Waste Recycling in the UK

许广林

Recycling is to pass something through a system that enables it to be reused. Waste recycling includes collection， separation and clean-up. The British government is hoping to recycle more waste in families including paper， plastics， metal and tyres.

The paper industry produces much waste， so paper recycling in the UK became popular during the 1990s. Nearly a million tons of waste paper from families is now recycled each year. To encourage the public to recycle waste paper， many cities have arranged house to house collection service. Separate bins and containers are provided specially for paper.

Usually the UK has about 4.5 million tons of plastic waste each year. Most of this is from packaging. The UK has a plastics recycling rate of only 3%. Plastic waste is first sorted by hand and then taken to a plastic recycling point.

The UK has a recycling rate of 60% for iron and steel. Most of this waste comes from vehicles， fridges and other kitchen equipment. It is mainly made up of aluminium drinks cans and steel food cans. Aluminium recycling is widely set up in the UK. It is an expensive metal and can therefore produce high incomes for recycling companies. At present， over a third of aluminium drinks cans are recycled. Some other countries have very high recycling figures for aluminium drinks cans. The USA and Australia for example， recycle nearly two thirds.

Every year in the UK between 25 and 30 million scrap tyres are generated. Around 21% of these tyres are reused. The old tread is ground off the tyre and replaced with a new tread. However， about half of all used tyres are dumped in garbage sites throughout the country.

Writing Task： For / Against Recycling Textbooks

In the past several years， more and more provinces have put up with some regulations about recycling textbooks in schools. Nevertheless， peoples opinions on this are divided. What is your point of view？

Now write an article to express your opinion in about 100 words：

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（Key ? p. 38）