Extra: Recycling of the Student Guide to Sustainable Living

Student Guide to Sustainable Living

Extra: Recycling In the previous books you learned all about prepping your meals and reducing food waste, but while buying food, you will also create other kinds of waste like packaging. Therefore, we created this bonus leaflet. We will discuss several kinds of packaging, how to sort them in Delft and walk you through some common mistakes.

LCA studies: what is better glass vs. cans?

The packaging of food products serves multiple purposes: It has to preserve the food, protect it from outside influences, but also ease merchandise and distribution of the food. There are many kinds of packaging materials like aluminium, glass and plastics, but which one is the most sustainable? Unfortunately there is no clear answer to this, since it depends on a lot of different factors. Every packaging material has its pros and cons with regard to the whole life cycle of the product. Further, the method of performing the life cycle assessment has an influence on the results.

But, you still have to make a decision, right? Therefore, we will walk you through the example of drink packaging. If you want to buy drinks in the supermarket, you will notice that you have many kinds of packaging from which you can choose: beverage cartons, PET bottles, glass bottles and even stand-up pouches.

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How do you decide which is the most sustainable one? Every material has a different impact according to indicators applied to the analysis. When comparing the packages, do you consider single-use packaging only? Do you take into account that PET bottles can be recycled? The outcome of the analysis could be entirely different based on these decisions.

This is why there is always a lot of discussion about this So, imagine for example, to compare single-use packaging only. To compare the different options, we will analyze several LCA studies. If we measure the beverage carton by its CO2 footprint, it has the lowest impact. However, with regard to land use, the beverage carton scores higher than the alternatives, due to its use of paperboard. When we look at the effects it has on the cycling of nutrients, the beverage carton scores the best, again. So, if you want to buy some wine, and you want to get some sustainable packaging, you should consider the beverage carton (although, we did not take taste into account; that’s up to you ;) ).

Recycling of ‘waste’ in Delft In Delft, Avalex takes care of all the waste and separation systems.

Most of the student housing from DUWO have containers for (some) of these categories in their buildings. A lot of times, they have at least residual, glass and paper containers, while others are located in the neighborhood. If you live in a different kind of house, you can always check here, enter your zip code and house number, and it shows you all the containers in your neighborhood.

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There are several ways you should separate your waste: Residual Almost everything else can be thrown in residual. Since the rules can be tricky (see ‘Common Mistakes’), and you really don’t know where to put a certain waste item, it is best to put it in the residual bin. This prevents the other streams from getting polluted. Things that should always go in the residual bin are pizza boxes, chips bags, CD’s, styrofoam, etc.

PMD (Plastics, Metal containers, and Drinking packaging) This container is for packaging plastics, cans and drinking packaging. It’s not for hard plastics, like tupperware, chairs or any related objects. Examples of packaging plastics that are allowed are cups of yoghurt, PET bottles of soft drinks, and breadbags. You should not throw metal objects in there (although the M stands for metal). Cans, which are used for beer, vegetables or beans, etc. are the exception. Drinking packaging includes cartons of milk, soft drinks, soups, etc.

Paper This container is reserved for paper and cartons. Egg cartons, advertisements and papers you don’t want to work on anymore, can be thrown into this container. Make sure it is not polluted with anything (like grease or paint), because this contaminates the rest (for more information on this, see ‘Common Mistakes’).

Do you still get a lot of advertisements you never look into? You can get a ‘Ja/Nee sticker’ or a ‘Nee/Nee Sticker’ at the city hall at Stationsplein 1. This sticker shows that you do not want to receive advertisements or local papers.

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Glass After a nice dinner or picnic in the park, you can dispose of your wine bottles, non-deposit beer bottles and any other glass jars over here.

GFT (Vegetable-, fruit- and garden waste) In this container you can deposit your leftovers (in case you really couldn’t reuse them anymore) coffee grounds and filters, and other food scraps. And of course your garden clippings if you’re lucky enough to have your own (vegetable) garden.

