To think pont blank refusing to recycle is anti-social?

[WinterSnow]

Went to stay with MIL last w/e and she has told me they won't recycle as they pay their taxes and don't want to be told what to do with their rubbish they are paying to have collected. Earlier this week I saw similar comments on the Daily Mail website (ahem, just browsing ...) in regard to an article saying people should be recycling food waste. Is it me or is a bit anti-social to point blank refuse to recycle your waste?

[QueenofDreams]

YABU. It is not anti-social at all. Some people believe that recycling is actually harmful to the environment. Others just can't be bothered. Neither of these is even vaguely antisocial IMO.

[WinterSnow]

I've never heard it can be harmful, how so?

[Insomnia11]

I think to not recycle at all is being lazy and antisocial. It's as bad as dropping litter IMO.

[charliejosh]

I think its anti-social and plain ignorant if they are her reasons!

[pink4ever]

I refuse to recycle.Imo it is simply a form of stealth tax. If the councils only want to collect rubbish every 2 weeks then they can reduce the amount of council tax we pay. And to people who cite the enviromental issue-the tiny amount we recycle is a drop in the ocean to the amount of waste produced in countries such as india and china.

[olderandwider]

Recycling is an earner for many councils now. It therefore benefits council tax payers.

I recycle as much as I can, get my DC and DH involved, and am generally an evangelist for the cause.

[WhoAteMySnickers]

Her reasons for refusing to recycle are ridiculous. She could at least make an effort to come up with a good argument against it.

[greenbananas]

Wintersnow, my in-laws feel exactly the same way as yours (although they do recycle their bottles and tins). My MIL thinks that the 'recycling police' will come to tackle her about their refusal to recycle food waste, and has spent many hours deciding what she will say to them.

pink4ever, of course you are right about the amount we recycle being a tiny drop in the ocean compared to the waste produced by other countries and by big business, but I still think we should do what we can.

[SenoritaViva]

So pink4ever, because other countries aren't doing it, we shouldn't bother? Right, that makes a lot of sense.

My council does come every week, it just alternates the kind of rubbish it takes. I don't feel hard done by and am grateful for the service.

[DisparateSpousewife]

I don't get why the DM is so up in arms about the food waste bins. I thought they wanted to take us all back to the 1950s when people would have had pig bins to put food scraps in anyway.

The argument about not recycling is to do with the amount of energy it takes to recycle certain materials, I think. I seem to recall that aluminium is one of the best things to recycle.

[mousesma]

No not especially, it's more more antisocial than buying cars with big engines or flying abroad or not using water responsibly or not using flash wipes or using disposable nappies etc. etc. etc. Do you judge all of these behaviours too or is it just recycling you have a problem with.

[mousesma]

no more obvs not more more, must learn to preview

[mousesma]

and should be using flash wipes

[Oblomov]

I think they have a point. I re-cycle everything I can. But I seriously wonder whether it is worth it. I do beleive we are shipping stuff abroad. Because economically there are certain materials we re-cycle that companies just don't want because its not ecominically profitbale for them to use it.
There aren't that many companies in the uk, screaming, going, give me your .... plastic this/that ... youghurt tub, etc, I can use that, I can make a packet. Is that happening. errr no.

[WinterSnow]

Did you know if you own a dog your carbon footprint is bigger than if you run two 4WD's? Just a bit of trivia i learnt last week at uni!

[TidyDancer]

Refusing to recycle for stupid reasons, is, well, stupid. pink4ever's post is, unfortunately, a wonderful example of this. People refusing to do their bit simply because they don't get a reduction in their council tax? FFS. In the overwhelming majority of areas (including mine) you don't get a reduction in service, you just get a different type of service when your area does the responsible thing in recycling.

[tribpot]

No-one is compelled to recycle, are they? (I'm sure when I lived in Amsterdam the bin men used to come round and tell you off if you put the wrong stuff in the wrong bag). You may be encouraged by only having a fortnightly black bin collection but you have other options, like avoiding packaging which needs throwing away or rigorously squashing your rubbish down so it'll all fit in the black bin. Frankly I think bunging some cardboard and whatnot in the green bin is hardly a chore, but if you prefer squashing up your rubbish, go for it.

[gallicgirl]

It is also a question of space.

We live on a small over-populated island and there are only so many landfill sites.

For those who think you should have a reduction in council tax for fortnightly collections, be prepared to save about £10 a year!

[bubblecoral]

Personally, I think having to have extra bins on the roads or in your front garden is more anti social than not recycling.

I'm very grateful that my council doesn't force people to recycle and make them have extra bins, because if they did our street would look awful.

[FabbyChic]

Be a cold day in hell before I spend time and effort recycling fuck all.

Never recycled anything, never will.

[SecretNutellaFix]

We don't recycle very much because we don't have doorstep recycling facilities. Instead there are banks of 5 wheelie bins with holes cut on top and a sticker on the front for every 30 or so houses. It gets collected ONCE a week.

There are tins and glass and plastic all over the place.

[Lunabelly]

I feel so guilty if I don't recycle - cannot bear to see recyclable stuff go in landfills. When my mojo is on, I reuse a lot - tights become ragdolls, newspapers become papier mache, any sort of rubbish can become barbie doll furniture for my dds, I do a lot of miniatures...when I'm not Our Lady Of The Perpetual Breakdown, I'm like a cross between a Womble and a Blue Peter presenter.

Come to think of it, I have a huge arse, am furry and recycle. I am a Womble!

[M0naLisa]

our council have just sent out food caddies that we have to put in our cooked/uncooked and cardboard and put it into the BROWN garden waste bin. BUT in todays local crimes Times there are residents who live in front terraced houses who only have a back yard who dont qualify for a brown bin for garden wste but yet have still received a food caddy - residents are asking where do they put theirs as they dont have brown garden waste bins so its a waste of money for some residents in the area. The council ahve commented on saying it was an oversight and trying to rectify the mistake!

[olderandwider]

I think to work, councils have to make recycling very easy, efficient and idiot-proof. Fining people is not the way to go. Explaining how many £000s of pounds the council makes is the best incentive imo.

[tallulah]

YABU. We moved from an area with zero recycling to having 2 different wheelie bins, a can/bottle box, food waste bin, a weighted bag for plastic bottles, and a paper bag (which we don't have). Cardboard used to go in the green wheelie bin but now has to be put out loose every fortnight (and it rains most weeks-yuk).

We have a 1930s kitchen that is about 2 foot square and all this recycling takes up precious space we haven't got. We spent a lot of money having a porch fitted and it has ended up as a storage area for cardboard. I'm sick of it.