Refusal to recycle - can anything actually be done ?

[RubbishIdeas]

If a household refuse to recycle can anything actually be done to make them ? Are councils even interested and can they enforce it ?
We are given various bins and a container for food waste so it’s probably obvious that one house is only using a general waste bin but do the collectors report this kind of thing or is it just personal choice and some people don’t recycle ??

I'm not sure, I know they can fine you if you put the wrong thing in the recycling!

But apart from making sure they're properly closed, I've never known them to inspect general waste (i.e. to see no recycling happening). I can't imagine they monitor which houses put out for collection.

I’ve never used my food waste bin as I have my own compost heap.
I didn’t put out my garden waste bin today because it’s empty.
I usually put my recycling bin out once a month because it’s only a third full after 2 weeks.
Sometimes I forget to put out the general rubbish bin but it doesn’t matter as it’s never more than half full, it can wait till the next collection.

How would the council monitor?

I don't think bin men have the time to note down who doesn't put out which bins tbh, ours are always jogging to keep up with the lorry. Some people might be taking things to the recycling centre, might only put a bin out every other time etc.

I'm not sure there's anything to actually "enforce" as it's not a law that you must recycle? You can get fined if you recycle the wrong things in the wrong bin, but that's a bit different.

I would have thought they'd just refuse (if you excuse the pun) to empty your bin if it's not sorted properly?

Theoretically it can be done, as i believe this is the case in Germany, but we don't do that in the UK, no. As to whether we should is a whole different can of worms...

I assume just everything, food waste and recyclable items are going in black bags in the general waste . Do they get sorted though and recycled potentially after collection ?

I don't think there is an actual law that says people must recycle but I know that in some areas they have 'compulsory recycling' and can issue fines if people aren't recycling. Apparently you get visits and they try to make you comply first.

For example

www.islington.gov.uk/recycling-and-rubbish/enforcement/compulsory-recycling#:~:text=This%20includes%20household%20recycling%20(e.g.,you%20may%20receive%20a%20fine.

There's households on Mumsnet that do 10 loads of washing a week or use a dishwasher daily or have other wasteful, earth Kling habits and devices.

Someone not chucking an empty.tin and a bit of card in the recycling isn't going to make a hill of piss difference in the grand scheme.

As long as everything is tied up in a black sack, I very much doubt anyone ever knows what was in the bags.

Even if it was sorted through afterwards, how would they know which household it belonged to (unless there happened to be paperwork with their address on it in the bag).

If you put something obviously 'wrong' in the recycling bins, our bin men refuse to take it and leave a sticker on it saying why, the recycling is 'loose' in the bin so they can easily see if a wrong item is in there. But stuff in black bin bags, they don't know and I doubt they care.

In theory the bin shouldn't be emptied if it contains incorrect waste, in practice if everything is bagged how would they know.

Even those who never put their recycling bin out could be assumed to be recycling elsewhere, do you still get club card points fir taking it to tesco?

Both my parents and my neighbour put everything in the black bin, it drives me insane.

However, I am now questioning how ethical it is to put waste in recycling bins when so much of it ends up being shipped abroad and not processed but dumped in poorer countries with no safety controls. It may be better to send everything (or just difficult to recycle stuff) to UK landfill where there are safety controls in place.

"our bin men refuse to take it" - I mean they refuse to take the entire recycling bin, not just the wrong item!

Our bin men will put a red label on the bin and refuse to empty if a bin has the wrong stuff i.e. glass in recycling bin or regular bin (needs taking to bottle bank.)

TBH they just take a quick peek I really don't think they have time to rummage to figure who is binning stuff. Rubbish isn't sorted by my LA it's tipped out at local depot and reloaded into an arctic (big lorry) and taken to the tip.

Recycling is sorted through, depressing amount of rubbish mixed in with it though.

Our elderly neighbour would struggle to sort her rubbish into one of the (too many) bins we are given. Everything in the main bin and she should not be criticised for that - reasonable adjustment.

