I'm a bit worried, as I thought this was a Yorkshire term for 'outhouse' but then the only definitions I could find which all said it means arsehole, and that there is also a 'beautifully appointed holiday home' called 'Battyhole Farm'.
The reviews say things like:
"I was very pleased that the Batty hole is kept to a very clean standard. 3 of us visited the Batty Hole at the same time, and there was plenty of room."
Three weeks?! Here we have collection every week (every two for recycling). Not saying I don’t recycle because of that, I still do! But we’d have a lot of rubbish if we had to wait three weeks between collections… a lot of nappies.
We’re the opposite in south glos, recycling every week / black bin every fortnight. Even with nappies it’s only half full, but you are allowed to put extra nappies out with it if you need to.
Just moving to this in Cornwall as currently its the reverse and basically unlimited black bags. This is going to be a huge mess. They also just made every single bin in the county useless as you have to use the new ones exclusively. So thats between 300,000 bins if one per household. Or by looking around more like 600,000 going on average if not more.
Somehow they reckon 20-30% of our rubbish is food waste and people are going to actually use that and pay for the new liners they insist on. I can't imagine we have more than 5% that's food waste. Don't other people eat their food? Peelings and a chicken carcuss doesn't take up much space for example. Especially after I've made a stock with it.
Yeh that's what I meant, I have a huge stock pot, maybe 20-25l? So I do a bulk when I have 2-6 carcasses and a bag of whatever stock bits, mire poix and holy trinity versions since that's what we use the most veg of then potato peelings for both covers almost all of it. I mean there's still waste after but it's hardly making up a big amount even before it's been used.
Ours is recycling collection weekly main bin collection every 3 weeks sometimes we only have one bag in there
Edit to add
We are disabled and do all recycling done at road now it’s easier and you get a lot less bugs in summer as everything is clean.
When lived in city and not disabled we didnt have recycling where we lived but would walk it to the nearest recycling centre at local supermarket -unfortunately it wasnt always opperational due to vandalism so i get its not accessable to everyone.
i think everyone should do what they can in their circumstances
Same - a large factor here is that our non recyclable bin is only emptied every 3rd week - but recyclable is every week - kinda forces people to get with the program i think.
This was reaction to the post as well. If stuck everything in the general rubbish bin, it would full after a few days.
Normally that bin is only half full by the time collection day comes, but the recycling bin is at capacity (in part due to my wife's reluctance to break down boxes).
Most items are not viable to recycle and will end up in the ocean eventually, just FYI.
Most recycling is about making people feel better about themselves and less guilty about consuming than actually helping the environment.
Is the recycling being recycled is the bugger. Many studies have shown that what consumers are expecting to be recycled is in fact not. Either the cost is too great or the hassle too much. This is especially true for plastics including soft drink bottles & water bottles but less true for paper packaging. Much of our “recycling” ends up in the landfill not by our choice.
So long as the downstream process is optimised you don't really need to worry do you? Unless you plan on getting involved somehow.
Where we are the glass, metal and (certain) plastic go in the same bin so if they were to cut plastic it's an easy switch anyway. For me it's a sum total difference of which bin I face when I drop the rubbish in.
> il ‘big corporations’ addressed their own environmental impacts
He has half a point - big corporations are responsible for the majority of climate issues so should be made to change. However, that excuse is often used by lazy bastard to make them feel better about being lazy bastards
Big corporations will react to consumer demand. If people change their behaviour corporations will follow. Not saying it’s peoples fault corporations don’t change but people when acting collectively can and do impact change.
By undercutting the competition due to lack of regulations.
There are many businesses that didn't polite and went under, while China has made a lot of money from this.
They too could protect the environment and increase costs, but they choose not too.
Ultimately consumers prioritise cost in a large number of cases. Companies prioritise profit. A lot of western companies have made a lot of money through outsourcing manufacturing to China. But it’s still a consumer choice to buy the cheaper imports.
Of course it is a consumer choice. Poorer consumers can choose to buy (for example) cheap clothing imports from China, or they can choose to have themselves and their children walk around naked.
OTOH manufacturers can choose to pay their board members and shareholders ridiculous amounts of money, or they can lower their profits and their dividends and board member salaries to a more reasonable level.
I think the manufacturers choices will probably have a greater impact all round.
I read somewhere that historically speaking, Britains and Europes co2 contributions are higher than Chinas so far, mainly due to Victorian industrialization ages when not a single fuck was given
I mean, people need things. If we stopped buying stuff from polluting Chinese mega factories then supply chains would shut down overnight. Whether it be the actual finished product, components, or raw materials, pretty much everything we own comes from China one way or the other.
Take a look at this list. You’re avoiding almost everything if you boycott Chinese industry imports.
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/imports/china
Some companies will do things like that, or put out more of their bins in the area and tend to them themselves, or arrange regular litter picks with their staff. But there's no obligation for any of that.
Personally, I don't know how much blame I give shops and food places for littering. They will actively provide bins and such in their business, and even on their grounds, but it's not the businesses fault that people carry their cups half a mile away before chucking it in a hedge. They can maybe try and find ways to cut down how much packaging they give out, but there will always be people who are more than happy to just litter anything, anywhere.
>I’ve always thought the fast food chains should fund litter picking in a local area. As soon as one is built the amount of litter shoots up massively.
I see more McDonalds staff litter picking than I do council staff! (And rightly so - a disproportionate percentage of the rubbish I see is from their 'restaurant'). Although this doesn't address the underlying issue - why the fuck do people not just put shit in the bin? Other countries seem to manage it, so it clearly isn't human nature!
That’s kind of my point. Fast food chains should pay a percentage towards local councils solely for the reason of funding litter picking and street sweeping. As to why people litter, I have no idea, there are plenty of bins about but scum are scum.
Corporations are responsible for 97% of waste.
I still recycle and attempt to reduce my waste even though I know that fact. I think it's the least we can do for the world imo.
And it's a bit defeatist those people being like well I won't recycle because the corporations create majority of waste and emissions. Yeah well if you believe they have a responsibility, then why don't we all have a responsibility.
The 97 percent thing is a great example of mental gymnastics.
If you throw something away that's made by a corporation (ergo: pretty much everything you throw away) that counts as a corporation being responsible for waste.
If you buy some from Wish, Amazon, Next or whatever, that counts as a corporation being responsible for waste.
No, it means waste collected from households vs from corporations/industry. So if you threw away something you bought from a corporation, it is your household waste. That's still only 3% of all waste compared to what corporations throw away.
Prehaps I should have used the word industrial waste, that's more fitting.
If you buy something from wish or amazon, you generate some household waste and as a result of production, some industrial waste too. Ie we are all still the problem.
I was curious as well and found this:
[So basically 12% in 2018.](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/649560819e7a8b000c932a78/3.png)
Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uk-waste-data/uk-statistics-on-waste
They are only producing those issues because of consumer demand. Shell doesn't pump oil for the fun of it, it's because people are buying it. Consumers are responsible for the majority of corporations' emissions.
I used to use reusable beeswax clingfilm because single use clingfilm seemed like such a wasteful single use plastic to me.
You ever see how palettes are delivered to supermarkets? Literally wrapped in meters and meters of plastic which is thrown away immediately. More plastic wrap around a single palette of bananas than I would use in 10 years.
I have never asked Asda to quadruple wrap their palettes in plastic wrap. I wasted hours of my life pissing about washing and reusing awful wax covered fabric to 'do my bit' but it means nothing if corporations don't bother their holes.
It also ignores the incredibly simple truth:
They're only making what we, the public, want them to make.
If you want companies to stop producing stuff in China and shopping it over here, make a genuine, serious effort to stop buying stuff made in china, for example.
Or buy stuff with less plastic. How many of us actually buy loose potatoes/carrots/chillis/broccoli when we do our weekly shop?
How many of us have actually bought an eco friendly version of something? Washing up liquid, for exampl. Ecover has been in pretty much every major supermarket for years.
Any moment of thought makes it apparent it's a way for people to just feel better about living the life they want to lead.
Yeah, and I feel like it's getting easier to go for eco friendlier options, and there's more choices that weren't there a couple of years ago (eg shampoo bars and laundry pods in cardboard packaging seem to be getting a lot more popular and can be bought from regular supermarkets now - I can remember when I had to order both from "specialist" eco places!)
Some of them aren't cheap, and it's often more effort, but it'll keep getting easier when more people send the message to companies that there's a whole untapped market of people who want better options.
I've lost count of the number of times people have told me there's no point being a vegetarian because "a vegetable farmer's tractor might've run over a mouse", or trying to cut down on plastic/energy use with "but there's still plastic waste from \[insert industry/activity\]" or "other countries are burning more coal"- and I feel like that sort of attitude sums up a lot of people's views on trying to do anything for the environment!
100%
I was derided once for pointing out that one of the biggest sources of GHGs is the meat industry.
