Recycling dilalema / rant

[keepersdaughter]

I live in what is the equivalent of a 'new town' here. The town was started in the 60s and is quite modern. However, recycling facilities leave a lot to be desired to say the least. I've been recycling what I can in our very cramped utility room, a tiny space, awkwardly positioned with laundry, shoes, broom , mop and bucket, etc. all falling over each other. Can't easily take stuff outside as we live in a 3 storey detached townhouse type of property with two very steep flights of stairs (carrying stuff up and down has already caused injury to my back).

The garbage pickup(binman) is a private company who picks up once a week, they offer an additional recycling service whereby they leave one green vegetable type crate measuring approx. 15 inch wide by 26 inch long by about 15 inch high. In that they will take plastic bottles, newspapers, magazines, cans, no glass etc. They will not take anything other than what will fit in to this one crate. They charge $29 a quarter for the additional recyling. The city (town) has three separate recyling places where you can take stuff yourself and this is what I have been doing for nearly 2 hours this morning; driving from one facility to the next because one only opens Wed. afternoons and Sat. mornings and will only take sm. garden waste, paper and cardboard, drove to the other which will take cardboard, plastic bottles, newspapers and magazines, drove to the supermarket which is the only place that takes used plastic bags, though I do take several string type bags for grocery shopping always seem to end up with a few plastic by the end of the week. I didn't calculate the mileage, and I came back with several items which no-one is interested in taking, glass bottles being one.

I was so frustrated and got into a huge argument with my OH because he now refuses to let me recycle at all because of the petrol used and time spent driving to and fro. I called the city public works and asked why it is this way and what can be done, if anything, to change matters, and was anything planned for the future to improve things etc. She just laughed me off. She told me no-one is interested in taking glass for example. I asked if it was all about making money and she admitted they made a small profit from recycling though cannot make any money from glass so no-one will take it anymore, you have to throw it away with household rubbish!!!!!. (I'm sure glass can be crushed and used in the garden, but that's a whole other story and beside the point). I called the next town over - there's a landfill transfer station dump that charges you by the bag to take stuff. About a 20 mile round trip, but, again, will only accept certain items!.

I don't want to turn this into a personal rant about all the frustrations and things I hate about US and the throw away society mentality or the differences of opinions OH and I have over this matter, but I'm so frustrated and at a loss to know what to do. I refuse to just throw everything in the bin, but don't like having to spend so much time and money on petrol trying to get everything recycled. Any ideas?

Sorry this was so long :o.

[franbee]

I suppose you might have to look at the problem from another angle, for instance, is there any way you could cut down on the amount of 'rubbish' coming into the house, leave packaging at the supermarket, for instance, or don't buy a paper, watch the news on TV instead. Or can you reuse some of the things, glass jars, plastic bottles? If you don't have as much stuff to get rid of you might feel better about putting it in the bin. There's a lady with a website, used to post on CL forum. I'll put a link on. www.recycle-eh

[keepersdaughter]

We don't get a paper delivered, but we get at least 3 freebie newspapers thrown on the lawn every week. Tried to stop them, but they use deliverers who drive by slowly in the early hours of the morning and just throw them randomly from their cars. My OH has several magazines delivered - work related and you wouldn't believe the amount of junk mail that comes everyday, pizza, mattress, eyeglasses fliers, all that sort of rubbish. I installed a water filer on the sink to save on water bottles, even tried buying aluminium and plastic bottles to fill at home and carry, but it's so hot here through the summer, you end up needing more and the others taste awful. I don't (can't - nothing will grow) grow my own fruit or veg. so all that has to be bought from supermarket. I cook just about everything from scratch, but there are always things that can't be used again. I keep several glass bottles on hand and re-use, but you can only store and re-use so many. I would be interested to see the link though please Fran.

[Clunkshift]

In the UK, some of the recycling is a con too; we don't actually recycle glass into other glass items because it isn't very cost effective, so most of it is ground up and melted into fibres for glass fibre insulation - but I don't think we have figured out how to recycle that when we have finished with it.
It is a worse story with metals, we sold off our steel industry to the Dutch (who sold it to an Indian entrepreneur) and the new owners shut down our only scrap smelting facility. So now all our scrap steel (and most non-ferrous metals) are shipped to Europe for recycling and big trucks come from as far away as Latvia and Lithuania to take away out insurance write-off cars.

I'm sure it all makes sense to someone.