My council don't care.

I know this because they don't accommodate recycling collection at all for my flat. They will for houses further up the road though.

They provide purple sacks which I have to put all refuse in.

God forbid someone would have the bright idea of providing different colour sacks for recycling too...

Where I live in France we have to use transparent garbage bags and they won't take the waste if there's any recycling in it.

Whats wrong with using a dishwasher daily - isnt that fairly standard? My understanding is that the dishwasher uses less water than washing up?

I'm more concerned with which rainforest our recycling is being dumped in this year to be honest rather than which household isn't recycling.

It's another red herring. The bigger issue is overpackaging and mass consumerism not how much recycling gets collect and then burnt in the local waste to energy plant

Our council issue a warning for the first non-adherence then a fine. The waste collectors will also refuse to take contaminated recycling or overloaded tiny 'rubbish' bins.

If you don't pay the fine it's escalated to Magistrates Court...so you could be left surrounded by refuse and up to your eyes in court enforceable debt.

I know people who have been caught by the system so it is in use, maybe not as vigorously as it needs to be to properly change behaviours but it's a start.

I wouldn't worry OP. So much of what we put into the recycling ends up either in landfill, incinerated, or is sent to developing countries where it eventually enters the waterways and then the sea 🤷🏼‍♀️
www.greenpeace.org.uk/news/plastic-recycling-export-incineration/

My understanding is that the dishwasher uses less water than washing up?

Possibly. But...

I've a plastic bowl that takes 3litres of water. I use a few drops of washing up liquid.

A dishwasher, OTOH, has to be manufactured using steel, aluminium, copper wire, silicon seals, plastics etc. The manufacturing plant will draw endless electricity and gas during the process. The elements inside need minining or manufacture. So on and so on and so on.
Eventually it's shipped from the plant to a warehouse, then from a warehouse to a customer, then the customer buys specialist detergents using packaging and the chemicals involved in manufacturing those chemicals.
Then the electric and water used to use the dish washer and the chemicals it drains into the waste pipes.

So it might use a little less water each time you wash up, but the deficit that machine has already made means using a little less water will likely take years to balance that deficit.
(I'm aware I'm over thinking it 😂)

What is this magical washing up liquid that only takes a few drops to do a whole day’s worth of family washing up? Do you buy it at the same shop at the magical Mumsnet chicken that can feed a family for a week?

You realise that you don't need to squirt a shit tonne into the water to make it froth upnroght?
3-5ml should be more than plenty, any more and it's just a waste.

Are you the household that CBA to sort recycling or is it a neighbour? It's personal choice but councils have recycling targets and if they are struggling they may try some incentives to encourage people to join in.

I'm with some pps about being skeptical where it all ends up, tbh; also how much 'good' it's actually doing when really we're probably fucked anyway.

Our council has had several goes at ludicrous systems that never seem to work; they spend £000000s and then change it again after a few years of fannying about. At the moment they don't do kerb-side glass collection, which to me seems absolutely the height of stupidity because not everyone can manage to take it all the 6 miles to the nearest glass bin. A BIG part of me feels like refusing to do it, but then I feel guilty and do it, because I can.

My DD was really struggling a few years ago, and also trying her best to recycle as much as she could which was making her life just more difficult. I encouraged her to just stop and put everything in black bags, focus on what she needed to. She was shocked but it really did help her manage life better!

No one should be judged or fined for not 'recycling'.

If a household refuse to recycle can anything actually be done to make them

It would cost more to investigate and enforce than its worth. People struggle for all sorts of reasons, it not always laziness. Imo, it makes more sense to make recycling much easier for the people who want to do it, and leave the others to use general waste. It doesn't always go to landfill.

We've worked on reducing the amount of waste we have coming in to the house in the first place, and our bins are usually half empty. All the local charity shops have closed, but on the plus side there's talk of opening a repair and recycle shop. People can't work out how to fund and staff it right now (round here that kind of thing used to rely on EU grants) but are looking into it.