If you are a bit like me, occasionally the odd beer can misses the recycle bin, especially after a heavy weekend of imbibing and the aforementioned can, complete with cigarette butts, ends up in the big black trash bags. Well fret not my fury friends, you and I are not alone. Apparently, the U.S. still throws away 63 million tons of recyclables clogging up landfills annually. I am betting that there 're a lot of plastic water bottles in that figure too. Disgusting, but true.
However, fear not, there is hope at hand, as there are some Aussies that could come to our rescue. The Australian company, Global Renewables, which is based in Sydney, has built a mega recycling and filtering facility that uses all kinds of sexy, and not so sexy technology to pick out every possible item that can potentially be recycled. A combination system of elaborate conveyor belts allows manual sifting, wind-sifters, (No, that is not a new Extreme sport!), vacuum pumps, electrical sifters, magnets, and eagle-eye cameras to cut the junk, and the company have apparently reduced the amount of garbage sent to local Sydney landfills by 75 percent.
That's a lot of stray beer cans, it's clear, and not surprisingly, when I think about it, that they like to party pretty hard Down-under, but 'fair dinkum,' to them, as they say in the antipodes, as they certainly know how to clean up. The company also just recently received $627 million to construct two similar plants in the U.K. — Cricky mate, that's a lot of wonga!
Time to get with the program America!