During the Christmas break, I left my in-laws’ house in Swansea and drove with my wife and children to Oxwich, on the Gower Peninsula. As I often do, particularly when visiting beaches, I took a bag to pick up any litter. Typically this litter tends to be plastic, but on this occasion our walk took us up through the woods, where I soon filled the bag with discarded aluminium drinks cans.
This got me thinking about whether, in addition to enjoying the ‘warm glow’ I get from leaving the place in a slightly better state than when I found it, I might be able to quantify the positive impacts arising from litter picking.
The plastic litter I pick up from a beach can’t all be recycled. Whilst the CO2 saving from the proportion that can is quite reasonable, the main benefits are a little intangible – the improved visual amenity, and the poorly understood and most definitely unquantified impacts on marine life.
It’s in the can
However, recycling aluminium cans produces some pretty impressive carbon savings (compared to primary manufacture) – around 11.6 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of aluminium.
A good walk soiled? Photo: Derek Harper, via WikiCommons
My kitchen scales tell me that an aluminium can weighs on average 20g, so each can recycled saves around 230g of CO2. My bag of 15 cans from the Gower therefore netted a total CO2 saving of 3.45kg of CO2.
So how green was my family day out? My car emits 137g of CO2 per km, or about 220g/mile. Thus, a useful rule of thumb for me is that for every mile driven I need to pick up and recycle one discarded aluminium can (that would otherwise remain in situ) to offset the carbon impact of the journey. Given the 20 mile round trip, in this instance my litter picking left us five cans short of carbon neutrality.
Imagine my delight then, when, on New Year’s Day I took a walk around the nature reserve behind my house and picked up 20 cans. My stroll had a net carbon saving of 4.6kg – starting 2012 with a truly carbon negative excursion!
A strict aluminium can approach to carbon offsetting would of course mean that long distance travel is permissible only if a walk in a heavily littered area was available at the other end. This may not be feasible within the bounds of maintaining good family relationships, but my understanding of the real carbon benefits that can result from litter picking – alongside the more intangible ‘feel good’ aspects – does add to the satisfaction of doing it.
Visiting relatives in Australia would, however, test this approach to the limit. Offsetting the combined 14.3 tonnes of CO2 for a return flight for a family of four would entail recycling 1.2 tonnes of aluminium. That’s more than 15,000 cans to be picked up and recycled by each family member. Something to think about on my next walk…….
What an excellent formula! Simple, easy to understand and a good way of helping people think about their environmental impact – both the can-droppers and the drivers. I shall definitely refer to it as I carry on with my regular litter picks. Thanks.
This article includes someone in Leicester who has picked up 50,000 cans in the past few years. http://www.resource.uk.com/article/Latest/Litter_Wars_highlights_waste_%E2%80%98vigilantes%E2%80%99-2784#.USerTldzZM8
Thanks Bernie. I know that lots of people do feel a sense of satisfaction in picking up litter, but many also seem to feel a bit embarrassed in being seen to litter pick, unless it’s part of a large scale coordinated clean-up. I guess in urban areas there may be the expectation that the local authority would clean it up in due course, so why bother. Perhaps some people also don’t pick up litter because they feel that they would only be making a small dent in a big problem, whereas if we all made a small dent……
Excellent outlook. ‘As I say in my blog postings: Litter is an all season sport. Drop a piece you lose a point. Pick up a piece you gain a point.” Now I can add that there is a carbon offsetting feature to litter picking. Litter picking truly is fun, personally rewarding and a healthy activity.
Bernie
Vermont
http://www.litterwithastorytotell.blogspot.com/
Check out Mrs Enid Trott – recycling champ!
http://www.novelisrecycling.co.uk/news/2011/113/
Chris, I think you may have met your match!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-16873563
A number of local authorites that I have previously work for did and I believe still do recycle some of their street cleansing waste. We composted our mechanical sweepings through an IVC plant but all other street cleansing waste such as litter bins, barrow sweepings and flytips still went to landfill.
This was mainly down to the fact that the street cleansing contract was separate (and not my responsibility unfortunately) from the waste collection contract. So another reason for more integration across and joint working between council service contracts and departments – streets – waste collection – parks – maintenance etc, etc…
It depends on how the contract is run, but in many places litter doesn’t get recycled. Some contractors will separate a few materials during street cleansing (plastic and cans) and some may also send their material to a dirty MRF, but even that is not likely to result in them all being recovered and would use more energy than you walking!
Since I wrote this piece I’ve noticed just how many cans there are littering the streets. However, I don’t feel that I can claim my ‘carbon credit’ by recycling them as I assume that these will eventually be recycled once they have been picked up by street cleansing teams. Am I right to think this? Does every aluminium can that gets picked up get recycled? I’d be really interested to find out………..
Chris – your article has garnered a fair bit of interest! MRW put a version in their magazine this week, and now Keep Scotland Beautiful have blogged about it.
http://www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org/blog.aspx?id=60
Excellent stuff! Looking forward to your next piece.
The Environment Agency’s Carbon Calculator for Buildings v2.1 (2007), an Excel spreadsheet, contains these values – and indicates that it refers to the data of Hammond G & Jones C (2006) Inventory of Carbon and Energy (ICE) Version 1.5 Beta. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Bath.
Frustratingly the latest version of the EA Calculator, updated in October 2011, does not contain info on recycled aluminium.
There are a number of other figures available, some higher, some lower………
Chris, is there a reference for the 11.6 tonnes of co2 saved per tonne of recycled aluminium compared with primary manufacture?
Hi Chris,
Really like this article, reading it inspired me to take a carrier bag out for a walk on Sunday and tidy up a bit of Clifton Down in Bristol… but apparently the litterers of that area need to start drinking out of cans instead of bottles if I’m going to go fully carbon negative.
For those interested in checking how their car does in terms of CO2 emissions, there’s a handy converter from MPG to emissions here:
http://www.unitjuggler.com/convert-fuelconsumption-from-mpgimperial-to-gperkmgasoline.html
Surprisingly, my 40-year old MG at 29 MPG does about as well on CO2 as your car does!