Council recycling grinds to a halt

[stuart noble]

Round here, on a windy day, the plastic gets blown all over the place, which effectively converts it to litter.

[Chris J Dixon]

Must remember to drop my plastic bag collection in the collecting bin at Sainsbury's.

Seems we have reached the stage that, now being equipped with re-useable shopping bags, the biggest source of plastic ones is the letterbox :-(

Chris

[David Hansen]

On Fri, 14 Nov 2008 08:41:09 +0000 someone who may be Andy Burns wrote this:-

I don't buy the things that often, but if I do then a little slosh around in the dishwater and they go in with the paper and cardboard. As I understand it they remove the plastic tops and deal with them separately. The plastic lids go in the plastic recycling bins with other plastic of the same type.

[David Hansen]

On Fri, 14 Nov 2008 08:34:16 +0000 someone who may be Rod wrote this:-

Would you prefer sorting of these items at the roadside, with the staff placing them in a multi-compartment lorry, as some councils do?

The timetable is a bookmark on my web browser. It provides information on which collections there will be for the next eight weeks.

[Rod]

Which highlights one of the problems - these rules and approaches vary considerably from place to place. Here, multi-layer packaging such as tetra-paks must not go into the paper bin, nor are they permitted in the metal/plastic bin. With no other recycling points for them, our only 'choice' is the 'other' bin for landfill.

[Rod]

If we have to sort things by type, I would prefer a multi-compartment bin. So we can put things into the right compartments and they could scoop up one bin and empty it into three/four divisions of the lorry. Or even empty all four separate containers at the same time.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Rod saying something like:

Many of the clothing collection schemes are a scam. You'll find your clothes being sold on in Eastern Europe and the money pocketed by the organisers with buggerall given to charity. I only deal with registered and recognised charity collections.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Rod saying something like:

I watched with incredulity and amusement as a large open-topped truck came into my local bottle/tin bank collection point and proceeded to empty the different colours of glass containers into the back of itself.

Thing was... the open-topped lorry back didn't have any separation at all.

Idiots.

[Rod]

I have got to the point of assuming all are. Even if seemingly supporting a charity, I don;t want that many bags through my letterbox.

Heavens knows how many clothes some people must buy...

[David Hansen]

On Fri, 14 Nov 2008 11:48:40 +0000 someone who may be Rod wrote this:-

An eternal question. Does one standardise everything everywhere? Than means the lowest common denominator, people complaining that facilities have been withdrawn to get down to the lowest common denominator and people complaining that it is very difficult to start something new. Or does one let a thousand flowers bloom and have people complaining that it is different here than it is there. Or does one have a mixed system with a lowest common denominator, on top of which organisations can do more?

[Don]

Many of those supposed 'respectable' charities aren't all they are cracked up to be either. Especially after they have paid their CEO's, & provided top of the range cars + cheap mortagages etc too.

I remember reading a report in the early 70's about a well known charity, where it was revealed that after the deduction of salaries, expenses, rents etc etc., only 5% actually went to famine relief!

Don.

[dennis]

They are only idiots if they are going to be remade into glass, If it is going to be road fill it doesn't matter.

Then there are auto sorters now and they may have to sort the stuff anyway if a few idiots put the brown glass in the clear bin.

[pete]

Yes, read on for why ...

If you standarise, you then have the basis for demanding that the packaging meets those standards. When you have every council doing it different, it's hard to apply pressure to retailers/manufacturers. However, if you had th whole country putting plastics in one box, paper in another and tins in a third - you'd be able to enforce "no mixed packaging" rules much easier. You never know, the politicians may even have people agreeing with them, if they did that!

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "dennis@home" saying something like:

Ok, so why do they make a big thing about separating them all out? Then moan like f*ck when people do make the odd mistake? Like I said, idiots.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Don" saying something like:

Oxfam was the one. I think they've cleaned up their act, but they're still not all that efficient in terms of money raised v. overheads.

[Tim Downie]

I should imagine it depends on the price and demand for glass. Obviously sorted glass is more valuable but if demand is low then you might as well mix it and use it for road fill or whatever else they do with it. If the price rises, you don't have to retrain the public to go back to sorting if you've still got separate collection bins.

Tim

[John]

Here in Preston, Lancashire, we have a box for plastic bottles and cardboard, a second box for paper, a third box for cans, a fourth box for glass bottles and a brown wheelie bin for garden waste - all that is collected one week and the following week is the collection for the grey wheelie-bin for landfill rubbish.

[David Hansen]

On 14 Nov 2008 14:21:40 GMT someone who may be pete wrote this:-

Given that retailers and manufacturers are part of the globalised,

24/7, world market, or at the very least EU market, which we are told is so good, retailers/manufacturers can always play off bits of the EU/world against each other.

Anyway, the pressure on retailers/manufacturers is more about reducing packaging.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Tim Downie" saying something like:

When I saw this happening the price of glass was probably at a peak, so well worth keeping separated. There are fools, damn fools, and councils.

[Rod]

I accept that differences do and will continue to exist. But it does result in difficulties.

People have to maintain understanding of the rules in their own area and, sometimes, several other areas with different rules. And even where the rules are written the same, the interpretation may differ. That can be quite a burden - especially if they are not recipients of copies of the rules.

People discussing the issues on Usenet end up misunderstanding each other and making inappropriate suggestions!