History

Originsedit

Recycling has been a common practice for most of human history, with recorded advocates as far back as Plato in the fourth century BC.citation needed During periods when resources were scarce and hard to come by, archaeological studies of ancient waste dumps show less household waste (such as ash, broken tools, and pottery)—implying more waste was being recycled in the absence of new material.

In pre-industrial times, there is evidence of scrap bronze and other metals being collected in Europe and melted down for continuous reuse. Paper recycling was first recorded in 1031 when Japanese shops sold repulped paper. In Britain dust and ash from wood and coal fires was collected by "dustmen" and downcycled as a base material used in brick making. The main driver for these types of recycling was the economic advantage of obtaining recycled feedstock instead of acquiring virgin material, as well as a lack of public waste removal in ever more densely populated areas. In 1813, Benjamin Law developed the process of turning rags into "shoddy" and "mungo" wool in Batley, Yorkshire. This material combined recycled fibers with virgin wool. The West Yorkshire shoddy industry in towns such as Batley and Dewsbury lasted from the early 19th century to at least 1914.

Industrialization spurred demand for affordable materials; aside from rags, ferrous scrap metals were coveted as they were cheaper to acquire than virgin ore. Railroads both purchased and sold scrap metal in the 19th century, and the growing steel and automobile industries purchased scrap in the early 20th century. Many secondary goods were collected, processed and sold by peddlers who scoured dumps and city streets for discarded machinery, pots, pans, and other sources of metal. By World War I, thousands of such peddlers roamed the streets of American cities, taking advantage of market forces to recycle post-consumer materials back into industrial production.

Beverage bottles were recycled with a refundable deposit at some drink manufacturers in Great Britain and Ireland around 1800, notably Schweppes. An official recycling system with refundable deposits was established in Sweden for bottles in 1884 and aluminum beverage cans in 1982; the law led to a recycling rate for beverage containers of 84–99 percent depending on type, and a glass bottle can be refilled over 20 times on average.

Wartimeedit

New chemical industries created in the late 19th century both invented new materials (e.g. Bakelite ) and promised to transform valueless into valuable materials. Proverbially, you could not make a silk purse of a sow's ear—until the US firm Arthur D. Little published in 1921 "On the Making of Silk Purses from Sows' Ears", its research proving that when "chemistry puts on overalls and gets down to business ... new values appear. New and better paths are opened to reach the goals desired."

Recycling (or "salvage", as it was then usually known) was a major issue for governments throughout World War II. Financial constraints and significant material shortages due to war efforts made it necessary for countries to reuse goods and recycle materials. These resource shortages caused by the world wars, and other such world-changing occurrences, greatly encouraged recycling. The struggles of war claimed much of the material resources available, leaving little for the civilian population. It became necessary for most homes to recycle their waste, as recycling offered an extra source of materials allowing people to make the most of what was available to them. Recycling household materials meant more resources for war efforts and a better chance of victory. Massive government promotion campaigns, such as the National Salvage Campaign in Britain and the Salvage for Victory campaign in the United States, were carried out on the home front in every combative nation, urging citizens to donate metal, paper, rags, and rubber as a matter of patriotism.

Post-World War IIedit

A considerable investment in recycling occurred in the 1970s, due to rising energy costs. Recycling aluminium uses only 5% of the energy required by virgin production; glass, paper and other metals have less dramatic but significant energy savings when recycled feedstock is used.

Although consumer electronics such as the television have been popular since the 1920s, recycling of them was almost unheard of until early 1991. The first electronic waste recycling scheme was implemented in Switzerland, beginning with collection of old refrigerators but gradually expanding to cover all devices. After these schemes were set up, many countries did not have the capacity to deal with the sheer quantity of e-waste they generated or its hazardous nature. They began to export the problem to developing countries without enforced environmental legislation. This is cheaper, as recycling computer monitors in the United States costs 10 times more than in China. Demand in Asia for electronic waste began to grow when scrap yards found that they could extract valuable substances such as copper, silver, iron, silicon, nickel, and gold, during the recycling process. The 2000s saw a large increase in both the sale of electronic devices and their growth as a waste stream: in 2002, e-waste grew faster than any other type of waste in the EU. This caused investment in modern, automated facilities to cope with the influx of redundant appliances, especially after strict laws were implemented in 2003.

As of 2014, the European Union had about 50% of world share of the waste and recycling industries, with over 60,000 companies employing 500,000 persons, with a turnover of €24 billion. Countries have to reach recycling rates of at least 50%, while the lead countries were around 65% and the EU average was 39% as of 2013. The EU average has been rising steadily, to 45% in 2015.

The United Nations General Assembly, in 2015, set 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Goal 12 Responsible Consumption and Production is to "ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns" and is composed of 11 targets. The fifth target, Target 12.5, is defined as substantially reducing waste generation by 2030, indicated by the National Recycling Rate.

In 2018, changes in the recycling market have sparked a global "crisis" in the industry. On 31 December 2017, China announced its "National Sword" policy, setting new standards for imports of recyclable material and banning materials that were deemed too "dirty" or "hazardous". The new policy caused drastic disruptions in the global market in recycling and reduced the prices of scrap plastic and low-grade paper. Exports of recyclable materials from G7 countries to China dropped dramatically, with many exports shifting to countries in southeast Asia. The crisis generated significant concern about the practices and environmental sustainability of the recycling industry. The abrupt shift caused countries to accept more recyclable materials than they could process, raising fundamental questions about shipping recycling waste from economically developed countries to countries with few environmental regulations—a practice that predated the crisis.