Concept
Recycling
Related concepts (47)
Environmental economics
Environmental economics is a sub-field of economics concerned with environmental issues. It has become a widely studied subject due to growing environmental concerns in the twenty-first century. Environmental economics "undertakes theoretical or empirical studies of the economic effects of national or local environmental policies around the world. ... Particular issues include the costs and benefits of alternative environmental policies to deal with air pollution, water quality, toxic substances, solid waste, and global warming.
Reverse vending machine
A reverse vending machine (RVM) is a machine that allows a person to insert a used or empty glass bottle, plastic bottle, or aluminum can in exchange for a reward. After inserting the recyclable item, it is then compacted, sorted, and analyzed according to the number of ounces, materials, and brand using the universal product code on the bottle or can. Once the item has been scanned and approved, it is then crushed and sorted into the proper storage space for the classified material.
Green waste
Green waste, also known as "biological waste", is any organic waste that can be composted. It is most usually composed of refuse from gardens such as grass clippings or leaves, and domestic or industrial kitchen wastes. Green waste does not include things such as dried leaves, pine straw, or hay. Such materials are rich in carbon and considered "brown wastes," while green wastes contain high concentrations of nitrogen. Green waste can be used to increase the efficiency of many composting operations and can be added to soil to sustain local nutrient cycling.
Litter
Litter consists of waste products that have been discarded incorrectly, without consent, at an unsuitable location. The word litter can also be used as a verb: to litter means to drop and leave objects, often man-made, such as aluminum cans, paper cups, food wrappers, cardboard boxes or plastic bottles on the ground, and leave them there indefinitely or for other people to dispose of as opposed to disposing of them correctly.
Single-stream recycling
Single-stream (also known as “fully commingled” or "single-sort") recycling refers to a system in which all paper fibers, plastics, metals, and other containers are mixed in a collection truck, instead of being sorted by the depositor into separate commodities (newspaper, paperboard, corrugated fiberboard, plastic, glass, etc.) and handled separately throughout the collection process. In single-stream, both the collection and processing systems are designed to handle this fully commingled mixture of recyclables, with materials being separated for reuse at a materials recovery facility.
Waste picker
A waste picker is a person who salvages reusable or recyclable materials thrown away by others to sell or for personal consumption. There are millions of waste pickers worldwide, predominantly in developing countries, but increasingly in post-industrial countries as well. Various forms of waste picking have been practiced since antiquity, but modern traditions of waste picking took root during industrialization in the nineteenth century.
Downcycling
Downcycling, or cascading, is the recycling of waste where the recycled material is of lower quality and functionality than the original material. Often, this is due to the accumulation of tramp elements in secondary metals, which may exclude the latter from high-quality applications. For example, steel scrap from end-of-life vehicles is often contaminated with copper from wires and tin from coating. This contaminated scrap yields a secondary steel that does not meet the specifications for automotive steel and therefore, it is mostly applied in the construction sector.
Waste collector
A waste collector, also known as a garbageman, garbage collector, trashman (in the US), binman or dustman (in the UK), is a person employed by a public or private enterprise to collect and dispose of municipal solid waste (refuse) and recyclables from residential, commercial, industrial or other collection sites for further processing and waste disposal. Specialised waste collection vehicles (also known as garbage trucks in the US, bin lorries in the UK) featuring an array of automated functions are often deployed to assist waste collectors in reducing collection and transport time and for protection from exposure.
Bottle
A bottle is a narrow-necked container made of an impermeable material (such as glass, plastic or aluminium) in various shapes and sizes that stores and transports liquids. Its mouth, at the bottling line, can be sealed with an internal stopper, an external bottle cap, a closure, or induction sealing. First attested in 14th century. From the English word bottle derives from an Old French word boteille, from vulgar Latin butticula, from late Latin buttis ("cask"), a latinisation of the Greek βοῦττις (bouttis) ("vessel").
Hyperspectral imaging
Hyperspectral imaging collects and processes information from across the electromagnetic spectrum. The goal of hyperspectral imaging is to obtain the spectrum for each pixel in the image of a scene, with the purpose of finding objects, identifying materials, or detecting processes. There are three general types of spectral imagers. There are push broom scanners and the related whisk broom scanners (spatial scanning), which read images over time, band sequential scanners (spectral scanning), which acquire images of an area at different wavelengths, and snapshot hyperspectral imagers, which uses a staring array to generate an image in an instant.