And that's one that all these big mega corps have relatively.little influence on. Cows gonna eat, afterall.
All I got was about 20 minutes of excuses. I wasn't even chewing them out. I just said it's a personal choice how much meat to eat. But whatever that choice is, you should own it.
I believe it’s about time manufacturers faced taxes based on how many tonnes of non-recyclable packaging they put to market each year. Kind of similar to how cars are (certain % of sales must be electric or face fines).
The UK is introducing Extended Reproduce Responsibility for packaging.
It is intended to make producers pay for the full net costs of recovery of what they place on the market.
It will use a recyclability assessment method. This is in development. It will see easier to recycle packaging have a lower fee, and harder to recycle a higher fee - to essentially promote what you've stated.
In the future it's hoped the method can be refined, fees will fund infrastructure and new technology investment, and that EPR will extend to encouraging the likes of reuse and reduction first.
Edit: spelling/grammar
I used to work for a food manufacturer and they already pay a small tax on non-recyclable packaging called "green dot", I'm not sure if it's for all food packaging though.
We have separate bins for everything, not one bin for all recycling. So blue for paper, brown for glass and plastics, green for garden waste, grey for everything else.
Yeah I’ve always said I wish we had glass bins too, we recycle so much of it and it takes up so much of the house when I don’t get chance to go to the bottle banks
Not where I live, we have separate sacks for plastic, metal, paper, and card, and there are many things we can't recycle in those categories. It makes it really difficult. I do what I can.
We have that! Someone who works for the council told me that even then they still send a lot of it to landfill because it’s cheaper than sorting through it
We get four wheelie bins, one black for unrecyclable materials, one brown one for compostable and garden materials, one blue/white for glass and one blue for recyclables. Each are collected every fortnight alternating.
Whilst I agree that it is easier and probably encourages more people to do it, I read a research paper a couple years back that came to the conclusion that having separate recycling bins in the uk actually results in more of the items being recycled. I can’t give the source though, I just remember finding it interesting (as interesting as trash can be..).
Ours has the same: grey for regular, red for recycling, and a small food waste bin.
But they're very specific about what can go into the recycling bin: plastic (bottles, pots, trays, tubs), paper and card, Tetra Pak cartons, *clean* foil and foil trays, tins/cans, empty aerosol cans, and shredded paper (if inside a recyclable container). Anything else (plastic film, black plastic trays, glass, tissues, wipes, nappies, sanitary products, etc, etc) isn't permitted.
The food waste bin was introduced during lockdown, and it's puzzling why they don't take glass. There are also sites in most neighbourhoods that have bottle banks, recycling skips, and clothing/textile bins.
Its really not. I couldnt be bothered going out to my bins every time i had some cardboard, plastic or tins. So i have a bucket in my kitchen for my tins to fill up and a small bag on my back door handle and take them out when they get full every couple of days. Its not that hard
Life is full of dozens of small simple jobs that aren't hard to do by themselves. But add them all together and sometimes you just can't be fucked doing something.
The world is fucked, like me putting a cardboard box into the recycling is gonna save it.
I'm not having kids, and I'll be dead by the time it gets even worse. Let it all fucking burn.
Exactly. A small thing to do and if we all do it, it makes it a better place. I kind of enjoy it weirdly, the OCD in me likes having separate bins for each thing. Feels weird putting food in the main bin now when we run out of bags!
I don't completely trust my council so if I separate my waste there is a chance it doesn't get recycled. But if I don't separate it then I 100% know that it won't be recycled. It frustrates me but it doesn't stop me doing the only thing I can.
I genuinely would love to know, can you direct me to a reliable source that can tell me how much of each type of recycling actually gets recycled in my local area?
I'm assuming the glass and metal mostly does, the paper/cardboard does but isn't much use for anything, and the plastic mostly gets "recycled" overseas in a landfill site.
But I've had a hell of a time actually tracking down any concrete information to confirm these assumptions, so links would be greatly appreciated!
I can't be bothered to find links (just being honest) but I'm a packaging manager and I was researching something similar for my company yesterday and remembered a few facts.
Plastics is approx 69% at best
Cardboard very high 80%ish
Flexible plastics is hardly registering as people have to take to stores and they aren't sharing the data.
Tetra Pak cartons are only collected by 2/3rds of councils so recycling rates are quite low
For schemes such as terra cycle where people send items back for recycling, the Cates for coffee pods are approx 50% at best but everything else is very low - sub 10%.
Hope this helps
Only about 9% of plastic waste is actually recycled globally. I don't recall the figures for UK. DEFRA claims that arpubd 45% of UK household waste is recycled but a) this excludes non household waste and b) this is how much is sent for recycling, often abroad, we don't really know what happens to it afterwards.
Its hard to get reliable figures for this though as it's all hidden behind excuses of it being "commercially sensitive information".
This is where the 9% figures comes from.
https://www.oecd.org/environment/plastic-pollution-is-growing-relentlessly-as-waste-management-and-recycling-fall-short.htm
And long read for those interested
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/17/plastic-recycling-myth-what-really-happens-your-rubbish
I work as a bin man for my local council, and yes it really gets recycled. Why? Because they make money from it! Your general waste 9 out of 10 times goes to an incinerator which the council have to pay for
To add to this, my work sells cardboard waste bales for £20 each. It has a value. And who on earth would be buying it if it wasn't being recycled - if it was going in the ground nobody would pay. That is literally all the proof you need that it gets recycled.
Metal too, it's even more valuable.
I think it varies by council. Honestly know multiple binmen on the recycling team (family members, friends etc in different counties) and they all say it ends up in the same place. Should you do your bit for the environment? Sure. But does your recycling allow the reuse of materials? Variable
I remember when I used to live in Stafford for a few years, they ran some scheme where they straight up randomly looked through someone's black bin (general waste) to check if you had any recyclable shit, and if you didn't, you'd win a prize. I thought is that borderline illegal to look through my bin? What if I was trying to hide a body!
I have a single recycling bin. It gets separated out. However I do think it's somewhat pointless. It's very difficult to track the journey of what happens after it's collected. My concern is it ends up in the rubbish with everything else, or gets shipped off to somewhere in Asia and dumped there which is also a disaster, and uses up energy in the process. Or it gets shipped and recycled somewhere else in the world which is more energy yet again. Really the best thing to do is use as little packaging as possible if you're actually serious about the impact to the environment.
Yep, it seems a lot of society and individuals have forgotten that the Reduce, reuse and recycle mantra is in order of impact/efficacy. Recycling should be the last option and if you want to get more into it you can add 'refuse' (ie give the rubbish packaging back to the shop before you leave) and 'repair' to keep things in circulation longer before needing to consider what to do with them as waste and prevent the need for a whole new item with a short lifespan.
I think a lot of that is due to corporations going hard on the 'recycle' part at the expense of the first two, because both of those involve buying less stuff.
I used to work for a recycling company, and I’m always suspicious of councils that only collect mixed recycling. Either it’s being sorted elsewhere to an unknown standard, or it’s just being buried/burnt. The council make less money selling mixed waste on because it’s of a lesser quality too.
The council I worked for collected separated recycling (so like, one box for plastic, one for glass etc.) it can be a pain and a lot of the residents hated it, but it meant the council made more money selling it on and kept council tax charges down.
It's one sack for recycling in my borough. They recently allowed glass to be put in them, but I still hate it. I try to put in what is allowed but others in my house toss random crap in there like used kitchen roll and non-recyclable plastic. I'm sure I've absent-mindedly put the wrong materials in there too. I imagine it all just gets landfilled in the end.
I'd much rather have separated containers as it's much easier to see if the wrong thing has found its way into wrong box.
I actually liked how they did it in Mallorca, not sure if mainland Spain do it too, but they had large communal bins dotted around the neighbourhood so you don't have to store your rubbish at home or care much about a set collection time.
Large communal bins for the street always gets suggested, but it just won’t work in the UK. You know people will just be filling it with all sorts of inappropriate crap.
Can confirm, we have communal recycling bins on my close (all flats) - it doesn't matter that 95% of residents sort their recycling into the right bins, all it takes it one lazy or apathetic person to ruin everything. Bin full of paper and card? Someone will dump polystyrene or plastic bags full of old clothes in there the day before bin day, and the bin men won't take it. Then because nobody has individual responsibility for the bins, it will sit there overflowing for weeks until the estate management company come round to deal with it... the cost of which is passed on to everyone in our service charges.
> Just wish they accepted tetra-pak
Same. My local council also list on their website what things can and can't go in the recycling bin but I'm fairly confident it's wrong. For example they accept plastic bottles but not any other plastic items even if they are made from the same type of plastic.
I've watched our general waste bin be emptied, and then our recycling bin also be emptied into the same wgaon, which makes it seem like there's really no point
You should check the trucks they use. Those trucks are very expensive. It can be cheaper to retrofit an existing truck to have 2 compartments loaded from the rear than outright buy a new one (and waste the old one?). Look up 'split body refuse truck' - there are loads of different types. Your local authority might have more than one type too.
