Why Recycling is BAD for the Environment

[edcayton]

Having just put the stuff out for the dawn chorus of the big wagon in the morning. It seems to me that MY environment is the street I live in. Now every front garden is full of tatty multi-coloured plastic bins and boxes, many of which are broken and/or overflowing. These houses were built with a dedicated place to store an old-fashioned metal bin.

 

Is it me?

 

While I'm at it, surely it's not beyond the wit of man to send the street-sweeping cart and litter-picking lady AFTER the bin-men have made their mess.

 

It's enough to make me want to move to Tumbridge Wells.

 

ED

[Robert]

Yes - and no!

 

In my humble opinion The British attitude to recycling is somewhat laughable. In many places, it seems to be that Recycling is only done if it makes money - only plastics type 1, 2 or 3, no newspapers and so on. That rather defeats the idea which is to reuse materials and save resources.

 

Those small plastic boxes are also ludicrous - not only are they of insufficient size, but they are also prone to spilling their contents. Give everyone a wheelie bins instead and the problem is much reduced. Also, if the bin men where my parents live are anything to go by, what is the point of seperating everything given that they are just going to chuck it all in one truck?!?

[NGT6 1315]

Also, if the bin men where my parents live are anything to go by, what is the point of seperating everything given that they are just going to chuck it all in one truck?!?

 

That definitely is pointless! I cannot help but wonder if the councils even care about that in the first place, given that this appears to be common practice for the franchise holders.

[Enterprisingwestern]

And another thing, what exactly are we saving when everything has to be rinsed clean before recycling, thereby wasting water, heating etc? Does the energy used not count when it's in relation to recycling?

[Dukedog]

What amazes me is the difference between local authorities.

When we lived in Telford almost every thing was recycled we had 3 plastic boxes, (Paper, Glass, Metal) a net bag (Plastic bottles) another bag for cardboard and a green wheelie bin for garden waste. that was over and above the normal Black wheelie bin for anything else. Collection was every two weeks .Week 1 was green bin & recycling and week 2 was black bin week.

 

Back in Stourbridge (Dudley MBC) we have just 1 box for recycling and NO wheelie bin for normal rubbish just plastic bags that cats love to rip open and drag the contents all over the street. BOTH are collected weekly, recycling on Wednesday and everything else on a Friday.

 

The difference between two councils just a few miles apart is staggering.

 

Cheers

Frank

[Tase]

In London the situation is worse still. All of the 32 boroughs have different policies on what will or won't be taken away for recycling. I do not understand why the Mayor cannot coordinate a London wide consistent policy.

Here is Bexley we have a green box for paper, a red box for plastic and metal, a black box for glass, a brown wheelie bin for garden waste and green wheelie bin for non recyclables! The recyclable stuff gets collected every week the green wheelie bin once a fortnight. All this amounts to 4 dust carts down the street every week!

Also, dont get me started on the amount of litter left behind on the streets afterwards....

[Jol Wilkinson]

In London the situation is worse still. All of the 32 boroughs have different policies on what will or won't be taken away for recycling. I do not understand why the Mayor cannot coordinate a London wide consistent policy.

 

Tase,

 

don't forget this is Boris you are talking about!

 

Even worse, why can't the government impose a nation wide policy? Answer - because they are politicians, with personal agendas and priorities. National common sense actions don't matter, unless they think it'll affect their short term popularity, like Fuel Duty.

 

Jol

[bcnPete]

Must admit, they do this quite well in Barcelona, Spain.

 

Almost at the end of every street there are large bins, with one each for plastics, glass and paper. Next to these are two large bins for 'all other' waste.

 

Everyone is expected to put their own rubbish out in these so it is rare to see rubbish piled up outside dwellings - infact I have only seen 1 rat in the five years we are living here...bit different to when we lived in London

 

There are lorries continually driving around emptying the various bins every day, the streets and pavements are jetwashed regularly with water and once a week I take all our recycled stuff to the 'tip' and as an incentive we get 10% discount from our water bill.

 

So from that point, there is much to learn perhaps - I just wish they could sort out the bloomin economy here though...

[The Stationmaster]

We have 3 wheelie bins - black for non-recyclable, brown for 'green garden recyclables, and green for recyclables - plastic, bottles, tins, and paper; it is by far the largest bin of the three. This week the collection is brown bin and green bin, next week it will be the black bin and they simply alternate every other week like that. We also have a smaller bin for foodstuff leftovers which is collected weekly.

