Do you do your bit for recycling?
We have always saved bottles and papers but the majority has been thrown away in the past.
Now our Borough Council has issued us with ONE purple bag per week and if you want more you have to buy them from the council for 28p each.
They will no longer take black sacks, only official purple ones. So in effect we are being forced into recycling everything possible or face an increased bill for refuse collection.
Are you a recycleholic?
Yup, grew up in Germany.
20 years ago, they were already recycling more than we do now.
I’ll be honest, when I came back from there to live in England, I couldn’t believe how filthy this town is, and how much waste is generated…
OK that make me sound like some greenie hippy, but there’s no difference between throwing rubbish into a rubbish bin or a recycling bin… there’s no greater effort to do one or the other … the effort’s on the part of the people who have to sort it at the other end so why is it so hard to get people to do recycle… ?
I’ve never understood that…
down here in Hampshire we have a black wheelie bin for ordinary rubbish, a blue wheelie bin for recyclable rubbish and a green crate for glass, they collect on alternate weeks, black one week, blue and green the next.
Yep - I recycle lager into p*ss 
I recycle what I can. We have a number of separated bins in the apartments where I live. To be fair I hardly generate any waste - about two carrier bags full a week. I’m well green me…
Why WOULDN’T you recycle?
Loads of us, numbers increasing yr on yr, not enough land for houses or to grow food, etc, means we can’t go on putting waste into landfill, even if it was desirable for ecological reasons. And burning waste is a no-go because of emissions.
If we want the generations who come after us to deal with the problems of our waste, when all it takes is to spend a split second sorting it rather than chucking it all in a bag for landfill, then what sort of ****s does that make us?
Blimey, I don’t even have kids. I’d expect that those of us who do are even keener on not leaving them a legacy of rotting crap to live on top of.
I used to recycle way more in South Africa. The suburb where I lived had 1300 houses, the local rate payers association decided to take over the job because the recycling company was making a loss due to very low participation.
In a few months we had more than 80% participation. A weekly newsletter conataining local interest stuff like the crime stats and who’s dog had puppies was delivered the day before collection, just a little jog to remind us.
They scraped the complex ruling about what went into what bag and what was acceptable or not.
The proceeds from the recycling paid for two salaries, these guys sorted the stuff into the right piles, what couldn’t recycle was thrown into a skip.
The result was the regular rubish bags were usually not full. The truck could get through the pick-up quicker and didn’t have to stop half way to go and get emptied.
We were given (usually two) rubish bags by the municipality, black bags not accepted. Extras could be bought from the supermarket.
Seemed to work very well.
I find it too complicated a system in our borough.
-Steve
I have compulsory recycling in my borough (Waltham Forest) but have recycled most paper/cardboard/tins/bottles for a while anyway.
Only problem is that we have to use black boxes with no lids, so you can imagine the mess on windy days :doze:
None, nothing. My local council is one of those that compresses the whole lot of recycled, sorted bits into a container and ships it out to China/India to polute their countryside. I’d prefer it to go to landfill in the UK, at least we have the money and technology to deal with it if we chose to.
Ive always recycled as much as I can, ever since I left home in fact. Plastic, tins, cardboard, glass, paper and garden waste is what we recycle. Some of this I take to Tescos and use their super duper machine which gives you Clubcard Points too
Personally think this purple sack thing is a good idea, as its forcing the lazy people to think about that they do with their rubbish instead of living in a throw away society and letting someone else foot the bill and our future generations face the consequences of their actions.
We are a family of 4 and yet only put out 1 black bag a week, sometimes forced to use a second bag, so just shows you how much can be recycled.
Chunks, you can still use your black sacks until September, when the purple ones become compulsory.
I’ve recycled everything I can - have done since I was a kid and they started having the collection points at supermarkets… Was in a shared house until recently where I was the one that started it properly and even would sort through what could be recycled and what had to be thrown away, to the point they all learnt and got very efficient at it… then I moved and had to start again, except at the new house none of them were recycling anything at all!!! But now they do… BTW - heard recently that the reason we don’t have to sperate the different colored glass anymore is that it’s all ground down together and used instead of sand for construction and so on… which is what it started out as obviously and since sand is getting very depleted in certain areas, which for a finite resource taking millennia to form, we’d better watch how we use it… especially as lower levels has an impact on tides and marine life…
(OK - enough of the hippie stuff already:w00t: ) one other thing - plastic is about the worst - see Plastic waste Pacific challenge
YES. MY WHOLE FAMILY RECYCLE PAPER,BOTTLES,CANS THE WHOLE LOT
recycler? yeh ive been using the same old jokes and chat up lines for years !!!
