recycling

[blimp]

our council recycle but seem to do it half heartedly...they give us two tubs one for paper and card..in which we are not allowed to put egg box's or cardboard from kids new toys packaging the reason for which i can't understand..the other tub is for plastic and tins..such as milk cartons bean tins..yet we cant put in any plastic that comes with say frozen lasagne..why are they so picky about what you can recycle?...and are all council recycling schemes like this??..

[Recycle(admin)]

ive had many emails like that complaining about their local council that have silly ways of recycling. Maybe we need to user guide on how councils should attack recycling

[blimp]

yes paul that sounds like a good idea to me,councils should when a year trial is up ask people what they think the council could do to improve how the recycling is done...our council empties the recyling tubs every week yet only empty our wheelie bins fortnightly,which creates havoc as we always have atleast 3 binliners full of rubbish extra which the bin men will not take,so surely it makes more sense to empty the wheelie bins weekly and the recyling fortnightly, i know im not the only person to have problems with rubbish back log in this area,and because there is only 5 people in my household we can not have an extra bin...but could if there was 6 of us...anyway that's my grump for the day done lol..

[Recycle(admin)]

i can see your frustration.. Ok if you or anyone have any ideas on how we can get the message across here on Recycle.co.uk please contact me.

[Beaker_smiles]

As a recycling officer for a council, I take offence when people automatically blame the council about things that aren't recycled. The truth is, most councils will recycle what is economically viable to recycle, it makes sense. Plastic bottles (HTPE and PET), glass, paper, card and aluminium all have good markets, so they are easy to recycle. Tetra-pak is cheap to make, but expensive to recycle, and as the onus in this country is for the end user to pay for disposal costs and not the manufacturer, it is very difficult and expensive to recycle. This of course doesn't stop Tetra-pak from getting everybody to write and complain to their council.

Ultimately, the manufacturer should be made to cover disposal costs. This would make manufacturers look at the quantity and quality of packaging they use, would reduce costs to councils; but would drive up shelf prices, so those choosing the un-environmentally freindly products would pay for the privelage, and would bring us in line with Europe.

[Recycle(admin)]

hi beaker and thank you for joing Recycle.co.uk.

i understand what you are saying but i get many emails asking for me to display on here what councils can and cannot recycle and what they collect. This is why i did the council finder which lists all the uk councils, i then started contacting councils to give me a giude on what they can or cannot recycle or collect. as off now i emailed about 200 councils and have not recieved 1 reply back. so i dont think councils want to get involved. i could be qrong though

[Beaker_smiles]

Well if it helps, in Milton Keynes we accept glass in a blue recycling box, and we have a pink sack for paper (any grade except waxed, even shredded), card, envelopes without windows, any plastic bottles (without lids) drinks and food tins. Where applicable these should be rinsed clean. A more comprehensive list can be found at www.milton-keynes.gov.uk/recycling as we also have foil, and textile banks around the city. Domestic Batteries can be taken to PC World/Currys/Dixons who have battery banks instore (although you may have to prompt them to find them from under the counter) and Sainsbury is due to roll out a freepost battery scheme during the course of this month, although so far the staff instore know very little about it, so I am trying to get hold of the companies national recycling manager to get roll out details.

I hope that helps.

[sustento]

Hi all,

My local council are refusing to recycle any plastics anyone else come across this?
Short of driving to the nearest district which does, I'm stumped!

To quote their website:
Plastics are light and springy and expensive to transport because they're bulky. However, we are working on cost-effective ways of recycling them as we recognise that this is a service you want. There will be widespread publicity when we are able to recycle plastics in North Somerset.


just thought i'd have a moan...!

Dave from Sustento.co.uk