Recycling - how do others cope?

This is a good scheme because most of the expense of recycling is in separating out the different sorts of materials so if the homeowner does the sorting then the whole scheme makes much more economic sense. I agree that it is easy to proliferate containers though.

I used to live in Bristol which had a presorted scheme like you. I used to have one box (crate) in the kitchen which I collected all recyclables in. Then when it was full I would decant into the various containers which were stored in the garage.

In Babergh where I live now, we seem to be proliferating wheelie bins. I suppose the powers that be think that there is more spare space here in the country. We've only been doing any recycling for about a year and our recyclables all go in one bin, unsorted at the moment, but I bet they will start asking people to sort them once the system has bedded in and everyone is used to it.

Anna

Simple. Don't bother. The vast majority of recycling schemes are bunk. The materials are either sold at a loss, imposing a cost on chargepayers, in which case it wasn't worth recycling, or in some cases put in landfill anyway.

Only if you don't cost your time!!!!

supermarket.

Local Authorities are required to significantly reduce the amount put into landfills. If people refuse to recycle, even when systems are in place, that's bad. Even if it costs the taxpayer more money, its still necessary as they have to recycle more and landfill less. Besides, if local authorities don't reduce landfill, they'll lose funding from the Government, which means taxes go up even more... ;)

Recycling isn't meant to be a cheap alternative to landfill, its meant to stop us from polluting (large landfills with plastics which don't really decompose) and stop wasting resources (metal and plastics - plastics use petrochemicals which are a finite resource).

Here we have the recycle box scheme, collections fortnightly. It is a very labour intensive operation using a special lorry with compartments for each type of material. The operatives have to sort the materials into various bins on the lorry with a terrific racket of breaking glass, clattering tins and boxes being thrown about.

When the scheme started I put my stuff in the box but they didn't empty it. Apparently the contents (clean) did not exactly fit their criteria. So now I don't put anything out as there is a recyling centre at the main supermarket and I just take it with me when I go there.

The local council is of a different colour to the government and much of their effort is spent in political point scoring. The recyling scheme selected was probably chosen to provide the maximum political return.

Roger

So much for the discussion about the importance or not of the ecological issue but the reality is no one will recycle anything when it has to sit reeking around a kitchen for weeks on end now will they?

If I put the bags out they get wet, rifled by foxes and cats and encourage mice whilst sitting around , not to mention I get wet putting stuff in them. In the kitchen they create smell and are a mess and are simply under foot.

So philosophical issues aside , what is the practical solution?

I will not use these bl**dy things if they continue to be inconvenient and generally in my way. Thats a FACT.

As for the earth - well as my husbands father used to say "It'll last my lifetime" ( and no I dont have any children to worry about. Let them take care of their own problems anyway!)

Exactly. My local council (Canterbury) used to have a schme where you had a green wheelie bin for recycling, and a grey one for everything else. Most rooms in the house were given two wate baskets, one for each, and it all worked well.

They abruptly removed this system and moved to plastic bags. These blow around when put out (and have to be put out the night before). There's also nowhere to jkeep them in the house, and having a part-filled bag kying around is just silly.

It all goes in the grey bin now.

True, but then (a) it's time (therefore cost) neutral if you have space for seperate containers, and (b) they don't (cost time that is, though probably care as well)!

A similar system here - one big box, but put cans/bottles in their own bags. Currently the box lives in the kitchen, but when I finsh the cupboard under the stairs in the downstairs bathroom it'll go in there.

It's not really much easier than taking it to the supermarket each week, except they take car batteries, oil and old clothes as well.

I can see your problem and I'm not sure what we would have done if we didn't have space outside. The way we have it (in Guildford) is that we get weekly (was fortnightly) collections and we've provided with a Green Box (realistically its just a free plastic crate with an optional lid for £1). We put tins, jars and newspaper/mags (not cardboard or general paper) into it, but into separate old Tesco bags. Makes it easy for the people putting it into the Kerbsider truck if they're already separated.

We rinse/clean all tins and jars. I think this is a requirement by GBC. This should mean that animals won't bother with them as they don't smell or contain any food. Also makes them not smell in the house.

I would possibly suggest you invest in a largish (2' by 1.5' or so) plastic crate with a lid and possibly a smaller box inside. Bung everything into the small box inside and then (when its dry) take the contents outside and separate into the separate bags the council have provided but keep in a box. This keeps the bags dry (I hate plastic bags when they're wet, they drip on you and things!) and also avoids any possibly problems with animals (which should be reduced if they've been cleaned). The box makes it all the more neater than 2 or 3 separate bags hanging outside.