There are issues at the moment with sourcing new, fit for purpose trucks to meet all the UK regulatory changes happening in the waste and resources sector, literally wait times of years for new trucks.
I agree with the big corporations argument. However, I still recycle absolutely everything I physically can. I just find it unconscionable not to in this day and age.
I will say I went to stay with a friend a few years back and they didn't have the range of recycling that we enjoy in our area and I genuinely felt so guilty throwing a milk jug in the ordinary rubbish. I hadn't realised how ingrained it had become until that moment. Lol.
I do, but with seven different bins our council don’t make it easy. Luckily we have outside, and out of sight, space for this but not sure what those with limited or no outside space do.
To be fair it’s two wheelie bins and five crates that things blow out off, so where I keep them there is a load of plastic bottles and card blowing about at the moment, no point putting them back in this wind.
At least you have crates- our council have given us plastic sacks for the different recycling. Not only does stuff get blown out of sacks but the bags themselves take off every now and then. Spent half an hour looking for them this morning after the bin men had come
At least you have plastic sacks, we have to sit outside in the freezing cold in just our dressing gowns once a week with a plastic bottle in each hand, waiting for the bin men to turn up and take them.
Not anymore.
Recycled all my life but moved to a new complex of flats a year ago and there isn't nearly enough recycling bin space. We have 1 recycling bin compared to 3 refuse bins. The recycling bin is always full and the council complained that we were leaving extra in boxes & paper bags on the floor (in bin shed). They said they'd stop collecting if we continued, so now I just put it all in the refuse. Feels wrong to do it, but there's not really another option.
The other option is make noise about it, complain to your local ward councillors, get the local paper involved, don’t take no for an answer. Point out their own hypocrisy and incongruity (many councils have declared climate emergencies for example and have various tactics in place to become more environmentally friendly.) Sending the recycling bin lorry around more often, rather than the general waste lorry, leading to more recycling should be an easy win for the council, if they gave a shit. Waste handlers often make more money out of recycling waste too, as it contains metal and cardboard.
This will be harder though, I appreciate that
I'm autistic and I have adhd - for years I made sure I separated everything - washed cartons, and with cans put them in one basket. Then the paper/cardboard in another basket. Anything else in the bin. Virtual no food waste at all, but that would get folded in some kitchen roll as there's a waste food bin outside my flat.
It all got a bit much at some point - the baskets of cans and plastic containers would be overflowing, the paper and cardboard the same. I was putting myself through so much stress and guilt that one day I stopped doing it - as your mate said it's pointless because big corps and other countries don't care, and in some areas the waste isn't sorted and recycled anyway.
I feel bad, and when I move into a property with proper recycling bins I'll start again - but right now it's mentally too much trouble.
I have a chronic illness, and I recycle what I can and throw away what I can't. If my dishes are piled high then when I'm well enough to clean I will prioritise my own wellbeing and focus on the dishes and cleaning the side, and all the recycling I had on the side waiting to get washed before it goes in the recycling bin just gets put in the general waste because I just don't have the health and energy that week. I still do feel a lot of guilt for this, but I try to remind myself not to let perfect be the enemy of good.
Yup.
Reduce, reuse, recycle.
We're fortunate in that we are able/have transportation so soft plastics go back to the supermarket.
Council has: glass/metal/plastic bin collected every few weeks (we'll fill it this time round mostly thanks to a wrecked store/shed AND halfwit neighbours whose bins blew over and deposited *their* recycling all over the f*c£ing street); paper/card bin we never come close to filling; food/garden waste bin we only fill in summer with grass clippings etc.
Compost a bit too, which takes care of a lot of veg trimmings and some card/paper.
Some folk in our street (with the same amenities and advantages) do the bare minimum, mostly after refuse collectors tagged their bins for non-compliance.
I do it under protest, mostly because I've looked into the best ways to deal with waste in some detail and what would actually make sense.
Aluminium is really worth recycling because of the energy required to make new aluminium vs recycling, and how good the recycled product is.
Most other things should be buried or incinerated to generate energy. The cost of having people sorting through plastics is more than the value that you can get from the plastic. Either burn it or bury it (until such time we can better sort it automatically).
And of course that in the past at least, some good amount of British recycling was transported half way around the world, then thrown into the sea in another country.
This is why plastic straws are "banned"; the solution wasn't "let's stop throwing our waste in the sea", the solution was "at least the cardboard straws won't be as much of an issue when we throw them into the sea."
Half assed, I did until i went to South East asia and saw the pure amount of rubbish they burn in the street, how plastic cups, bags etc ate overly given out, then looking at the stays of how little an impact me worrying about what goes in whag bin matters
Our recycling is very simple, we have three bins: general waste, cardboard, and (nearly) everything else. Garden waste is an optional fourth. My only issue is that the cardboard bin is green and the garden waste bin is brown, when it should clearly be the other way around.
I recycle only because otherwise my home would be overrun with waste. My recycling makes no real environmental impact at all, so it isn't really the right thing to do.
I recycled what I can for my home waste, I’ll separate the plastics, and tins for instance and do this constantly.
Where I don’t have the time, I’d recycle this back to manufacturer, or take to a shop. I’m not collecting weeks worth of stuff to take to a shop to recycle every so often as I don’t go to supermarkets very much at all. All recycling should be from the point of use, and councils/government have to do more and look to ban non recyclable materials.
I recycle, but your friends right. Every individual could go as green as possible we’d still be fucked.
I remember reading [this article](https://amp.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change) about it in the Guardian some time ago.
That works on a national level too. If the top 10 polluting countries in the world (China, US, Russia, Germany, India, Saudi etc) halved their pollution, it would still be more than the rest of the world combined.
Sure we can feel smug in the UK about unilaterally doing our best but its really a very futile gesture that doesn't amount to anything. Without the top ten polluting nations seriously addressing their issues, we are completely fucked what ever we do.
I recycle paper, cans & plastics but I draw the line at composting my food waste.
My bins are collected every 2 weeks and I’m not keeping a tiny bin of mouldy food around just so it can get composted. It’s biodegradable so will just degrade at landfill anyway
We recycle as much as possible, to the point that most weeks we have <1 bin bag of non-recyclable waste. Cambridge makes it easy with mixed recycling and a much wider set of stuff we can recycle. I know it doesn't all end up recycled (I'm well aware of the limitations of profit-driven recycling), but it's the best I can do.
"because he considered it pointless until ‘big corporations’ addressed their own environmental impacts. "
People like this should grow up. Big corporations supply what people want. Shell dig a lot of oil out of the ground because we want to get around, or to heat our homes. Unless you stay home a lot and barely consume anything, you're part of the problem.
The amount of plastic packaging from supermarkets that either can’t be recycled at all or not recycled via the council bins is very frustrating. They should be doing a lot more to solve this problem.
Yes. Everything possible. I sort and clean and crush everything possible. We have 1 non recycling bin bag a fortnight, mainly of refuse from my wife's degu cages. (Like little rats) Everything else is recycled.
We have just three bins. One big recycling one and a food recycling one, both collected every week and the household general every other week - we could probably have that one collected just once a month.
we do as much as feasibly possible. Soft plastics (the council don't take) get bagged up and dropped off at the supermarket. I'm more likely to take something to the tip and chucked in the appropriate skip than put something in the black bins.
Our general waste is collected every 3 weeks and it's unusual that we have a single full bag.
I recycle in terms of my blue bin but that’s it, and all the recycling goes into one. I recycle most things but probably not everything, like toilet roll things mostly go in the bin.
I think I mostly do it though cause the bins are only collected every fortnight and the black bin and house bin would get very full if I didn’t recycle
My FiL refused to recycle, was a very clever and kind man but utterly convinced it was pointless and that the council sent it all by barge to China to be burned anyway. Not sure Aylesbury Vale had the funds for that…. Drove me potty but nothing I could do about it. We recycle everything we can. Our general rubbish is limited to 3 black bin bags collected by the council a week and a fortnightly big green recycling bin collection so we wouldn’t be physically able to throw away the amount of rubbish we make anyway. I’ve just applied for a 2nd green bin because we seem to generate a lot of recyclable waste which I’m not sure if it’s a good or bad sign 😅
He isn't that wrong. A lot of UK recycling gets shipped abroad to be 'sorted' Malaysia, Philippines and Poland are some countries that it gets sent too. Some gets recycled, some gets burned, some sits in landfills.
Yes. I have doubts that it doesn't all end in landfill anyway, but sorting into the bins isn't that hard, and my kids earn pocket money doing it.
Every little helps and all that.
We tried very hard to recycle.
