plastic trays for every single meal.

So reusing a plastic box for your sandwiches every day uses more materials than using plastic film to cover them.

True or false? Okay, so you should have said that that is false.

Why? Well, if you imagine how much plastic film is used to cover your sandwich and then imagine 200 copies of this, that would be the amount of plastic that would be used to cover all of your sandwiches that you would eat every day at school over the course of a year, every day at school over the course of a year.

And if you imagine those 200 pieces of plastic film and compare that to the plastic box that you could use instead each day, you'll see that the plastic contained within the plastic box is much less plastic than the plastic contained in 200 wraps of a sandwich.

Reusing is one thing, but sometimes we can't reuse.

And so what we need to do then is recycle.

Now, all houses are given a number of different bins in order to recycle, and you can see four different bins outside this house in the photograph there, and they're all used for different purposes.

And what happens is that that waste is then collected by the council and taken off to a recycling centre where it is sorted and processed and then turned into new materials.

So plastics might be created into new plastic bottles, for instance, or maybe they're shredded and turned into fabric for clothing, like fleeces, or the stuffing for toys, for instance.

Now, not all waste can be recycled, and that is why we are given so many different bins outside our house.

And also, the way waste is recycled differs across the UK.

So in the example in the picture there, the blue bin is for plastic, glass and cartons, like tetra pack type things, the brown waste is for garden waste, the green bin is for paper and cardboard, and the black bin is for other waste that can't be recycled and is therefore going to go into landfill or to be burnt in an incinerator.

So it is therefore the duty of the people living in the house to sort their rubbish out into various different types and put them appropriately into their bins so that they can be more easily dealt with by the council in the recycling centres or sent straight to landfill, if more appropriate.

And as a result of having so many bins and the recycling initiative that councils run, in the UK, in 2022, 44% of household waste was recycled, and this level is increasing ever so, ever so slowly.

So if we want to reduce the amount of waste that is going to landfill or into a waste incinerator, what we need to do is to recycle more, and also, reduce the amount that we use, in the first place.

So you can see in the pie chart there that 42.

5% of waste was recycled in the UK in 2022, 33.

5% was burnt in an incinerator, 21% went straight into landfill, and the little portion left over accounts for waste that was sent out of the UK and dealt with by another country.

So yes, we need to increase the amount of recycling that we can do, but we also need to use less, in the first place.

Because if we reduce the amount of waste that we are creating, in the first place, then we would have less to have to process, and that is only a good thing.

So most of our household waste is sent to landfill or is incinerated.

True or false? So you should have said that that is true.

But why? Well, in 2022, over half of household waste in the UK was not recycled, and instead went to landfill or was incinerated.

So what I would like you to do now is to describe some of the ways that your school could reduce the amount of waste that it produces that goes straight to landfill or into the waste incinerator.

So put your thinking caps on and have a really good creative go at coming up with some excellent ideas that you could perhaps present to the head teacher or to the student council to get them to change how things are happening in your school.

Pause the video and come back to me when you're ready.

Okay, so what ideas did you come up with? I expect you've come up with many more than I have, but you might have included things like reducing the amount of equipment bought each year and reusing as much of it as possible, not replacing things so often and fixing and repairing equipment when it is possible to do so, encouraging students to bring packed lunches in reusable containers instead of disposable plastics, and to sort waste more efficiently so more of it can be recycled.

But I'm sure you've come up with some other excellent ideas and maybe you can take those to the student council or to the head teacher and see if change can happen in your school.

Good luck.

Okay, let's move on to the last part of our lesson, which is looking at sustainable solutions.

So what is sustainability? What does that mean? Well, we can say that a resource is sustainable if it can be used for as long as is needed, and in such a way that it doesn't run out.

So if we want something to be sustainable, it needs to be used up a longer period of time, so not used up so quickly, it needs to be made of materials that are easy to replace, it needs to be made of materials that can be recycled easily, it needs to be made easier to be repaired so that instead of being thrown away when they break, it can be fixed and carried on being used, and the whole thing needs to be easier to recycle, so it needs to be made of materials that can be recycled at the end of the product's life rather than simply binned and put into landfill or incinerated.

So if a resource has these features, then we can say that it is more sustainable.

So let's look at an example.

Let's say your washing machine at home has broken.

Now, often, this can be fixed, usually by replacing the worn out part, maybe the ball bearings in the drum, for instance.

However, this is quite a tricky thing to do, it's usually quite expensive to do, and often, the cost of repairing it is the same as or even perhaps more than the cost of a new machine.

So fixing the machine, whilst perhaps possible and certainly more sustainable, doesn't necessarily make good financial sense.

And therefore, buying a new machine is perhaps an easier thing to do.

Sometimes buying a new machine is more expensive than the repair work that would be needed for the machine, but not always.

So manufacturers need to look at how they build the machine, in the first place.

So which of these does not help a dishwasher to be sustainable? Is it easily available spare parts? Is it that it is made out of metal? Is it that it operates at a high temperature? Or is it that it is strong and hard wearing? Which does not help it to be sustainable? I'll give you five seconds to decide.

So you should have chosen that the fact that it operates at a high temperature does not help a dishwasher to be sustainable.

Well done if you selected that.

So what I'd like you to do now is to make a list of useful questions that you could ask when you are buying a new appliance, like a washing machine or a dishwasher, a vacuum cleaner, that sort of thing, to make sure that it is a sustainable solution.

So have a think.

What sort of questions would you ask the manufacturer or perhaps the shop assistant to see whether you're choosing the most sustainable vacuum cleaner, washing machine, dishwasher, tumble dryer, whatever, rather than the least sustainable.

So pause the video and come back to me when you're ready.

So what questions did you come up with? Or perhaps you thought of questions like, how well does it do what I want it to do? So how good a vacuum cleaner is it really? Or what is it made from? How much of it is made of plastic? How much of it is made of metal? How much of those materials are recyclable? How is it designed to be hardwearing? So will it stand the test of time? Will it survive the jobs that it's supposed to be doing before it wears out? Is it easy to get it fixed if it breaks? Or are the parts all really so well hidden and merged into each other, that actually repairing it is nigh on impossible? Is it easy to get spare parts for it, or would that take an awful lot of effort? Would it be really expensive? Does it require a specialist dealer? And how easy is it to take it apart to recycle it at the end of its life? Is it possible to remove the plastic pieces and put them through one recycling process, and the metal pieces through a separate recycling process? Or are they all sort of so fused together that actually trying to separate them all would be really, really hard to do? And perhaps you've asked some other questions as well.

Well done indeed.

Okay, we've reached the end of our lesson today, so I hope you found it interesting.

We've seen how a lot of the waste that we throw away is buried in landfill or sent to a waste incinerator and burnt.

And the problem with both of these methods of dealing with waste is that they produce greenhouse gases and cause further pollution.

But we've also seen how we can reuse, reduce, and recycle, and reusing things will certainly reduce the amount of materials that is required to make what we need.

And if we recycle things well at the end of their life, then we can also make sure that things are not all just sent to the waste incinerator or into landfill, but are properly reused, as a result, recycled into new materials.

We've also seen how we can reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill or to the waste incinerator by recycling using the household recycling schemes.

We've also learnt how if a resource is sustainable, it means that it can be used for as long as it is needed in a way that it doesn't run out.

So I hope you've enjoyed our lesson today and you've learned a lot.

I hope you've got some great ideas that you can take to your student council or to your head teacher as well.

Good luck with that.

Thanks very much for joining me today, and I hope to see you again soon.

Bye.