Textile If you don’t like your clothes anymore, you can first try to sell them or bring them to a second hand store like Rataplan. If the clothes are really damaged or worn-out, you can throw them in this bin, which will try to recycle it. On top of that, shoes, accessories and sheets can be thrown into this container. Make sure to dispose of your fabrics in an airtight plastic bag.

Electrical appliances There are two different kinds of separation. First you have small electrical appliances, like light bulbs and batteries, which can be returned at a WeCycle point in many supermarkets. For batteries there are even more points to hand them in: stores like Xenos, van Kapel Electro and even Specsavers have a ‘Stibat’ hand-in-box for batteries.

With regard to bigger appliances, like computers, dish washers and TVs, you can ask a second hand store like Stichting Kringloop Delft to pick them up (even if they do not work anymore!).

Otherwise, you can bring it to the recycling center of Avalex for free.

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Bulky waste Do you have waste that’s too big to fit in the container, like broken furniture, a broken bicycle, etc? You can bring these to the recycling center as well. You can also make an appointment with Avalex online, so they pick it up (for free!).

Avalex recycling center Bulky waste and big electrical appliances can be brought to the recycling center of Avalex. To do so, you will need an Avalex pass, which you can apply for through filling in this form. It will take 5 working days until it is delivered to your home.

The recycling center in Delft can be found at: Voltweg 11 2627 BD Delft

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Common Mistakes With so many options for your waste and a lot of rules, it makes sense you feel a little lost. It’s really important to try to follow the rules, because for many of these waste streams the whole truckload might get contaminated and the materials can’t be recycled anymore. Therefore, if you really don’t know what to do with your particular packaging, throw it in the residual bin!

We will explain some common mistakes below, so you know what to do with most peculiar items.

Mattresses Mattresses have been incinerated for quite a while, which means annually around 24,000 tonnes gets wasted this way. RetourMatras tries to recycle them into insulation, furniture or clothes instead. Avalex works together with RetourMatras to make sure this is possible.

Therefore, they ask you to make a special ‘mattress’ appointment, if you want to get rid of your mattress. This can be done through the same application form as the bulky waste; just make sure you check the mattress option.

Pizza boxes Thuisbezorgd.nl is every student’s best friend during exam periods. A pizza is a welcome distraction from studying all day, but where do you put the boxes? Since the pizza is greasy, it saturates the boxes. If you put the boxes in the paper container, it might contaminate the rest of the paper during the recycling process, which degrades the paper quality. Therefore, pizza boxes belong in the residual container.

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Chips bags Chips bags are often thrown into the PMD, since they are made from plastics. However, it is a combination of aluminium and plastics that cannot be separated. Therefore, the chips bags belong in the residual container (this also counts for blisters of gum and empty medicine blisters).

Hard plastics Although the P of PMD is dedicated to plastics, it is only for packaging plastics. The recycling center of PMD mechanically separates the different kinds of plastics, but there is no option for hard plastics. Hard plastics should be thrown in the residual container.

Medicines Medicines shouldn’t be thrown away in the residual container or the sewage, because it might pollute the water system. You can bring the medicines to any pharmacist. If you want to hand in pills, just deliver the strips, not the boxes. For tubes and flacons, you can remove the label, and injection needles have to be delivered in a needle container.

Bioplastics Although bioplastics are often promoted as the alternative for waste plastics, our system is not built for them to become compost. Therefore, bioplastics should neither be thrown into the GFT nor the PMD, but rather in the residual container.

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Cooking oil A lot of cooking oil is thrown in the residual container or in the sewage. Cooking oil that enters the sewage system can cause clogging. The cooking oil that ends in the residual container will be incinerated, while it can be recycled into, for example, biodiesel! If you put your oil back into the original packaging, you can bring it to the recycling center of Avalex. Additionally, most supermarkets also have an option to hand it in.

Contact lenses Don’t flush your contact lenses as they will end up as microplastics in the environment. Rather throw them into the residual container.

We hope this information will be useful for you to find your way around the Dutch waste and recycling systems. If you are unsure what to do with something you want to throw away, you can always check the Avalex website for more information!

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