General Chat

Yesterday i was reading an article about the recycling rates for the whole of this area. not just where i live.

It states that about 65% is going to landfill with only around 35% being actually recycled. Given that our 2 recycling bins one for organic, cardboard including food waste and the other for paper, plastics are full to the brim as are our neighbours etc, i find this hard to comprehend. They say we have to try harder to recycle our own rubbish but with a 3 weekly collection now, the bins are full often after a week so where exactly are we supposed to put anything else?

My non recyclable is never full up which is as it should be.

Its very unfair to blame to householders when we are already doing as much as we can.

There are some things in packing like polystyrene which cannot be recycled and if you have ever bought a washing machine or freezer, it normally comes with load of the stuff which will have to go into the non recyclable.

So how can we get the rate of recycling up if we are already doing our bit?

What sort of bins do you have Florence?
Are they wheelie bins or toy box style?

We have 2 wheelie bins from the council, 1 each for general household rubbish and one for plastic bottles, tins, drink cans, glass and aluminium foil.
We have a black box for cardboard boxes and paper.
Both wheelies are collected fortnightly on alternate weeks and the paper bin on recycling week.

We also have a food waste bin collected weekly, but we seldom use that, as we have very little food waste, because we cook what we will eat and any outer leaves from cabbage for example goes in our garden compost bin for reuse in our garden.

We pay separately for the council to collect garden waste every 2 weeks. This is turned into compost and is used on local fields.

I can't remember the last time we had a full bin of any type, but unlike you, we are on the mainland and don't often order goods online.

Our local recycling rate is 44.6%.
I think our household is fairly good at recycling. I take thin plastic film, clean wrappers etc. to the collection bins in our local supermarkets and I collect blister packs from medications and recycle them at Superdrug in our nearest larger town.
Not sure I can recycle more.

we have 4 large wheelie bins Gwyn
1. Glass- Collected every 12 weeks. hardly ever half full!
2. organic- Food waste is in a green compostable bag, tied and placed here with cardboard, garden waste etc.3 weekly collections
3.Recycling- takes all plastic, packaging, paper of all sorts. 3 weekly collection
4.Non recycling bin- Anything that cannot be recycled in the other bins like polystyrene etc. 3 weekly collection.

So we are filling 2 full size bins with waste for recycling, the other 2 have far less. We dont drink so glass is only from glass jars really.

Not sure what else we can do. We wash and sort as we go, tins, jars etc.

Batteries we can take to town to various places although all my batteries now are rechargeable.

Xmas paper, i do remove the cello tape from thick paper so that can go into the organic bin.
Once the bin lorries were so full up with the recycling, they had to get another 2 lorries to finish the round!

It just annoys me that the council say, we have to try harder :-S :-S

Many of us have the right waste in the right bin but I get so cross walking round our village and see so many of the boxes full of things our council don’t recycle or not at the kerbside. This can often mean the whole lorry load goes to landfill.

I spoke with council staff at a recycling event telling them that and saying more needs to be collected at the roadside. Don’t worry, they said, drop it off when passing the tip.
This would be the tip I hardly ever go near and has a booking system. Or I could take some of it to a special collecting container in another village. That is down a track, away from everything and surrounded by trees etc - so not going there on my own.

So some electricals get saved up for a bi annual ( at best) visit to the tip the rest goes in the general bin.

Somerset is apparently in the top 20% for recycling rates. Paper/cardboard, glass/TetraPaks, plastic, tins and food waste are collected weekly. General waste collected every 3 weeks. It works well for us and the collectors are good and reliable. They will also take small bags with batteries and shredded paper. Recycling centre is about 2 miles away and open 6 days a week, and is free, no booking required.

I think there needs to be much more education about recycling, and less bad press.
I know lots of folk who either can't be bothered, or don't believe that waste may actually be recycled. Nor do I see enough education about reducing, packaging, clothing, other consumer goods. Our culture of consumerism needs to be broken.

A lot of people seem to assume that anything that can be recycling goes in the containers and totally ignore the lists provided by the council.

My son even had to pull lit fairy lights out of his flats communal bin because he knew that would mean the bins wouldn’t be enptied.