1st week of new recycling in our area

[EfficientEnergy]

We have just been introduced a new recycling under Rugby council. :thumbup: We now have 3 wheelie bins and a kitchen caddie from the council. The bins are black for all non recyclables, blue lid for glass, plastic, foil, tins paper and card. Green for all composting which includes cooked food. We also get lots of charities collecting clothes normally a couple per month.

On our first week instead of the normal black bin being full we had only just put our first bag of rubbish in there. The blue recycle bin was full, but we had saved a few things up and our green bin had a little in as we are still composting at home.

The only concerns we have are putting in all cooked food, as after a while it will start to smell in the wheelie bin and cleaning it out every time will be a night mare. What we don't know at this stage is are they managing to recycle everything that has been put out.

The scheme seems a great success, the amount of recycle bins out on the first collection day was great. Once families are in the habit of recycling it should become second nature.

I am interested to see what other people manage to recycle and do the councils make it easy for you?

[Green Beginnings]

Hi there,

here in Weymouth we have brown wheelie bins for cardboard and cooked food scraps. The bins don't really smell unless it is hot weather so for the majority of the year this isn't a problem, only when you lift the lid. So take a deep breath first and do it quickly!!
If you wrap the food in paper or into a ceral box etc before you put it in the bin then that should save some of the mess. There are some bin cleaning services here but we don't use them.
The service we have is very good but I am sure that there is more they could recyclye. They don't recycle yoghurt pots here. Can anyone tell me why?
and
I would love TetraPak to make their recycling easier. I'm sure that not many people send their cartons back when it is going to cost them to do so.

[robin]

Well, there are a number of excuses...
Yoghurt pots are made from polypropylene, a very recyclable material - It can be recycled up to 50 times! However not all local authorities collect polypropylene. This may be because where ever they offload the recyclable materials to (China, various recycling plants in the UK, etc) may not be able to handle polypropylene or there may not be enough demand for recycled polypropylene, making it commercially/economically inviable for the local authorities.

It also adds another type of plastic to be sorted at the Material Recycling Facility, where all our recyclable rubbish goes to be sorted and separated into different materials

I suppose it all comes down to investment from local authorities. I'm sure there are many more reasons, but I don't know them! I hope that helps reduce the wondering.

I also agree EfficientEnergy, that once it becomes habit, it becomes second nature, but there are still a lot of people that don't participate. We need to find out how we can get those people involved for it then to become second nature for everybody!

[robin]

Originally Posted by Green Beginnings

I would love TetraPak to make their recycling easier. I'm sure that not many people send their cartons back when it is going to cost them to do so.

I'd also be interested to see how many people know that they can recycle TetraPaks. I should have put that in my questionnaire! I got some very good responses for that, which has really helped. Of course if anybody would like a peek at any of the results, I would be happy to post them up.

In Loughborough we can put TetraPak in with our paper recyclables. We are fortunate to have an incredibly good recycling service here. Practically everything is collected at the kerb side. But I have to admit, although I would say I am an enthusiastic recycler, I wouldn't otherwise pay to send them off to be recycled:(

[Mike]

Here in Swindon it is good, but I have to admit it has its limitations.

The plastics is good, but they only take plastic bottles, not yoghurt pots or trays, or Tetra Packs!

But they are getting better

[greenmonkeystore]

We live in West Sussex and as of this month, Arun changed there recycling policy and now take glass bottles and also clean paper and food cartons (tetra pak). Which is much better as I never understood why they would not take cartons and glass. We also have a green bin pickup as well for the garden waste we have to pay a fee but it is well worth while.

[Mike]

From what i have read of late things seem to be picking up really well and the recycling schemes are finally getting to an acceptable level!

[Alexandra]

I live in West Sussex too (hi there greenmonkeystore - we must be practically neighbours!) but, living in Amberley, am just into the Horsham District Council area.

I emailed them last week asking when they are going to follow in Arun's footsteps and they said that they would be rolling out changes in June. Can't wait!

[whodefu]

we live some of the time in florida where there is no recycling at your door but you can go to local recycling bins which is partway there. in devon the local council does a good job of collecting recyclables, so that is great, just easy to recycle in one place, hard in the other !

[Green Beginnings]

It's not really hard if you have to take your recycling away from the home, it's just more effort and if you don't have a car, it's even more effort. In our busy lives today we feel we don't have the time and therefore it is hard. Some people see anything that requires a little effort as too hard. So best to help them if we can.