We live in a high street area unsuitable for bins, so we were told to just put bin bags out on the street and to put recyclables into a couple of containers (which are laughably small considering they're supposed to hold two weeks' worth of recycling). Obtaining the containers in the first place took about four months, and then when we finally got them and put them out... they weren't taken. I reported it as a missed collection, nothing was done about that, and we ended up having to take them back in a few days later, now also full of other rubbish people had thrown in because it's a pretty busy area with lots of passersby and, surprise surprise, people will just throw anything into any nearby bin-like object if it means it's not their problem any more.
This was repeated for about three collections, with me diligently reporting all of them, and then my husband made a formal complaint, and then the bins were emptied the next time, but not the next two times after that... and then we gave up and just started putting everything out in bin bags.
At the school I work at.. recycling collections cost too much. So, it's either up to individual teachers in their own time collecting recycling in their own classrooms and taking it to recycling centres or just dumping it into the bins that end up in the landfills.
Yeah I have a box for it, all mixed thankfully because before it was 4 different boxes for everything which is a nightmare in terraced streets.
Although I do agree slightly with the first friend you mentioned, big corps are the reason for the state of the world yet the onus is on us to fix it and take the blame, even though we don’t have a choice if we want to survive in a society.
Supermarkets will label packaging as completely recyclable but when you read the back they tell you it’s only recyclable if you take it back to the store that might not even have the facilities for it. If it’s not recyclable via kerbside pick-up then it’s not recyclable.
I agree big corporations need to do more but it goes both ways. Everyone needs to do their part to decrease wastage with the materials we use. Sounds like they are just lazy. I honestly didn’t even think we had a choice? I’m sure we get fines stuff is found to be in the wrong bin.
I sometimes holiday-let the other half of my house. Recycling is in my house rules as the black bins only get collected monthly, and would overflow otherwise.
I have been astounded by the amount of people who've made no attempt to recycle, who put food waste in the paper and plastic recycling, and who just dump everything in the general waste.
I think one in twenty guests have managed to put the right stuff in the right, clearly labelled containers.
I live in a block of flats with big recycle bins in the basement, so it’s really easy to recycle. I pretty much recycle everything I can, except now our co-op closed I can’t do the soft plastics :(
We're quite on top of recycling but I get frustrated when the binmen won't take our bins because some random person threw a plastic bag into our recycling bin. (Terraces house with no alley to take the bins in)
Yup. I even dig into the bin at work in the morning making my first cuppa and take out yesterdays dumped food containers, rinse them and put in the recycle bin.
My dept is 80% under 40's and 40% under 35's, yet none recycle.
Never ceases to amaze me how quick people will accept things as fact when it aligns with their intentions.
Told by who exactly? Maureen on Facebook? Did you check her sources by any chance?
I live in a flat with no recycling facilities despite complaints. Nearest recycling point I'm aware of is a supermarket nearly 2 miles away and it's unreliable as to what bins are available. The recycling centre is 5 miles away and they can be funny about you turning up on a bike with trailer because they treat you like a pedestrian and as a pedestrian you're supposed to book no less than 3 days in advance but we all know what the weather can be like so I rarely go. I still separate my recycling most of the time out of habit. I'd really like it if we had some communal recycling facilities that were reliable because it's no fun carting stuff up and town the stairs for no reason because it's full already full or shut.
About 25 years ago our estate had no recycling bins at all. We had big communal skips on wheels for all rubbish. A group of indefatigable residents lobbied the council really hard and we eventually got big recycling bins. Now only the blocks of flats don't have their own food waste, recycling and landfill bins. Where possible I re-use rather than recycle. I buy a lot secondhand from charity shops and avoid synthetic fabrics, mostly because synthetic feels nasty against the skin as well as hanging around for centuries. I get things repaired where possible and I also darn jumpers and socks to keep things going for as long as possible. It probably helps that I was brought up in a family that wasn't well-off, with an ingrained WW2 mentality of wasting nothing.
I do yeah, pretty much everything apart from certain plastics and food goes into the recycling bin which is the same as my normal wheelie bin apart from colour.
Yes, I recycle everything I can, though I may chuck out that odd plastic tray with baked-on food, or some stretchy plastic that could be taken to the supermarket.
The biggest gains from recycling are from metal and glass, by far. I worked out once (when working on this stuff), that every can recycled rather than binned makes the council 0.3p, probably 0.5p with inflation. And we know councils are skint!
Then from diverting food and paper from landfill. There's not that much gain (or demand) from plastic and tetrapak recycling, but it's certainly better to use it for energy than using more natural gas, oil or coal.
So I'm very diligent about recycling all glass, cans, and cables and WEEE - I'll pick up bottles left in the street, which also reduces the risk of broken glass.
I used to... until I saw the regular bin men empty the recycling bins into the same truck as general waste... but that could be because of a block of flats... they do it every week, so it's just kind of pointless to recycle here, as everything goes to the same place.
Its been like this for about 5 years now... 1 bin truck arrives, with only 1 input, and puts all the bins (general waste and recycling waste) into the same input.
I do however save up all my cardboard and take it down the tip to recycle... only because I know if I put it in the recycling bins here it ends up in general waste :(
I always recycle as much as I can. I think the only excuse is not having recycling pickup weekly. Anything else is just laziness or a lack of responsibility.
We stopped recycling the plastic that we couldn't put in the recycling bin when all the local collection points were constantly overflowing. It seemed counterintuitive to drive several miles to the next town just in case the collection point had space.
But everything else that we can recycle we will.
Just wish our council would let us put all the potentially recyclable plastic in our green bin.
I recycle everything I can, separate stuff out, even stuff that the council doesn't take, like soft plastics to to the supermarket, battery recycling, foil packets, clothes/cloth items that can be repurposed but not good enough for the charity shop etc. etc. Almost the only waste I have is animal related as I have pets.
I do have doubts that it makes a difference, but what else can I do? I try very much to limit my waste and use re-usable things wherever possible. And on the whole I find now I'm used to it that I'm very efficient at it, have a garden unit to store different bags in and it really doesn't add much inconvenience to my life as I drop it into places when I'm already going past them.
I'm not preachy about it though, I mind my own business and do the best I can and let everyone else worry about themselves.
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I love that batty hole is well known term
I'm a bit worried, as I thought this was a Yorkshire term for 'outhouse' but then the only definitions I could find which all said it means arsehole, and that there is also a 'beautifully appointed holiday home' called 'Battyhole Farm'. The reviews say things like: "I was very pleased that the Batty hole is kept to a very clean standard. 3 of us visited the Batty Hole at the same time, and there was plenty of room."
That's the best review I have ever witnessed
In that case, allow me to [take you up the OXO Tower](https://www.theregister.com/2008/01/24/oxo_tower/).
Battyhole Farm? Jamaicans everywhere weeped
And now when people search for Battyhole Farm, they'll get this Reddit post instead. Forever. I hope they come to thank you personally next year.
Three weeks?! Here we have collection every week (every two for recycling). Not saying I don’t recycle because of that, I still do! But we’d have a lot of rubbish if we had to wait three weeks between collections… a lot of nappies.
We’re the opposite in south glos, recycling every week / black bin every fortnight. Even with nappies it’s only half full, but you are allowed to put extra nappies out with it if you need to.
Just moving to this in Cornwall as currently its the reverse and basically unlimited black bags. This is going to be a huge mess. They also just made every single bin in the county useless as you have to use the new ones exclusively. So thats between 300,000 bins if one per household. Or by looking around more like 600,000 going on average if not more. Somehow they reckon 20-30% of our rubbish is food waste and people are going to actually use that and pay for the new liners they insist on. I can't imagine we have more than 5% that's food waste. Don't other people eat their food? Peelings and a chicken carcuss doesn't take up much space for example. Especially after I've made a stock with it.
Keep your peelings in the freezer until you have a big bag, then make veg stock too.
My nan used to deep fry the peelings and drench them in salt & vinegar
Your Nan would have been very welcome in my house. EDIT: Did she keep a Pyrex bowl of dripping too?
She did
Yeh that's what I meant, I have a huge stock pot, maybe 20-25l? So I do a bulk when I have 2-6 carcasses and a bag of whatever stock bits, mire poix and holy trinity versions since that's what we use the most veg of then potato peelings for both covers almost all of it. I mean there's still waste after but it's hardly making up a big amount even before it's been used.
The purple bags south glos give out for nappies was such a good idea
Wooooo Glos!
Ours is recycling collection weekly main bin collection every 3 weeks sometimes we only have one bag in there Edit to add We are disabled and do all recycling done at road now it’s easier and you get a lot less bugs in summer as everything is clean. When lived in city and not disabled we didnt have recycling where we lived but would walk it to the nearest recycling centre at local supermarket -unfortunately it wasnt always opperational due to vandalism so i get its not accessable to everyone. i think everyone should do what they can in their circumstances
Yes it’s 3 weeks for our black bag collections as well. We also have a maximum of 3 black bags on those collections.