\

The system works well although I do wonder about the costs of sorting the recyclables (which really does take place - the Chairman of the District Council has explained to me how it works and the economics of it and it appears to be cost neutral once the capital cost is paid off). Overall it's a good system and they do take extra recyclables in boxes and suitable bags if it's set outside the gate properly.

[BG John]

It's far better for the environment not to consume stuff in the first place. Then it doesn't need recycling, and you can save money to spend on model railways!

[Torn-on-the-platform]

As long as it makes a positive difference to our future environment, seeing multicoloured bins out in the street is a small price to pay.

 

I can see why the situation is frustrating though, in Sheffield, what goes into our blue wheelie bin seems to change monthly. If you don't have the right stuff in your bin, they don't empty it. They haven't allowed plastic recycling in over 2 years, and I don't have time to go down to the nearest recycling point every time my 4 housemates and I fill a bag with plastic recycling. I really don't like seeing it get thrown in the black bin, but we have little choice really.

[Kenton]

Yes - and no!

 

In my humble opinion The British attitude to recycling is somewhat laughable.  In many places, it seems to be that Recycling is only done if it makes money - only plastics type 1, 2 or 3, no newspapers and so on.  That rather defeats the idea which is to reuse materials and save resources.

 

Oh is that really the point!?

What a lot of twaddle.

 

All a load of rubbish.

 

The best one is the separate bins for different coloured glass. When collected it all goes into the same lorry (as it does at the recycling plant) It is not recycled to make glass and even if it was the process of crushing and melting the glass would remove all of the "colour".

 

Our local "environmentalist warriors" (council) have changed the whole setup this year. What a mess, issued with bags (too few and too small to fit any bin) with the option to pay for more, they have stopped taking green waste (about the most useful recycled item) unless you purchase some monstrous wheelie bin that we would struggle to fill in 6 months (even with the size of our garden). Yet they send a lorry round every week to empty them (the few that have bothered to subscribe).

 

Yes, they collect plastic, metal and paper/card - but only if it fits in the box. Then it all goes into a big wheelie bin they then empty into the lorry. That is if they haven't spilt it all over the road in the process.

 

Added to that the feral cats, squirrels and foxes around here tear the flimsy bags apart and spread the contents around the neighbourhood.

[jonny777]

My opinion is that those folk who are too lazy or too set in their ways to be bothered separating anything for recycling, will search for any excuse not to do it.

 

This is why we get the "it costs more to recycle than empty into landfill", and "the streets are untidy/filthy/obstructed arguments" occurring at regular intervals, no doubt inspired by overblown tabloid stories about petty minded council officials.

 

Our recycling (glass, cans, paper, cardboard, plastic, household batteries, food waste) is collected once a week; and garden (compostable) waste once a fortnight, which alternates with our black bin bag collection which is also once every two weeks.

 

I recycle so much that the black bag refuse collection could quite easily be reduced to once a month and I still would not have filled my wheelie bin.

 

In the days before kerb-side recycling, I used to take everything to the local supermarket car park where they had large containers for most items. I have been recycling all this stuff for well over 20 years with no problem and still the whingers go on and on.

 

 

If I can do it, then everyone can.

[S.A.C Martin]

Tase,

 

don't forget this is Boris you are talking about!

 

A bit unfair as its the councils which have the final say on the policies they implement, not Boris Johnson. You could have said exactly the same thing of Ken Livingstone when he was mayor of London, and it would have been just as unfair to put the onus on him.

 

The councils in London have had differing policies on waste collections for decades. That doesn't look like it will change any time soon. The only way it will change is to become an issue that most of London feels strongly enough about to stand up and be counted. Nobody ever does, so nothing will ever change. For the record, I come from Sidcup (Bexley Council) and their policy on recycling in terms of having the plethora of different boxes and wheelie bins sounds good in theory, but the boxes aren't big enough (and probably as stated earlier, wheelie bins would better serve that sort of recycling).

 

I think it's time there was a nationwide consistency in recycling, but since that's left up to local councils and not overall government, the likelihood of that happening is negligible.

[Horsetan]

Clearly some councils have bigger budgets to spend on plant / equipment / spying / bullying tactics.

[Robert]

Oh is that really the point!?

