Investigate Attempt(S) at Achieving Sustainable Development in My Locality

Investigate attempt(s) at achieving sustainable development within a locality
Geography CourseworkHow well does my locality help to reduce the amount of waste being dumped at landfill?Amina Malik |

Contents
1: Purpose: Introduction.................................................................2
2: Data Collection methods.........................................................3, 4
3: Result & Analysis............................................................ ....4, 5, 6
Part 4: Conclusion..........................................................................7
Part 5: Evaluation...........................................................................8

1: Purpose: Introduction
How well does my locality help to reduce the amount of waste being dumped at landfill?
I’m investigating at what my locality can do to reduce the amount of waste being dumped and what they can do to keep it at a steady pace. I have carried out my investigation in a local small area, Norwood green, I also want to find out about what most households do to “do their bit” for the environment as well as what they think about recycling.
The main concept to this investigation is how well they do this? This very important because this show one of the main points that link to the question that is being introduced. What is being done about this, what can concepts are taken into more consideration to attempt this? Where is it more likely affected? Some areas are extremely clean and some have very high polluted content meaning this can be investigated further and why does this happen by showing people’s opinions.
I carried out my fieldwork in Norwood green over about a half a mile distance. The maps show where this area is located. Its population is estimated at 12,500.

NOT TO SCALE

This links in with the main question because this is helping the environment for the future generation so that there are more options available for the future needs.

NOT TO SCALE

2: Data Collection methods Method Name | Sample size/ Strategy | Data collection technique | Links to concept | Questionnaire | I did at least 8 questions to ask people on their opinion about recycling. | I did this on a weekend so I will be able to analysis and tally the numbers and put them into graphs. | This shows that why this happens because of certain peoples lack of recycling or because of financial problems. | Observation | I did a table showing how many black bags there are per each house and the number of cars to show the estimate of the people that may be living in that household | On Sunday evening I went outside and saw the amount of rubbish and put them into a tally to be put into graphs later on. | This shows where more rubbish may be thrown away and how well do they try and reduce the amount of content in their black bags. | | | | |
Primary Data:

Types of Secondary Source | List of Website/ articles/ newspapers/ books used | Useful or not? | Advantages of using secondary source of primary? | Research | http://www.ealing.gov.uk/info/200489/recycling_rubbish_and_waste | Yes because its shows what the types of information my locality had to offer | More reliable because there are more people which have responded to their questionnaire and has been analysed properly | Facts on websites + pictures | http://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/estates/environment/wasteandrecycling/whyrecycle/landfillfacts | Yes because it showed the potential damaged of what happens in the landfills and how it harms the environment | Don’t have to find out the statistics of a huge proportion that’s national. | Secondary data: When carrying out each of the data techniques I noticed how reliable it was after. For example when questioning people about recycling they were being honest. People had different opinions which made me dig deep about each question I had asked. Also The data came very handy which shows the amount of people that did what.

3: Result & Analysis
These are the evidence used to give my opinion.

The graph below shows the estimated amounts of waste being disposed per person in 2005. The graph details that 5 of the 10 included countries have an average waste disposal over the EU average of 230 kg per person per year. Countries such as Bulgaria, Ireland and the UK have made great contributions to waste being disposed, that is, they are highly polluting countries.
The council of Ealing has already being doing an effort to reduce waste by recycling sorts of different items such as household items, batteries, e-waste, types of oil, spectacles, paint, mattresses and carpets.*

These graphs below show my observations on Sunday evening

This graph shows the amount people recycle of each item per week. The amount being recycling is surprisingly good because the people that recycled the most people still used black bags to throw thing away shows that they may buy products that cannot be recycled or reused.

This shows how many black people throw away. Which links into the amount of waste that’s gets dumped at landfill because the black bags end up being dumped and not recycled show how much and how many are being thrown away?

I also did a questionaire on different views showing peoples views on how much and thier views on recycling.

Based on the data that I have collected, the first questions shows that most of the people that I has asked always recycle as well at a few people that I have interviewed one of them quoted” I used to recycle when I cycled, but now that I don’t I do it once in a while” This shows that some people that I had questioned had stopped because of their habits. This shows me that habit changing changes people’s views on recycling, some thinking that they don’t have to do it anymore.
When I asked about what an interesting recycling option was to them that either a better service because whenever they put the items in the trucks and something fell out, they left it on the ground. A colour coded bin for each item making it easier to recycle items. I found out that the council needed to provide a better service also to provide more bins because people kept stealing them. This means the council need to more to make their services better and stay committed to give people what they need.
Most people’s views on why others probably don’t recycle because they were lazy, no transport to recycling centres and because of health and safety reasons. This came to a concern because knowing that people are lazy shows that they do not care about how recycling helps the environment. This links to my question” do you believe people should be educated about the subject on recycling” because they will know the effects if you do not recycle as well as this means that council is doing enough to motivate people to recycle reuse and reduce.
The council does many things as possible to help recycle more as they have maximised recycling and composting. They have been doing so by recycling as many items as possible. Although the amount of rubbish sent to landfill has fallen by a third since 2000, councils say more needs to be done to head off the threat of fines. This shows that all councils need to work together to reduce the amount of waste being thrown to minimise giving fines.
Overall people’s views were very positive although people wanted the council to open opportunities so that they can recycle more. This means that in order to get the people to recycle more they would either want an incentive (Trading something to get money out of it) or stop charging fees for collecting garden waste every week or so.

*The next couple of pages show the amount of items Ealing Council recycle.

Part 4: Conclusion
I have found out many important facts. But It is shocking to see that some of our waste, which may be a commodity, is being shipped and landfilled. Some waste is products are actually recyclable, and very valuable, from about £100 - £1500 per tonne. Our councils could be making this money and be putting back into their areas, where ever it is needed most. All plastic, including mixed, can and should be recycled in this country. So if the councils worked with organisations, such as the British Plastics Recycling Federation, then solutions could be easily found and one of the solutions of sustainable development. This could solve the problems were it links to all the councils needing to come together and do more to reduce the amount of waste being dumped. I noticed that they have been doing enough to reduce the amount of waste being thrown at landfill but not enough to encourage the community to recycle a lot more than usual. Also they haven’t given good service towards the neighbourhood which may lack of interest of them recycling as much items as possible. Although they have been struggling to make an effort, it shows that Ealing council have tried their best to lower the average amount of waste into their landfill. Most of the residents living in Norwood green love to make some contributions but when the council goes over a certain limit such as charging them to recycle makes the people put off especially in this recession.

Part 5: Evaluation
From the data that I had collected was reasonably reliable because it contained information that proved some of the points but yet again lacked evidence to show enough data. I don’t think I collected enough because I didn’t think I had collected enough data. The problems when having to collect data was observing because most of the rubbish was collected and some of my observation needed to be some parts of Heston. Observing was quite a difficult task because it was hard to tell what was right or wrong. When doing the questionnaire I found that most people did that different views but since I had to put it in to a graph I had to pick the most frequent said answers. By improving these methods, it would be much easier to link and analyse so it would show the importance of it.
The accuracy of my results was not enough because more people were needed to be questioned so that the results would be more accurate than and as well as the study area was quite a small area to do my fieldwork (Norwood Green).
Some of my result has met my aims but some have not been very useful in my investigation because is doesn’t link to my key concepts which means some of the methods I used were of no use and concluded to a weak methodology.