Global Recycling Day is an annual campaign, organised by the Global Recycling Foundation, which started in 2018 to recognise and celebrate the importance of recycling in preserving our primary resources and securing the future of our planet.

It’s vital that we look at what we throw away as not waste, but an opportunity. The Earth yields billions of tons of natural resources every year, yet it will run out in the not distant future. Global recycling day looks to bring awareness and change to this issue, as recycling is an essential part of the circular economy which can help protect our natural resources.

“Each year the ‘Seventh Resource’ (recyclables) saves over 700 million tonnes in CO2 emissions and this is projected to increase to 1 billion tons by 2030.”

Every year, Global Recycling Day highlights #RecyclingHeroes, encouraging others to nominate too. This year, they are focused on people, places, businesses and activities that continued to support recycling efforts during the pandemic.

This year we’d like to celebrate one of our clients….

Mawdsleys is an engineering company who builds new motors, as well as refurbishing old electric motors which are used in trains, boats and submarines. A critical part of refurbishing old electric motors is stripping the motor windings which are tightly packed loops of copper wire, then cleaning the core and re-winding the motor with new copper wire. This is a complex process and is carried out by skilled 'Winders'. Copper is a valuable metal and seventh resource, so the old copper is stored separately and recycled by a local specialist non-ferrous scrap metal merchant. It would be good to make the process more circular by buying in recycled copper wire to rewind the motors, but there are concerns about the quality and the insulation resistance of recycled copper compared to virgin copper, especially as these motors are often in situ and used for decades before being refurbished.

Metal is a finite resource that humans have used and recycled on for 1000s of years. This infographic from Global Recycling Day really highlighted the amazing power recycling has for humanity and our planet, as man have been melting and re-melting metal since 700BC!

It’s through the actions of businesses like Mawlsdeys, continuing to uphold their responsibility for ethical waste management and recycling that will allow us to continue to utilise these finite resources we rely on.

Every action, every contribution to recycling adds up to make a big difference. No matter how small the action, every effort helps and together we can:

“fight to reduce global pollution for a sustainable future”

What small actions will you take today to make a difference to our future and join the Global Recycling Day mission?