What a lot of twaddle.

 

All a load of rubbish.

 

Yes - the point of recycling is to reuse materials and save resources - not to try and make money out of doing it.

 

I wouldn't say that is a lot of twaddle, it is actually a good idea. How many councils have gone about it is the problem.

[Herr Dienstleiter]

My local landfill site is now 3/4 full which has concentrated minds very well. We have a green weedie bin (all green garden waste) a black wheelie bin (landfill) and clear plastic bags for paper, plastic, card and paper. Bags and weeds alternate with landfill so there is one collection a week. Christmas trees are removed on a particular day in the New Year. They do not collect glass because they had already spent a lot of money on glass bins in the city council car parks.

 

The community tip site takes all manner of things, I call in every couple of months on the way to somewhere else (no extra fuel cost) and leave scrap timber or metal, electrical bits, printer cartridges and a whole range of other things.

 

The problem is that we have to be organised about it - and the English can't bear that! I have lived in houses in Switzerland, Austria and the Netherlands and in all those countries the degree of pre-sorting that people are happy to do is amazing ... that might be why they regularly hit reclying percentages in the high sixties - they have the civic awareness that we cannot landfill sites if there is no-where to but them.

 

Don't anyone start talking about cuttings on the former sections of the Bluebell Railway ;-)

[DLT]

My opinion is that those folk who are too lazy or too set in their ways to be bothered separating anything for recycling, will search for any excuse not to do it.

 

This is why we get the "it costs more to recycle than empty into landfill", and "the streets are untidy/filthy/obstructed arguments" occurring at regular intervals, no doubt inspired by overblown tabloid stories about petty minded council officials.

 

Our recycling (glass, cans, paper, cardboard, plastic, household batteries, food waste) is collected once a week; and garden (compostable) waste once a fortnight, which alternates with our black bin bag collection which is also once every two weeks.

 

I recycle so much that the black bag refuse collection could quite easily be reduced to once a month and I still would not have filled my wheelie bin.

 

In the days before kerb-side recycling, I used to take everything to the local supermarket car park where they had large containers for most items. I have been recycling all this stuff for well over 20 years with no problem and still the whingers go on and on.

 

 

If I can do it, then everyone can.

Quite right Jonny. Here we have alternating fortnightly collections, works a treat. We fill our green bin to the top, the only recyclable material we cant put in it is glass, but there are bottle banks everywhere. Our black (rubbish) bin rarely gets more than a quarter full, unless we've had a big clearout.

 

Others seem to fill their black bins to overflowing, but take a look at it and its mostly recyclable stuff that they can't be bothered to sort!

 

Another aspect of this that never seems to be addressed is that the emphasis is all on disposal, never on reduction. We really need to reduce the amount of rubbish that we produce. Our green bin is filled mostly with packaging.

 

The problem is that no Government will take on the Supermarkets and force them to reduce their packaging, or make THEM responsible for rubbish disposal. Instead its a buck-passing exercise, by telling local councils that THEY are responsible for reducing THEIR landfill. Which is why we are left with such a mishmash of differing regulations

 

Dave.

[AndrewC]

In London the situation is worse still. All of the 32 boroughs have different policies on what will or won't be taken away for recycling. I do not understand why the Mayor cannot coordinate a London wide consistent policy.

Here is Bexley we have a green box for paper, a red box for plastic and metal, a black box for glass, a brown wheelie bin for garden waste and green wheelie bin for non recyclables! The recyclable stuff gets collected every week the green wheelie bin once a fortnight. All this amounts to 4 dust carts down the street every week!

Also, dont get me started on the amount of litter left behind on the streets afterwards....

Wow, I thought I was the only resident of the boring borough on this forum. Howdy neighbour!

 

I know what you mean though. Our front garden resmbles a bin storage facility these days. Don't get me started on the fact the company (Serco) that picks up for Bexley has a habit of losing the lids or breaking the boxes when they collect. We end up having to get at least 1 box or lid replaced every month.

 

Its easy to blame the councils but in reality the number of bins and types of material collected is down to the recycling and waste management company that operates on their behalf. In Lewisham we had 2 bins. 1 for non-recyclable and 1 for recyclables. They took all glass, plastic 1-6, paper, cardboard, etc in the 1 wheelie bin. Bexley won't take numbered plastics at all. They just restrict to "plastic bottles". Anything else has to be taken to a drop off facility or to one of the main recycling depots.