[Rustic Pumpkin]

We are in a proper pickle with our recycling.

We have had glass/paper/cans for some years. These are sited at a car park, and we must take everything there, it is not collected. This causes problems in that some put in things they are not supposed to, others just take it and dump it by the dumpsters.

Two years ago the local eco group established their own 'paid for' system whereby you buy a roll of special bags, fill them and deliver them to a special drop off point where they collect the bags and took them to a local farmer's barn. Trouble is, that is where they stayed. So, we were paying twice to dispose of our plastic. Once to the council and once to the eco group for the bags.

Then they moved the site for collection to the 'tip' and as I haven't got a car, I am now stuck with two half full bags (bottles must be seperated, the bags are massive and take months to fill) and no way to get them there.

Last month the council rolled out their curbside orange bag scheme and to say that this is disatrous is an understatement, based fully on the fact that the general public are wholly incapable of following some very simple instructions, like NO glass!!!!! (health and safety) plastic bottles only (no other plastic) and please wash everything. You'd be amazed at how incapable people are!

At least now I don't have to cart paper and cans through the village to the dumpsters, and only have to carry them to the bottom of the drive.

Then, when you hear the horror stories of recycling being shipped to India and Thailand to be recycled I find myself asking why do I bother?

[franbee]

Sorry, link doesn't seem to work, but if you google 'recycle eh' it comes up.

[Sarahc]

We are quite lucky where we are. Monday is green/garden waste and cardboard and this week they evn left us a new bin specially for all food scraps. We already compost any uncooked veg and the chickens now get quite a few cooked bits but we can now get the rest of the kitchen scraps collected. Tuesday is the standard rubbish collection then Wednesday is the rest of the recycling - glass, plastic, paper, metal - all goes in the same bag. I admit I need to find out where it all goes - the wed bag I know goes to some central recycling plant in Cardiff but I suspect they just sort it there before it gets shipped out. The situation is not ideal but the consolation I take is that at least someone somewhere has found a way to make money from recycling waste that would otherwise end up in landfill. With rising fuel prices it may soon become uneconomical to ship waste to the other side of the world and we will need to find a way of processing it closer to home. Anyway, a little project to find out where my waste goes - will let you know what I find out.

[jazzactivist]

I think that no local authorities have their recycling plan properly worked out yet. They should have, and there is a great opportunity to create local jobs in recycling unwanted items into new products, and for people to buy these locally. However, councillors are often slow on the uptake when it comes to spending long term money...

I have moved from an area where there was one black wheelie bin for rubbish and one blue wheelie bin for recycling - all paper, plastics, tins etc - but not glass. Glass had to be taken to a big bin in the hotel car park. Garden waste was mostly composted by everyone in the village. The recycling goods were collected fortnightly and sorted at a central plant. This wasn't the best system, but not bad either.

Here we have a black wheelie bin for rubbish, a green wheelie bin for garden waste, a blue box for paper, and a blue box for tins and glass. These are collected according to quite a confusing rota. However, there are lots of items that are rejected. Old clothes, cardboard and plastics have to be taken to a recycling collection point (luckily just along the road here). In the paper box they also reject envelopes, even with the windows torn out), anything with logos or sticky stuff on, and glossy magazines. In the glass box you are not allowed to put broken glass but can't put this in any of the other bins either! I have a broken coffee jar just sitting around now. I must admit to being quite bamboozled by the system. At each collection I receive a "contaminated waste" note and some rejected material. I also didn't put my rubbish bin out one week, as there wasn't much in it, and received a note saying that if I don't put it out then it will stop being collected. And I thought that I was quite good about recycling too. I guess I'll get the hang of it.

With regard to growing your own fruit and veg, keepers. It is possible to grow in any containers or in raised beds. There is an entertaining and easy book called The Lazy Kitchen Gardener by John Yeoman that explains how to do all of this without too much effort. Also, try not to buy everything at the supermarket, but at small shops or farm shops where you can put the produce in paper bags, or loose into your own bag.

[Rustic Pumpkin]

Jazzactivist, it sounds to me as if we, the consumer, have got the hang of recycling, it is the authorities whose left hand doesn't know what the right hand is, or should be, doing!

So far, I have not had a 'contaminated' orange bag, but I'm not holding my breath. It is possible that I send more to landfill than necessary under this new scheme because the new scheme itself is complicated.

I think in future we should substitute 'Black Tape' for the old addage of 'Red Tape'!