and i do my bit with paper cans etc tend to put out more for recycling than normal rubbish so must be doing something right.
funny how different london boroughs recycle different things ?? i cant recycle glass through collection, but neighbouring boroughs can !!! come on councils get it together and lets save the world !! recycling has to bethe way forward.
forgot to mention that I’m also a switcher-offer - i.e. and chargers left plugged in, appliances on standby, etc… even in the office where we all have in-built sockets with isolation switches on each desk, yet people just undock the laptop and leave everything plugged in and monitors on standby…:hehe: I started switching off the sockets at a few desks near mine and soon enough they start doing it themselves…
We recycle everything we can. Our council (Merton) weekly collect glass, almost all plastics, metal, paper and cardboard, and even waxed card containers. We have three bins (one we bought ourselves as we can’t keep up with the complex rules on what to put in which bin) one for paper and card, one for plastic and waxed card, one for metal and an old milk crate which we put glass in. I am always horrified in the huge amount of packaging we recycle. However, we used to fill about two black sacks a week, but currently it would take us about six weeks to fill one. Most weeks we don’t put out any non-recyclable waste as the stuff that would rot either gets put out for the birds, or gets fed to our pets. Most of what goes for landfill is cellophane as they don’t accept it in the plastic bin.
One thing I think is really bad is the lack of recycling in fast food restaurants etc. Only this lunchtime Jackie and I were in one of a certain large chain. There was one bin for everything to be thrown in. We often travel in Scandinavia and for at least the last ten years in Finland you would be presented with separate bins for paper, plastic, metal and food wast.
Yep we recycle, however life would be a lot simpler if ‘waste’ was cut down at source and packaging was reduced.
We also recycle classic cars too 
yes, I eat almost everything
I DONT RECYCLE - (MY HOUSEMATES DO IT FOR ME BECAUSE I REFUSE) WHY? - BECAUSE THE ONUS SHOULD BE ON THE MANUFACTURERS TO MAKE DEGRADABLE PRODUCTS. CURRENTLY WE DONT HAVE A CHOICE, BUT OH NO! INSTEAD THEY MAKE YOU BUY PURPLE BIN BAGS AND FINE YOU IF YOU PUT THE WRONG STUFF IN IT.THE GOVERMENT COULD IN ONE SWOOP MAKE IT OBLIGATORY FOR MANUFACTURERS TO PRODUCE THESE THINGS - IT REALLY IS THAT SIMPLE - BUT MUCH MORE LUCRATIVE TO CHARGE US MORE.IF YOU DONT WANT US USING IT…GIVE US A CHOICE OR DONT FUC**NG SUPPLY IT!!!
I fully agree with the reduce, reuse part of the equation, but with the fact that we have for generations been lead (quite willingly if perhaps a little blindly) along the path of ‘I want it cheap and convenient… I don’t care how you do it, just do it…’ this means that we as consumers would end up footing the bill for any revolutionary approach so are stuck with the final term in that list - recycle… Of course legislation could be used, but under what government would such measures be put in place??? I don’t see the green party suddenly taking over the front benches at the Palace of Westminster any time soon! Far from ideal, but better play that game than to sit back comfortable in the knowledge that it’s not our fault so why bother - if we don’t want the burden of recycling, we shouldn’t buy packaged consumer products in the first place… This last option is far from an easy one and many would argue is verging on the impossible, but if we keep buying the products then we get what we are given…
Funny how many of us have a hobby which uses countless gallons of fossil fuels (releasing more countless tonnes of co2 into the environment), yet have concerns about recycling…
I’m as guilty as anyone else, but it’s worth noting, I think.
I thought the jury was still out on the Co2 being blamed for everything - for every person that says it is theres another that says it isnt. My brain has reached saturation point on the matter so i’ll just shut-up…but i’d love to fast forward a generation or two and find out the truth as Im not entirely convinced…and anyone spouting off to me the research that they’ve seen on telly or the newspapers is missing the point…just like everything else, you get what you’re given. You’ll read what they want you to read etc etc.Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to settle down and watch Mel Gibson’s Conspiracy Theory:P