The council should make it as easy as possible for people to recycle. GBC have done a great job (weekly collections, free crate (though optional lid £1) etc) and they're improving it this year with a 2nd(!!) box for cardboard/paper.

Okay, we have to rinse the tins/jars - but that isn't much work really. But its reduced the number of waste bags we put out each week. The only thing we'd like them to take is plastic - but currently that's very expensive to do because of the size to weight ratio (plastic is quite light, and has high bulk which means the can't collect too much in their trucks) - so we have to take that ourselves to their recycling station.

That's the only advice I can really give. I've no idea whether you've got much space outside though.

Hope that helps

David

How long does it take for you to put a tin into one box when you're finished with it? Now, imagine if you have a box full of different things and then have to separate them? Takes much longer. Then imagine you've got 5,000 boxes to do every day.

The cost of your time to put a tin into one box and a jar into another one at a time (ie. as you finish with them) is probably no longer than it would take to put into the bin. So your time hasn't probably cost anything, or minimal compared to the time it would have taken if they had to separate

So you wash or at least rinse, things before you put them in. Though I guess if you normally use a dishwasher for the dirty plates, pans etc then running a bowl of hot water just for that is waste of energy. If you hand wash then it takes no more water just a little bit of time and if people are running to a 5 minute schedule whilst at home they really ought to learn to relax...

Bags do seem to be a bit of non-starter but are no doubt cheaper (in the short term) than providing boxes.

So don't store them in the kitchen but the garage, utility room or other suitable place. Ah Modern rabbit hutch houses no spare space...

Instead of complaining in here, send your opinion to those that are in control of the scheme. Be polite and constructive if possible of course.

Materials are only acceptable for recycling if they are clean.

Rinsing the containers out takes me a only a moment and completely solves the problem of smells and vermin.

Roger

I'm well aware of that. But unless the materials *are* recycled, then it is a waste of everyone's time and money. And if the recycled materials are more expensive than new ones, then the entire process is pointless.

Not in my case. The rubbish has to be transported down 1/4 mile of drive to the nearest place they will deign to collect it in return for my £1900/year. Mind you, that's slightly better than it used to be, the nearest point used to be 1/2 mile away.

"mich" wrote | "David Hearn" wrote | > > >So, how do people cope? | > > Simple. Don't bother. The vast majority of recycling schemes are | > > bunk. | > Local Authorities are required to significantly reduce the amount | > put into landfills. If people refuse to recycle, even when systems | > are in place, that's bad. Even if it costs the taxpayer more money, | > its still necessary as they have to recycle more and landfill less. | > Besides, if local authorities don't reduce landfill, they'll lose | > funding from the Government, which means taxes go up even more... ;)

But if the LAs lose funding from the Govt, local taxes might rise but central taxes should drop correspondingly, so the overall tax burden should stay the same. (It won't of course.)

| So much for the discussion about the importance or not of the ecological | issue but the reality is no one will recycle anything when it has to sit | reeking around a kitchen for weeks on end now will they?

The answer is for businesses to cut the amount of excess product packaging at source, and have all waste packaging returned to the retailer for re-use/recycle wherever possible. But they won't do that unless the Govt makes them, and the Govt prefers to put the burden on the individual householder.

If the Govt mandated the use of deposit glass bottles for all drinks that would reduce the plastic and aluminium that needs to be disposed of from milk bottles and cola cans, and a similar scheme should encourage brewers to reuse beer bottles rather than pubs sending them for cullet.

Owain

There isn't space in my kitchen for such a scheme. I'm not keeping the container in the utility room, because the heat from the boiler will cause the food remains to stink, I'm not going outside with each and every tin and if you wash the tins, you've just pissed away the minimal benefit from recycling them.

Bedford council already have a stupid scheme like this.

Bearing in mind that there is no market for glass cullett in this country and it all ends up as landfill or road surfacing.

We have very few cans and packets to put in our green recycle bin (emptied once a month and rarely full even though I pick up cans and plastic bottles from the street), the brown bin is emptied weekly and has even less in it) because we don't buy pre-proecessed foods.

That's one answer to the problem.

Another is that empty cans and packets don't take up any more room than full ones, if space can be found for the full ones why not the empty ones?

But of course cans are easy to flatten and then they take up a very small amount of room. The same applies to packets. Paper is flat to start with.

Glass bottles aren't of course, we use a crate outside the door and take them to the bottle bank when passing (the council doesn't take them).

Vegetable waste goes in the compost bin.

I don't see that collecting waste for re-cycling is a problem and I applaud all authorites who do it - and those conscientious citizens who comply with the collection schemes.

Mary

... wastes the benefit of recycling them.