My Garden

Recycling

Last post 27-06-2009 3:01 PM by headfullofbees. 7 replies.

• 22/06/2009 05:14 AM

  headfullofbees Location: Cheadle Hulme Joined on: 13 Feb 2006 Posts: 114

  Reply | Contact About to have a brown bin delivered by the council, to add to the blue and green ones we already have, and the bin-bags for general rubbish. This brown bin replaces the black plastic box we were given for our cans and glass bottles, but now also is for plastic bottles, and we have had advice and a collection calendar posted through the letter-box. The advice? This brown bin is for your empty cans, PLEASE RINSE, your empty glass bottles and jars, please remove lids and RINSE, and empty plastic bottles, PLEASE RINSE. Furthermore, it's all going to have to be collected, and the sorting will probably create a labour shortage which will end EU unemployment at a stroke, the cost being met by Council Tax payers. Call me an old cynic, but this ludicrous, pythonesque, malarkey seems to me to be PC targetism at it's best.

• 22/06/2009 10:17 AM

  In reply to

  sue1002 Location: Ipswich, Suffolk Joined on: 06 Sep 2005 Posts: 5,200

  Reply | Contact  It would be so much easier if all councils used the same colour bins for the same purpose.  Here, we have brown bins for garden waste, black bins for general rubbish and blue bins for all recyclables except for glass. The blue bins (your brown ones) go into a machine at a recycling centre where the tins and other metal objects are taken out using magnetic equipment and the rest is sorted by hand so in a way part of the cost of council tax money is actually paying the wages of new jobs that have been created. I can understand the reason for the need for everything to be rinsed out - imagine a tuna tin that has been left in the bin for two weeks before it's collected, it's going to stink to high heaven before it gets to the recycling centre. Some of the stuff that is sorted does get used in this country to recycle but a lot of it (and I would say a good deal more than half of it) gets packed into containers and shipped abroad which is good news for lorry drivers in this current climate. sue1002

• 22/06/2009 10:50 AM

  In reply to

  headfullofbees Location: Cheadle Hulme Joined on: 13 Feb 2006 Posts: 114

  Reply | Contact My  point about rinsing all one's rubbish, was the cost of the water and the ecological impact of its use. How efficient is all this recycling, really? I ask as someone who would consider himself to be reasonably environmentally friendly; I use three compost bins, and have a water butt. I also grow as much as I can of our food. I just wonder whether, to reach landfill targets, there may well be a huge negative carbon impact. "Good news for lorry drivers in this current climate." would seem to corroborate my suspicions.

• 22/06/2009 11:10 AM	In reply to
  squirrel Location: West Suffolk, almost Cambridgeshire Joined on: 28 Jul 2008 Posts: 51	Reply | Contact You don't need to use fresh water to rinse those items - I always use the dirty washing up water once I am finished with everything else. As long as you are water-wise it shouldn't be a problem really.

• 23/06/2009 08:54 AM	In reply to
  bogweevil Location: Joined on: 02 Mar 2004 Posts: 2,043	Reply | Contact Well said squirrel!   Boggy Beware the bat-eared bogweevil

• 23/06/2009 10:15 PM	In reply to
  Digger Location: Northern UK Joined on: 18 Jul 2005 Posts: 4,743	Reply | Contact Hmmmmn we need wagons and wagon drivers in Britain to keep the flow of goods moving from place to place, I don't bother rinsing out the recycling stuff, it's a job for someone else and I can't be arsed doing it. digger

• 26/06/2009 12:07 PM

  In reply to

  Celtic Heart Location: Wales Joined on: 03 Jun 2009 Posts: 63

  Reply | Contact If our recycling (which is all bag-based) isn't spick and span it just doesn't pass muster, gets 'black labelled' and left for you to re-sort and clean for next week.  We have such strict restrictions on what we can and can't put it (no plastic other than plastic bottles and no glass) it sometimes is more work than the worth of it.  Oh, and we don't get told to just rinse, we are expected to dry them too! One is nearer God's heart in a garden than anywhere else on earth.

• 27/06/2009 03:01 PM	In reply to
  headfullofbees Location: Cheadle Hulme Joined on: 13 Feb 2006 Posts: 114	Reply | Contact squirrel: You don't need to use fresh water to rinse those items - I always use the dirty washing up water once I am finished with everything else. As long as you are water-wise it shouldn't be a problem really.   You wash up? Seriously. Hanging onto dirty water, especially in the summer is not a good idea.