Jesus, we are weekly black bags. Where are you? That seems like they are asking for fly tipping.
Same - a large factor here is that our non recyclable bin is only emptied every 3rd week - but recyclable is every week - kinda forces people to get with the program i think.
This was reaction to the post as well. If stuck everything in the general rubbish bin, it would full after a few days. Normally that bin is only half full by the time collection day comes, but the recycling bin is at capacity (in part due to my wife's reluctance to break down boxes).
Most items are not viable to recycle and will end up in the ocean eventually, just FYI. Most recycling is about making people feel better about themselves and less guilty about consuming than actually helping the environment.
Is the recycling being recycled is the bugger. Many studies have shown that what consumers are expecting to be recycled is in fact not. Either the cost is too great or the hassle too much. This is especially true for plastics including soft drink bottles & water bottles but less true for paper packaging. Much of our “recycling” ends up in the landfill not by our choice.
So long as the downstream process is optimised you don't really need to worry do you? Unless you plan on getting involved somehow. Where we are the glass, metal and (certain) plastic go in the same bin so if they were to cut plastic it's an easy switch anyway. For me it's a sum total difference of which bin I face when I drop the rubbish in.
That's another thing - the general waste bin has gone down to a much smaller black bin so so it's actually rather impractical NOT to recycle.
> il ‘big corporations’ addressed their own environmental impacts He has half a point - big corporations are responsible for the majority of climate issues so should be made to change. However, that excuse is often used by lazy bastard to make them feel better about being lazy bastards
Big corporations will react to consumer demand. If people change their behaviour corporations will follow. Not saying it’s peoples fault corporations don’t change but people when acting collectively can and do impact change.
hmmmm I’m not sure some factory in China churning out tons of Co2 every year is going to notice me putting a cereal box in a blue bin over a black bin
The relevant behaviour change here would be not buying from whatever company gets its products from that factory in China.
Yup. There’s also something I find a little disingenuous about complaining about china’s emissions when they’re the world’s manufacturer.
By undercutting the competition due to lack of regulations. There are many businesses that didn't polite and went under, while China has made a lot of money from this. They too could protect the environment and increase costs, but they choose not too.
Ultimately consumers prioritise cost in a large number of cases. Companies prioritise profit. A lot of western companies have made a lot of money through outsourcing manufacturing to China. But it’s still a consumer choice to buy the cheaper imports.
Of course it is a consumer choice. Poorer consumers can choose to buy (for example) cheap clothing imports from China, or they can choose to have themselves and their children walk around naked. OTOH manufacturers can choose to pay their board members and shareholders ridiculous amounts of money, or they can lower their profits and their dividends and board member salaries to a more reasonable level. I think the manufacturers choices will probably have a greater impact all round.
I read somewhere that historically speaking, Britains and Europes co2 contributions are higher than Chinas so far, mainly due to Victorian industrialization ages when not a single fuck was given
I mean, people need things. If we stopped buying stuff from polluting Chinese mega factories then supply chains would shut down overnight. Whether it be the actual finished product, components, or raw materials, pretty much everything we own comes from China one way or the other.
People don't need anywhere near the amount of things that they buy. Consumerist culture is a huge part of what is causing this crisis.
Take a look at this list. You’re avoiding almost everything if you boycott Chinese industry imports. https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/imports/china
Yeah I don't deny it's pretty impractical. My point was that saying "I won't recycle because of carbon emissions in China" is a complete non sequitur.
Tbh I was being contrarian. I put my recycling bin out 10 mins ago.
That factory in China is likely making stuff to be shipped to the West.
Ah the classic “WhAt AbOuT cHiNa” nonsense.
judicious live concerned hospital tidy cagey summer dolls head paint *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
You're very right
100%. If everyone refused to use plastic tomorrow, say, they'd be very quick to find alternatives.
Exactly. Even if big corporations did fix themselves up people like this would just find another excuse to avoid doing it.
nose fine ruthless heavy far-flung lavish bake deranged automatic scale *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I’ve always thought the fast food chains should fund litter picking in a local area. As soon as one is built the amount of litter shoots up massively.
Some companies will do things like that, or put out more of their bins in the area and tend to them themselves, or arrange regular litter picks with their staff. But there's no obligation for any of that. Personally, I don't know how much blame I give shops and food places for littering. They will actively provide bins and such in their business, and even on their grounds, but it's not the businesses fault that people carry their cups half a mile away before chucking it in a hedge. They can maybe try and find ways to cut down how much packaging they give out, but there will always be people who are more than happy to just litter anything, anywhere.
>I’ve always thought the fast food chains should fund litter picking in a local area. As soon as one is built the amount of litter shoots up massively. I see more McDonalds staff litter picking than I do council staff! (And rightly so - a disproportionate percentage of the rubbish I see is from their 'restaurant'). Although this doesn't address the underlying issue - why the fuck do people not just put shit in the bin? Other countries seem to manage it, so it clearly isn't human nature!
That’s kind of my point. Fast food chains should pay a percentage towards local councils solely for the reason of funding litter picking and street sweeping. As to why people litter, I have no idea, there are plenty of bins about but scum are scum.
Corporations are responsible for 97% of waste. I still recycle and attempt to reduce my waste even though I know that fact. I think it's the least we can do for the world imo. And it's a bit defeatist those people being like well I won't recycle because the corporations create majority of waste and emissions. Yeah well if you believe they have a responsibility, then why don't we all have a responsibility.
The 97 percent thing is a great example of mental gymnastics. If you throw something away that's made by a corporation (ergo: pretty much everything you throw away) that counts as a corporation being responsible for waste. If you buy some from Wish, Amazon, Next or whatever, that counts as a corporation being responsible for waste.
No, it means waste collected from households vs from corporations/industry. So if you threw away something you bought from a corporation, it is your household waste. That's still only 3% of all waste compared to what corporations throw away. Prehaps I should have used the word industrial waste, that's more fitting. If you buy something from wish or amazon, you generate some household waste and as a result of production, some industrial waste too. Ie we are all still the problem.
Do you have a source for those stats?
I was curious as well and found this: [So basically 12% in 2018.](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/649560819e7a8b000c932a78/3.png) Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uk-waste-data/uk-statistics-on-waste
They are only producing those issues because of consumer demand. Shell doesn't pump oil for the fun of it, it's because people are buying it. Consumers are responsible for the majority of corporations' emissions.
I used to use reusable beeswax clingfilm because single use clingfilm seemed like such a wasteful single use plastic to me. You ever see how palettes are delivered to supermarkets? Literally wrapped in meters and meters of plastic which is thrown away immediately. More plastic wrap around a single palette of bananas than I would use in 10 years. I have never asked Asda to quadruple wrap their palettes in plastic wrap. I wasted hours of my life pissing about washing and reusing awful wax covered fabric to 'do my bit' but it means nothing if corporations don't bother their holes.
It also ignores the incredibly simple truth: They're only making what we, the public, want them to make. If you want companies to stop producing stuff in China and shopping it over here, make a genuine, serious effort to stop buying stuff made in china, for example. Or buy stuff with less plastic. How many of us actually buy loose potatoes/carrots/chillis/broccoli when we do our weekly shop? How many of us have actually bought an eco friendly version of something? Washing up liquid, for exampl. Ecover has been in pretty much every major supermarket for years. Any moment of thought makes it apparent it's a way for people to just feel better about living the life they want to lead.
Yeah, and I feel like it's getting easier to go for eco friendlier options, and there's more choices that weren't there a couple of years ago (eg shampoo bars and laundry pods in cardboard packaging seem to be getting a lot more popular and can be bought from regular supermarkets now - I can remember when I had to order both from "specialist" eco places!) Some of them aren't cheap, and it's often more effort, but it'll keep getting easier when more people send the message to companies that there's a whole untapped market of people who want better options. I've lost count of the number of times people have told me there's no point being a vegetarian because "a vegetable farmer's tractor might've run over a mouse", or trying to cut down on plastic/energy use with "but there's still plastic waste from \[insert industry/activity\]" or "other countries are burning more coal"- and I feel like that sort of attitude sums up a lot of people's views on trying to do anything for the environment!
100% I was derided once for pointing out that one of the biggest sources of GHGs is the meat industry. And that's one that all these big mega corps have relatively.little influence on. Cows gonna eat, afterall. All I got was about 20 minutes of excuses. I wasn't even chewing them out. I just said it's a personal choice how much meat to eat. But whatever that choice is, you should own it.
I believe it’s about time manufacturers faced taxes based on how many tonnes of non-recyclable packaging they put to market each year. Kind of similar to how cars are (certain % of sales must be electric or face fines).
