Hello, my name is Erin McCluskey. I am an outreach worker for BDA Scotland.
I’m very excited to be making this video with my amazing guest today.
Could you introduce yourself please?
Hi. My name is James Colhoun.
In this video we’re going to cover an interesting topic. Under the BSL (Scotland)
Act 2015, local councils across Scotland have certain obligations.
One of the services councils provide is rubbish and recycling collections.
In this video we want to focus on why it’s important to separate out your recycling.
Before I get carried away, I should ask James to explain his role.
Sure. I work at a recycling centre dealing with the glass.
The glass is all processed and recycled and reused to make the special white paint
used to paint lines on motorways. The glass makes the paint glow at night
when it is lit up by headlights. It is also used to create a similar effect
in the reflective strips on Hi-Vis jackets. These things are both made from recycled glass.
They are really made from glass? That’s amazing! Can I ask James,
why is it so important to separate out your recycling, your glass, your paper,
your plastic and so on? Why do we have to put all these things into separate bins?
It is really important, yes. I really want to emphasise that. It’s important to
separate it all out. In Glasgow, the green bins are for general waste
so anything that’s not suitable for recycling should go in those.
The purple bin is for your bottles and jars, the brown bin is for food waste,
the grey bin is for plastics, and the blue bin is for cardboard and paper.
You can put shredded paper in there too. It’s really important to keep all this
waste separate, and I will explain why. So, as I said before, I work on the glass.
When the lorries come into the recycling centre, all the glass that they have collected
up is put into a big hopper. It is my job to load it into the hopper,
which is like a giant funnel.
So the glass goes into the top of that?
Yes, that’s right, into the top and then down into the hopper. Obviously, I can’t
see inside it. If a piece of wood for example or some food waste or plastic
gets mixed up with that, it makes a real mess and destroys the whole process.
It can break the machinery and then that will need to be fixed. This means that the
lorries returning to the recycling centre back up because they can’t unload.
It’s the same thing with the plastic. If it gets mixed up with other types of waste,
it causes all sorts of problems. Please, please don’t do that!
There is no way for us to sort through it so if it does get mixed up, we just have to
throw the whole lot away. It gets compressed and dumped into landfill!
So that means it can’t be recycled?
Unfortunately not, no. It has to be dumped because it’s contaminated.
Lots of people don’t follow the system and just dump their waste into any bin,
so it all gets mixed up. It’s no good though if it’s not done right.
I see your point. Recycling needs to go into the correct bin and that’s really important,
judging by what you say.
It is, yes. If everything was separated out correctly, the process would run really
smoothly, and everything would get recycled. Recycling helps the planet,
it saves trees. We all need to look after the environment.
If people just sorted their rubbish properly, the recycling process would
run smoothly. If people ignore the instructions, we’re just going to end up
repeating the same thing.
Thank you for explaining why it’s so important, James. This is a great opportunity
to remind everybody that each council has its own system for collecting recycling.
The bins are not the same colour in every place. It’s best that you check your
own council’s website to find out what the system is in your area. If you can’t find
the information you need, you can contact the BSL Helpline, and they will make sure
that you find the information you need to recycle effectively and do your bit to
keep our environment clean. Thank you so much for your time today, James.
No problem, thank you.