shopping the supermarkets

[shirlthegirl43]

Jaykay Don't you recycle. All our plastic bottles tins glass paper & card + other things we recycle we also compost egg boxes & most kitchen waste.
Egg shells are broken up spread on lottie to deter slugs.
Our wheelie bin and recycle bins are emptied on alternate weeks and the system works!
Pop bottles can be recycled or cut up (various ways) and used on the garden/allotment.

Does your council take plastic packaging for recycling BW? Our used to and now they don't - this has doubled my 'black bag' rubbish - dunno whether I should burn it instead of sending to landfill?

[bubblewrap]

Hi Tpeers conact your local Green Party or Friends of the Earth they could try and put pressure on your council to "change" policy.
It might be worth contacting your MP as well.

[bubblewrap]

Does your council take plastic packaging for recycling BW? Our used to and now they don't - this has doubled my 'black bag' rubbish - dunno whether I should burn it instead of sending to landfill?

Some but not all I have to look at our councils(Charnwood) info leaflet.
http://www.charnwood.gov.uk/

[johnty greentoes]

Our dear delightful council won't take plastics as recycling! They want only white paper, and no window envelopes, they dislike brown glass and they hate cardboard!

So if I am to be 'good' I have to take plastics to my Dad (different county, different rules) Shred and compost 'unacceptable' paper. Heaven knows what I'm 'supposed' to do with any brown glass, fortunatly I don't get much. and cardboard I reuse where possible and burn the rest!

Very eco friendly - not!

Which Council is this. They all have targets to hit on all the materials you mentioned - unless they incinerate (down boy).

In Hull we all get as many recycling boxes as we need, and a paper bin. Emptied on the roadside every other Monday (usually at 7:30am - lovely sound of breaking glass).

2 miles away in the East Riding of Yorkshire, plastic cardboard etc all have to be driven (CO2!) to waste tips. Incredible such variation across the country. Another example of how a centralised approach would be best...?

Hull CC take this very seriously. last week a bin man got the sack after he was filmed, by the good old BBC, tipping recyclable waste in a private skip. Of course we then had a bin strike for 2 days, but he wasn't reistated.

[Nicos]

Jaykay Don't you recycle. All our plastic bottles tins glass paper & card + other things we recycle we also compost egg boxes & most kitchen waste.
Egg shells are broken up spread on lottie to deter slugs.
Our wheelie bin and recycle bins are emptied on alternate weeks and the system works!
Pop bottles can be recycled or cut up (various ways) and used on the garden/allotment.

Our local council don't recycle anything plastic!!
Would have thought that's one of the most important thing to be collecting!!!

[Lesley Jay]

Our council is hopeless. We have one tiny black box for all glass and tins which is collected every two weeks. I would happily have a line-up of wheelie bins for recycling everything possible. It should be law. All councils should provide different coloured wheelie bins so that every household can recycle everything properly.

[shirlthegirl43]

Our council is hopeless. We have one tiny black box for all glass and tins which is collected every two weeks. I would happily have a line-up of wheelie bins for recycling everything possible. It should be law. All councils should provide different coloured wheelie bins so that every household can recycle everything properly.

That's the way it is done in germany - and they have glass recycling points every couple hundred yards along every street so you don't need to drive to them

[phil the shed]

Our council is hopeless. We have one tiny black box for all glass and tins which is collected every two weeks. I would happily have a line-up of wheelie bins for recycling everything possible. It should be law. All councils should provide different coloured wheelie bins so that every household can recycle everything properly.

hi lj i've just been told that now that most of derby has them our estate is getting them too. at last me thinks exhausting going to recycle centre so often now they can come to us. three bins in total though i dont think my food and garden waste will have much in the 3 compost daleks eat most of that

[Tyto Alba]

I've got nothing against recycling, I recycle and compost. But not everyone can recycle everything, especially in crowded cities where space is at a premium. And the thought of rotting food in the streets during summer is awful, we'll simply have more rats and disease.

The fact is that it is unecessary and useless packaging that causes most of the problems. The consumer society encourages people to buy more and more attractively packaged (matter of opinion) useless junk.

If people want government to change the law, this is the area that we should be looking at, not forcing ordinary people to behave in a particular way.