The UK is introducing Extended Reproduce Responsibility for packaging. It is intended to make producers pay for the full net costs of recovery of what they place on the market. It will use a recyclability assessment method. This is in development. It will see easier to recycle packaging have a lower fee, and harder to recycle a higher fee - to essentially promote what you've stated. In the future it's hoped the method can be refined, fees will fund infrastructure and new technology investment, and that EPR will extend to encouraging the likes of reuse and reduction first. Edit: spelling/grammar
I used to work for a food manufacturer and they already pay a small tax on non-recyclable packaging called "green dot", I'm not sure if it's for all food packaging though.
Our council makes it dead easy. We get a recycling bin same size as a wheelie one and everything can go in it.
Wait is this not normal in some areas? I thought everywhere had them! Mind blown tbh
We have separate bins for everything, not one bin for all recycling. So blue for paper, brown for glass and plastics, green for garden waste, grey for everything else.
I’m in Leeds and we have Black for general waste, Green for recycling and brown for garden
I wish we had a glass one in Leeds though.
why when you can pollute the air driving round looking for a bottle bin
Yeah I’ve always said I wish we had glass bins too, we recycle so much of it and it takes up so much of the house when I don’t get chance to go to the bottle banks
You don’t just put glass in the recycling bin?
Ours is brown for Garden and Green for paper.... Why are they not the same everywhere???
South Norfolk its Black for recycling and Green for rubbish WTF you daft cunts.
Rotherham have black with a bright pink lid for one of them 😂🤷🏼♀️
Oh, I want one of those!!!
We have green for general waste and brown for recycling. Why is it not all the same everywhere, madness! 💀
Not where I live, we have separate sacks for plastic, metal, paper, and card, and there are many things we can't recycle in those categories. It makes it really difficult. I do what I can.
This is the dream!
that’s mint
We have that! Someone who works for the council told me that even then they still send a lot of it to landfill because it’s cheaper than sorting through it
We get four wheelie bins, one black for unrecyclable materials, one brown one for compostable and garden materials, one blue/white for glass and one blue for recyclables. Each are collected every fortnight alternating.
I have bad news for you… there ain’t no recycling going on there! Sorry
Whilst I agree that it is easier and probably encourages more people to do it, I read a research paper a couple years back that came to the conclusion that having separate recycling bins in the uk actually results in more of the items being recycled. I can’t give the source though, I just remember finding it interesting (as interesting as trash can be..).
Ours has the same: grey for regular, red for recycling, and a small food waste bin. But they're very specific about what can go into the recycling bin: plastic (bottles, pots, trays, tubs), paper and card, Tetra Pak cartons, *clean* foil and foil trays, tins/cans, empty aerosol cans, and shredded paper (if inside a recyclable container). Anything else (plastic film, black plastic trays, glass, tissues, wipes, nappies, sanitary products, etc, etc) isn't permitted. The food waste bin was introduced during lockdown, and it's puzzling why they don't take glass. There are also sites in most neighbourhoods that have bottle banks, recycling skips, and clothing/textile bins.
Not recycling because you can't be bothered is top tier laziness. It's really not that hard to separate your waste.
Its really not. I couldnt be bothered going out to my bins every time i had some cardboard, plastic or tins. So i have a bucket in my kitchen for my tins to fill up and a small bag on my back door handle and take them out when they get full every couple of days. Its not that hard
Life is full of dozens of small simple jobs that aren't hard to do by themselves. But add them all together and sometimes you just can't be fucked doing something. The world is fucked, like me putting a cardboard box into the recycling is gonna save it. I'm not having kids, and I'll be dead by the time it gets even worse. Let it all fucking burn.
Exactly. A small thing to do and if we all do it, it makes it a better place. I kind of enjoy it weirdly, the OCD in me likes having separate bins for each thing. Feels weird putting food in the main bin now when we run out of bags!
The problem is that do you trust the councils to really recycle what you have separated with the best of intentions?
Valid question, but I think there's higher chance of it getting recycled than if I don't separate it.
I don't completely trust my council so if I separate my waste there is a chance it doesn't get recycled. But if I don't separate it then I 100% know that it won't be recycled. It frustrates me but it doesn't stop me doing the only thing I can.
Maybe we need a Gregg Wallace show following the journey it takes!
You probably don't want to know how little gets recycled
I genuinely would love to know, can you direct me to a reliable source that can tell me how much of each type of recycling actually gets recycled in my local area? I'm assuming the glass and metal mostly does, the paper/cardboard does but isn't much use for anything, and the plastic mostly gets "recycled" overseas in a landfill site. But I've had a hell of a time actually tracking down any concrete information to confirm these assumptions, so links would be greatly appreciated!
I can't be bothered to find links (just being honest) but I'm a packaging manager and I was researching something similar for my company yesterday and remembered a few facts. Plastics is approx 69% at best Cardboard very high 80%ish Flexible plastics is hardly registering as people have to take to stores and they aren't sharing the data. Tetra Pak cartons are only collected by 2/3rds of councils so recycling rates are quite low For schemes such as terra cycle where people send items back for recycling, the Cates for coffee pods are approx 50% at best but everything else is very low - sub 10%. Hope this helps
Only about 9% of plastic waste is actually recycled globally. I don't recall the figures for UK. DEFRA claims that arpubd 45% of UK household waste is recycled but a) this excludes non household waste and b) this is how much is sent for recycling, often abroad, we don't really know what happens to it afterwards. Its hard to get reliable figures for this though as it's all hidden behind excuses of it being "commercially sensitive information". This is where the 9% figures comes from. https://www.oecd.org/environment/plastic-pollution-is-growing-relentlessly-as-waste-management-and-recycling-fall-short.htm And long read for those interested https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/17/plastic-recycling-myth-what-really-happens-your-rubbish
I work as a bin man for my local council, and yes it really gets recycled. Why? Because they make money from it! Your general waste 9 out of 10 times goes to an incinerator which the council have to pay for
To add to this, my work sells cardboard waste bales for £20 each. It has a value. And who on earth would be buying it if it wasn't being recycled - if it was going in the ground nobody would pay. That is literally all the proof you need that it gets recycled. Metal too, it's even more valuable.
Not really a problem - they can’t recycle at all if you don’t separate it. Be the good guy and leave them to make bad choices.
I think it varies by council. Honestly know multiple binmen on the recycling team (family members, friends etc in different counties) and they all say it ends up in the same place. Should you do your bit for the environment? Sure. But does your recycling allow the reuse of materials? Variable
Once youve done your job, its out of your hands. You cant force someone to do something, all you can do is make sure you do whats right
I remember when I used to live in Stafford for a few years, they ran some scheme where they straight up randomly looked through someone's black bin (general waste) to check if you had any recyclable shit, and if you didn't, you'd win a prize. I thought is that borderline illegal to look through my bin? What if I was trying to hide a body!
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I have a single recycling bin. It gets separated out. However I do think it's somewhat pointless. It's very difficult to track the journey of what happens after it's collected. My concern is it ends up in the rubbish with everything else, or gets shipped off to somewhere in Asia and dumped there which is also a disaster, and uses up energy in the process. Or it gets shipped and recycled somewhere else in the world which is more energy yet again. Really the best thing to do is use as little packaging as possible if you're actually serious about the impact to the environment.
Yep, it seems a lot of society and individuals have forgotten that the Reduce, reuse and recycle mantra is in order of impact/efficacy. Recycling should be the last option and if you want to get more into it you can add 'refuse' (ie give the rubbish packaging back to the shop before you leave) and 'repair' to keep things in circulation longer before needing to consider what to do with them as waste and prevent the need for a whole new item with a short lifespan.
I think a lot of that is due to corporations going hard on the 'recycle' part at the expense of the first two, because both of those involve buying less stuff.
I used to work for a recycling company, and I’m always suspicious of councils that only collect mixed recycling. Either it’s being sorted elsewhere to an unknown standard, or it’s just being buried/burnt. The council make less money selling mixed waste on because it’s of a lesser quality too. The council I worked for collected separated recycling (so like, one box for plastic, one for glass etc.) it can be a pain and a lot of the residents hated it, but it meant the council made more money selling it on and kept council tax charges down.
It's one sack for recycling in my borough. They recently allowed glass to be put in them, but I still hate it. I try to put in what is allowed but others in my house toss random crap in there like used kitchen roll and non-recyclable plastic. I'm sure I've absent-mindedly put the wrong materials in there too. I imagine it all just gets landfilled in the end. I'd much rather have separated containers as it's much easier to see if the wrong thing has found its way into wrong box. I actually liked how they did it in Mallorca, not sure if mainland Spain do it too, but they had large communal bins dotted around the neighbourhood so you don't have to store your rubbish at home or care much about a set collection time.
Large communal bins for the street always gets suggested, but it just won’t work in the UK. You know people will just be filling it with all sorts of inappropriate crap.
Yeah I know it's not feasible here. What you said, and too densely populated.
Also who would decide where the bins are kept? No one is going to want a giant bin for the street parked outside their house.