 

Oh and for the Boris basher, the delegation of waste management to the borough councils happened long before London had a Mayor.

[Grafarman]

In East London the recycling/street services contract has been given back to the guys who did the worst job last time - why? Because they proffered the cheapest quote!! It's all about money folks...

 

I really do want to perform 'proper' recycling and have it separated out, but we are only given the brown, green and black wheelie bins and numerous times I have seen the composite rubbish lorry being loaded with recycling items in the general rubbish chute and visa versa...add to that the trail of debris following the lorry and you might as well chuck the whole lot in a pile in the middle of the road!!

 

My parents in North Wales however have several bins/bags/containers to properly sort out the recycling and general waste and they never have anything left on the pavements afterwards...

[Robert]

You make a very good point Andrew - it isn't just the councils fault.

 

Here in Germany, most bottles have a deposit on them. You take the bottles back to the supermarket and reclaim the deposit. Also, all supermarkets have to provide facilities to recycle their packaging. Some people go as far as to remove the packaging from the items they have bought when they have paid for them, and before they leave. The same goes for old car batteries, engine oil and so on. You buy the new battery or oil, and the store will take the old battery/oil back.

 

We have three bins (this varies from area to area):

 

One for bio rubbish (garden waste, kitchen waste and so forth) which is used by the council to make compost

One for packaging and paper - All types

One for non-recyclable waste.

 

Bio is emptied every week, the others on alternate weeks. My non-recyclable waste wheelie bin is rarely anywhere near full.

[mezzoman253]

We have:-

 

A wheelie bin (green) for garden waste/food waste ( both cooked & raw). Collected weekly at around 07:30.

Pink sacks for all recyclables. Collected around 10:00.

A small box(black) for glass, all colours. but only bottles and jars, collected at 07:20, any other glass goes in the.........

Black sacks for any other rubbish. Collected every other week at around 14:00.

 

Now considering only the green waste and bottles/jars are collected before 10:00. Why do we have to put the others out after 7PM the day before?? So the foxes ferrel cats, ferrel youths, etc, can get at them overnight. Most people could put then out in the morning, as we do.

 

Rob

[petethemole]

In Southampton we have 2 wheelie bins, one for refuse, emptied weekly by the council but passed on to Veolia for disposal. In theory, about 80% of the total goes to a local incinerator, all very modern, that generates power and produces aggregate. Recycling including plastic bottles but not glass goes in a blue top bin collected every 2 weeks. Glass goes to bottle banks except presumably for those that can't get there or can't be bothered. It all works fairly well if people use the right bins. Recycling goes to Veolia for sorting, my wife went on a public visit and saw it happening, partly mechanical and part manual. Most of our general waste seems to be unrecyclable plastic packaging!

Pete

[melmerby]

In Worcestershire we get three large wheelie bins:

Green: recyclables - most things accepted except black plastics

Grey: Landfill - anything not recyclable.

Brown: Garden waste (It's composted and sold in bags for re-use)

 

The recyclables go to an automated plant where it is all sorted, plastics into type, paper, card, metals ferrous and none ferrous, glass various colours.

I believe it was one of the first (if not the first) in the country as it was operating before "The First" was feature elsewhere on the telly!

 

N.B. Black plastic cannot be recognized by type by the scanners so is not recycled at present

 

Keith

[Kenton]

Yes - the point of recycling is to reuse materials and save resources - not to try and make money out of doing it.

 

If so, then one of the first places to start is with the manufacturers. Only plastics that are recyclable should be supplied and sold for consumer use and disposal.

 

Then any disposal of those consumed plastics should be a nationwide process that is fine tuned to cost as little and be simple. A consumer shouldn't need a degree in plastics recognition to pre-sort.

The same should apply to metals - just because it is too big to fit in a particular box shouldn't result in it not being recycled!

 

I have always composted organic waste as it has a clear benefit to me. All this other "environmental" nonsense does not have a clear benefit just inconvenience, cost and mess.

 

But, I am old enough to remember the dustbin collections in the 50's - very friendly - one metal dustbin that contained very little in the way of waste (no plastics, no throw away society) most organic matter was composted, paper was simply burned and added to the coal ash being dug in to the garden. Really just the empty tins - and now they would be "recycled" - much in the way they always have been.