There is no need to have two pears on a plastic tray with molded polystyrene on top. Christ...the pears must be grown to fit into the polystyrene mouldings!!!!! And the skin of an apple must be one of the best packagings I know.

You can't even buy a scredriver without it comes in a bomb proof huge polythene moulded tray that takes a stanley knife to open. Think about all that packaging we bring home. There is no need, it's been a packaging war between suppliers for decades. The government could put a stop to it tommorrow surely.....rather than threatening ordinary people and trying to bully them into behaving in a particular way....while all the time selling them junk.

[Waffler]

Having begun reading this thread, it made me contact my local council to chase something up. when we moved here 18 months back, I was moaning that there was no kerbside recycling scheme, and was going to complain; 2 weeks later our black box arrived! However, they only collect paper (no card, envelopes - they don't even specify 'window envelopes', yellow pages etc.), tins and glass. I compost some cardboard, and the remainder goes with the plastic to the household recycling place (open for limited hours).
Months and months back, we received a flyer for a brown bin for garden waste; this would be at a cost of £25 per year and would be collected fortnightly - please register interest. I duly registered interest and have heard nothing more. I've just phoned the council, who inform me that May/June time they will be expanding their brown bins and we will find out then whether or not there has been enough interest. You may well ask why I want this service and why I'm not composting our garden stuff. The fact of the matter is that we have a 3 bin composter, but we are so plagued with vicious perennial weeds that I don't tend to put most weeds in the compost bin. That and the fact that we produce an awful lot of grass clippings, means that a brown bin would allow us to compost some and bin the rest, otherwise risking poor compost from too much grass.
I agree with the earlier comment that recycling should be made law. Unfortunately, I think whilst people have to pay for the service, interest in our local brown bins will be minimal - that and the fact that people around here have big enough gardens that they probably do compost their own stuff.

And yes, packaging these days is ludicrous. I really do think stuff like this shoudl be legislated - companies shouldn't be allowed to use this much packaging. Unfortunately, it comes of an age where everyone is wrapped in cotton wool and there is an over-tendency to sue; you can't possibly expect people to eat food that's not been vaccuum packed so no air reaches it and no dirty fingers or goodness knows what else!

[OverWyreGrower]

I must admit that our recycling scheme seems to actually be pretty good!

We can recycle: glass, tins, plastics, clothes, cartons (e.g. orange juice) in our boxes; we then have a blue bin for paper and a green bin for card/compostable waste (we use it for nasty weeds and hedge clippings occasionally).

We have an "alternate weekly collection", e.g. recyclable collected one week, non-recyclables the next etc

I think even in cities and towns more effort should be made by councils to recycle, even if it is more communal recycling points rather than individual bins.

The government should (but won't) put pressure on manufacturers and supermarkets to reduce packaging on items, especially fruit and veg.

[shirlthegirl43]

Perhaps it is time for us to do what the people of Sweden (I think) did and take all the unecessary packaging back to the supermarket for them to dispose of.

[Flummery]

[QUOTE=johnty greentoes;85017]

2 miles away in the East Riding of Yorkshire, plastic cardboard etc all have to be driven (CO2!) to waste tips.

In fact the East Riding does recycle plastic bottles Johnty. Cardboard it doesn't and incredibly, not glass! I recycle wine bottles for home-made wine, and jars for jam, marmalade, chutney etc. We have to go to the tip with cardboard and bottles. Our daughter lives near the tip (in Weel) so we combine it with a visit. They don't help though, do they?

[Hans Mum]

we have green bins for alluminium/plastic/paper/cardboard which are emptied fortnightly but you can have as many as you want, black bin for everything else emptied weekly, and our area of leeds has just been delivered brown bins as a trial for garden waste, and although i compost most stuff, as waffler states never the dreaded bindweed and i dont compost leylandi cuttings...the only thing we cant get them to recycle is GLASS whihch is a pain in the butt cause although i dont have a serious drink problem i do accumulate a fair few wine bottles especially during bbq weather

[Waffler]

It's complete madness in my opinion. I am off to the tip shortly with 2 garden waste bags full of prunings (mostly buddleia) that won't compost (considering getting a shredder) and a load of cardboard and plastic bottles, plus 2 yellow pages. I shall combine it with a shopping trip (to Sainsburys - 'boo' 'hiss'), but it still means I shall go out of my way, increasing my carbon footprint and spending my petrol money.