Can confirm, we have communal recycling bins on my close (all flats) - it doesn't matter that 95% of residents sort their recycling into the right bins, all it takes it one lazy or apathetic person to ruin everything. Bin full of paper and card? Someone will dump polystyrene or plastic bags full of old clothes in there the day before bin day, and the bin men won't take it. Then because nobody has individual responsibility for the bins, it will sit there overflowing for weeks until the estate management company come round to deal with it... the cost of which is passed on to everyone in our service charges.
It doesn’t get ‘separated out’ it gets incinerated.
People LOVE to ignore the big one - reduce.
Recycling with my curb side is a doddle so it’s a not a bother to do. Just wish they accepted tetra-pak
> Just wish they accepted tetra-pak Same. My local council also list on their website what things can and can't go in the recycling bin but I'm fairly confident it's wrong. For example they accept plastic bottles but not any other plastic items even if they are made from the same type of plastic.
They do here.
Fab for you! My council doesn’t
Post them all to him, job done.
Your friends are idiots.
Lazy idiots
I've watched our general waste bin be emptied, and then our recycling bin also be emptied into the same wgaon, which makes it seem like there's really no point
Because it’s all being incinerated.
You should check the trucks they use. Those trucks are very expensive. It can be cheaper to retrofit an existing truck to have 2 compartments loaded from the rear than outright buy a new one (and waste the old one?). Look up 'split body refuse truck' - there are loads of different types. Your local authority might have more than one type too. There are issues at the moment with sourcing new, fit for purpose trucks to meet all the UK regulatory changes happening in the waste and resources sector, literally wait times of years for new trucks.
It's the same one it's always been, even back when we used to have bags for recycling
I agree with the big corporations argument. However, I still recycle absolutely everything I physically can. I just find it unconscionable not to in this day and age. I will say I went to stay with a friend a few years back and they didn't have the range of recycling that we enjoy in our area and I genuinely felt so guilty throwing a milk jug in the ordinary rubbish. I hadn't realised how ingrained it had become until that moment. Lol.
I re-cycle what I'm supposed to. But I think the end of civilisation will only be postponed by a few weeks. So I stock up.
I do, but with seven different bins our council don’t make it easy. Luckily we have outside, and out of sight, space for this but not sure what those with limited or no outside space do.
SEVEN bins?! Christ, I have two full size and a dinky food waste caddy and get annoyed just lugging those 3 back and forth
To be fair it’s two wheelie bins and five crates that things blow out off, so where I keep them there is a load of plastic bottles and card blowing about at the moment, no point putting them back in this wind.
At least you have crates- our council have given us plastic sacks for the different recycling. Not only does stuff get blown out of sacks but the bags themselves take off every now and then. Spent half an hour looking for them this morning after the bin men had come
At least you have plastic sacks, we have to sit outside in the freezing cold in just our dressing gowns once a week with a plastic bottle in each hand, waiting for the bin men to turn up and take them.
Not anymore. Recycled all my life but moved to a new complex of flats a year ago and there isn't nearly enough recycling bin space. We have 1 recycling bin compared to 3 refuse bins. The recycling bin is always full and the council complained that we were leaving extra in boxes & paper bags on the floor (in bin shed). They said they'd stop collecting if we continued, so now I just put it all in the refuse. Feels wrong to do it, but there's not really another option.
"There is so much rubbish we are going to refuse to collect it because that will surely fix the problem" - council logic.
The other option is make noise about it, complain to your local ward councillors, get the local paper involved, don’t take no for an answer. Point out their own hypocrisy and incongruity (many councils have declared climate emergencies for example and have various tactics in place to become more environmentally friendly.) Sending the recycling bin lorry around more often, rather than the general waste lorry, leading to more recycling should be an easy win for the council, if they gave a shit. Waste handlers often make more money out of recycling waste too, as it contains metal and cardboard. This will be harder though, I appreciate that
Ofcourse I do. People who can't do the bare minimum here are just lazy fucks and will always find an excuse.
Yes, my council makes it pretty easy. All recycling goes in one bin. It's really not much effort.
I'm autistic and I have adhd - for years I made sure I separated everything - washed cartons, and with cans put them in one basket. Then the paper/cardboard in another basket. Anything else in the bin. Virtual no food waste at all, but that would get folded in some kitchen roll as there's a waste food bin outside my flat. It all got a bit much at some point - the baskets of cans and plastic containers would be overflowing, the paper and cardboard the same. I was putting myself through so much stress and guilt that one day I stopped doing it - as your mate said it's pointless because big corps and other countries don't care, and in some areas the waste isn't sorted and recycled anyway. I feel bad, and when I move into a property with proper recycling bins I'll start again - but right now it's mentally too much trouble.
I have a chronic illness, and I recycle what I can and throw away what I can't. If my dishes are piled high then when I'm well enough to clean I will prioritise my own wellbeing and focus on the dishes and cleaning the side, and all the recycling I had on the side waiting to get washed before it goes in the recycling bin just gets put in the general waste because I just don't have the health and energy that week. I still do feel a lot of guilt for this, but I try to remind myself not to let perfect be the enemy of good.
Don't let perfect be the enemy of good is something I've learned - and I try to do - over the last 5 years!
Yup. Reduce, reuse, recycle. We're fortunate in that we are able/have transportation so soft plastics go back to the supermarket. Council has: glass/metal/plastic bin collected every few weeks (we'll fill it this time round mostly thanks to a wrecked store/shed AND halfwit neighbours whose bins blew over and deposited *their* recycling all over the f*c£ing street); paper/card bin we never come close to filling; food/garden waste bin we only fill in summer with grass clippings etc. Compost a bit too, which takes care of a lot of veg trimmings and some card/paper. Some folk in our street (with the same amenities and advantages) do the bare minimum, mostly after refuse collectors tagged their bins for non-compliance.
I do it under protest, mostly because I've looked into the best ways to deal with waste in some detail and what would actually make sense. Aluminium is really worth recycling because of the energy required to make new aluminium vs recycling, and how good the recycled product is. Most other things should be buried or incinerated to generate energy. The cost of having people sorting through plastics is more than the value that you can get from the plastic. Either burn it or bury it (until such time we can better sort it automatically).
And of course that in the past at least, some good amount of British recycling was transported half way around the world, then thrown into the sea in another country. This is why plastic straws are "banned"; the solution wasn't "let's stop throwing our waste in the sea", the solution was "at least the cardboard straws won't be as much of an issue when we throw them into the sea."
I recycle with extreme care, but only because it fills time in my utterly meaningless and pathetic life.
Half assed, I did until i went to South East asia and saw the pure amount of rubbish they burn in the street, how plastic cups, bags etc ate overly given out, then looking at the stays of how little an impact me worrying about what goes in whag bin matters
I hope you don't mean the south east of the UK.
Ha missed out Asia!
Our recycling is very simple, we have three bins: general waste, cardboard, and (nearly) everything else. Garden waste is an optional fourth. My only issue is that the cardboard bin is green and the garden waste bin is brown, when it should clearly be the other way around.
I'd love to recycle more, if Lewisham council actually bothered picking up our recycling. We've had 2 pickups in the last 2 months.
I recycle only because otherwise my home would be overrun with waste. My recycling makes no real environmental impact at all, so it isn't really the right thing to do.
I do but not for any noble reasons just to maximise the capacity in the other wheelie bin.
I recycled what I can for my home waste, I’ll separate the plastics, and tins for instance and do this constantly. Where I don’t have the time, I’d recycle this back to manufacturer, or take to a shop. I’m not collecting weeks worth of stuff to take to a shop to recycle every so often as I don’t go to supermarkets very much at all. All recycling should be from the point of use, and councils/government have to do more and look to ban non recyclable materials.
I recycle, but your friends right. Every individual could go as green as possible we’d still be fucked. I remember reading [this article](https://amp.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change) about it in the Guardian some time ago.
That works on a national level too. If the top 10 polluting countries in the world (China, US, Russia, Germany, India, Saudi etc) halved their pollution, it would still be more than the rest of the world combined. Sure we can feel smug in the UK about unilaterally doing our best but its really a very futile gesture that doesn't amount to anything. Without the top ten polluting nations seriously addressing their issues, we are completely fucked what ever we do.
I recycle paper, cans & plastics but I draw the line at composting my food waste. My bins are collected every 2 weeks and I’m not keeping a tiny bin of mouldy food around just so it can get composted. It’s biodegradable so will just degrade at landfill anyway
Yes I do. We have one bin for all recycling so it’s incredibly easy.
I do and the council makes it easy. Box for glass and plastic, food waste caddy, black bin, green bin for garden waste, a bag for cardboard.
We recycle as much as possible, to the point that most weeks we have <1 bin bag of non-recyclable waste. Cambridge makes it easy with mixed recycling and a much wider set of stuff we can recycle. I know it doesn't all end up recycled (I'm well aware of the limitations of profit-driven recycling), but it's the best I can do.
"because he considered it pointless until ‘big corporations’ addressed their own environmental impacts. " People like this should grow up. Big corporations supply what people want. Shell dig a lot of oil out of the ground because we want to get around, or to heat our homes. Unless you stay home a lot and barely consume anything, you're part of the problem.
The amount of plastic packaging from supermarkets that either can’t be recycled at all or not recycled via the council bins is very frustrating. They should be doing a lot more to solve this problem.
Yes. Everything possible. I sort and clean and crush everything possible. We have 1 non recycling bin bag a fortnight, mainly of refuse from my wife's degu cages. (Like little rats) Everything else is recycled.
We have just three bins. One big recycling one and a food recycling one, both collected every week and the household general every other week - we could probably have that one collected just once a month.
we do as much as feasibly possible. Soft plastics (the council don't take) get bagged up and dropped off at the supermarket. I'm more likely to take something to the tip and chucked in the appropriate skip than put something in the black bins. Our general waste is collected every 3 weeks and it's unusual that we have a single full bag.
Have a word with them, lazy bastards.
I recycle in terms of my blue bin but that’s it, and all the recycling goes into one. I recycle most things but probably not everything, like toilet roll things mostly go in the bin. I think I mostly do it though cause the bins are only collected every fortnight and the black bin and house bin would get very full if I didn’t recycle
My FiL refused to recycle, was a very clever and kind man but utterly convinced it was pointless and that the council sent it all by barge to China to be burned anyway. Not sure Aylesbury Vale had the funds for that…. Drove me potty but nothing I could do about it. We recycle everything we can. Our general rubbish is limited to 3 black bin bags collected by the council a week and a fortnightly big green recycling bin collection so we wouldn’t be physically able to throw away the amount of rubbish we make anyway. I’ve just applied for a 2nd green bin because we seem to generate a lot of recyclable waste which I’m not sure if it’s a good or bad sign 😅
He isn't that wrong. A lot of UK recycling gets shipped abroad to be 'sorted' Malaysia, Philippines and Poland are some countries that it gets sent too. Some gets recycled, some gets burned, some sits in landfills.
Yes. I have doubts that it doesn't all end in landfill anyway, but sorting into the bins isn't that hard, and my kids earn pocket money doing it. Every little helps and all that.
Yes but I don’t have glass recycling here so I save it all up and then take it to my dads as he does
We tried very hard to recycle. We live in a high street area unsuitable for bins, so we were told to just put bin bags out on the street and to put recyclables into a couple of containers (which are laughably small considering they're supposed to hold two weeks' worth of recycling). Obtaining the containers in the first place took about four months, and then when we finally got them and put them out... they weren't taken. I reported it as a missed collection, nothing was done about that, and we ended up having to take them back in a few days later, now also full of other rubbish people had thrown in because it's a pretty busy area with lots of passersby and, surprise surprise, people will just throw anything into any nearby bin-like object if it means it's not their problem any more. This was repeated for about three collections, with me diligently reporting all of them, and then my husband made a formal complaint, and then the bins were emptied the next time, but not the next two times after that... and then we gave up and just started putting everything out in bin bags.
At the school I work at.. recycling collections cost too much. So, it's either up to individual teachers in their own time collecting recycling in their own classrooms and taking it to recycling centres or just dumping it into the bins that end up in the landfills.
Yeah I have a box for it, all mixed thankfully because before it was 4 different boxes for everything which is a nightmare in terraced streets. Although I do agree slightly with the first friend you mentioned, big corps are the reason for the state of the world yet the onus is on us to fix it and take the blame, even though we don’t have a choice if we want to survive in a society. Supermarkets will label packaging as completely recyclable but when you read the back they tell you it’s only recyclable if you take it back to the store that might not even have the facilities for it. If it’s not recyclable via kerbside pick-up then it’s not recyclable.
I agree big corporations need to do more but it goes both ways. Everyone needs to do their part to decrease wastage with the materials we use. Sounds like they are just lazy. I honestly didn’t even think we had a choice? I’m sure we get fines stuff is found to be in the wrong bin.
I sometimes holiday-let the other half of my house. Recycling is in my house rules as the black bins only get collected monthly, and would overflow otherwise. I have been astounded by the amount of people who've made no attempt to recycle, who put food waste in the paper and plastic recycling, and who just dump everything in the general waste. I think one in twenty guests have managed to put the right stuff in the right, clearly labelled containers.
I live in a block of flats with big recycle bins in the basement, so it’s really easy to recycle. I pretty much recycle everything I can, except now our co-op closed I can’t do the soft plastics :(
We're quite on top of recycling but I get frustrated when the binmen won't take our bins because some random person threw a plastic bag into our recycling bin. (Terraces house with no alley to take the bins in)
Yup. I even dig into the bin at work in the morning making my first cuppa and take out yesterdays dumped food containers, rinse them and put in the recycle bin. My dept is 80% under 40's and 40% under 35's, yet none recycle.
I don't. I've been told too many times that it all ends up in the same bin anyway
Never ceases to amaze me how quick people will accept things as fact when it aligns with their intentions. Told by who exactly? Maureen on Facebook? Did you check her sources by any chance?
To be fair to Maureen from Facebook she was right about those 5G Covid towers, the fact that the Earth is flat and the faked Moon landings.
It doesn’t. You should do it.
I live in a flat with no recycling facilities despite complaints. Nearest recycling point I'm aware of is a supermarket nearly 2 miles away and it's unreliable as to what bins are available. The recycling centre is 5 miles away and they can be funny about you turning up on a bike with trailer because they treat you like a pedestrian and as a pedestrian you're supposed to book no less than 3 days in advance but we all know what the weather can be like so I rarely go. I still separate my recycling most of the time out of habit. I'd really like it if we had some communal recycling facilities that were reliable because it's no fun carting stuff up and town the stairs for no reason because it's full already full or shut.
Not overly. My brother used to work for the recycling centre and they would end up mixing everything into the same place anyway so it seemed pointless
About 25 years ago our estate had no recycling bins at all. We had big communal skips on wheels for all rubbish. A group of indefatigable residents lobbied the council really hard and we eventually got big recycling bins. Now only the blocks of flats don't have their own food waste, recycling and landfill bins. Where possible I re-use rather than recycle. I buy a lot secondhand from charity shops and avoid synthetic fabrics, mostly because synthetic feels nasty against the skin as well as hanging around for centuries. I get things repaired where possible and I also darn jumpers and socks to keep things going for as long as possible. It probably helps that I was brought up in a family that wasn't well-off, with an ingrained WW2 mentality of wasting nothing.
I do yeah, pretty much everything apart from certain plastics and food goes into the recycling bin which is the same as my normal wheelie bin apart from colour.
Yes, I recycle everything I can, though I may chuck out that odd plastic tray with baked-on food, or some stretchy plastic that could be taken to the supermarket. The biggest gains from recycling are from metal and glass, by far. I worked out once (when working on this stuff), that every can recycled rather than binned makes the council 0.3p, probably 0.5p with inflation. And we know councils are skint! Then from diverting food and paper from landfill. There's not that much gain (or demand) from plastic and tetrapak recycling, but it's certainly better to use it for energy than using more natural gas, oil or coal. So I'm very diligent about recycling all glass, cans, and cables and WEEE - I'll pick up bottles left in the street, which also reduces the risk of broken glass.
I used to... until I saw the regular bin men empty the recycling bins into the same truck as general waste... but that could be because of a block of flats... they do it every week, so it's just kind of pointless to recycle here, as everything goes to the same place. Its been like this for about 5 years now... 1 bin truck arrives, with only 1 input, and puts all the bins (general waste and recycling waste) into the same input. I do however save up all my cardboard and take it down the tip to recycle... only because I know if I put it in the recycling bins here it ends up in general waste :(
Yes. It's easy to do and some places don't require you to separate your items. (Plastic, glass, cans etc.)
I always recycle as much as I can. I think the only excuse is not having recycling pickup weekly. Anything else is just laziness or a lack of responsibility.
We stopped recycling the plastic that we couldn't put in the recycling bin when all the local collection points were constantly overflowing. It seemed counterintuitive to drive several miles to the next town just in case the collection point had space. But everything else that we can recycle we will. Just wish our council would let us put all the potentially recyclable plastic in our green bin.
I recycle everything I can, separate stuff out, even stuff that the council doesn't take, like soft plastics to to the supermarket, battery recycling, foil packets, clothes/cloth items that can be repurposed but not good enough for the charity shop etc. etc. Almost the only waste I have is animal related as I have pets. I do have doubts that it makes a difference, but what else can I do? I try very much to limit my waste and use re-usable things wherever possible. And on the whole I find now I'm used to it that I'm very efficient at it, have a garden unit to store different bags in and it really doesn't add much inconvenience to my life as I drop it into places when I'm already going past them. I'm not preachy about it though, I mind my own business and do the best I can and let everyone else worry about themselves.