To wonder whether recycling is worth the effort?

[Maamekin]

I live in a country that is serious about recycling .

I have 6 bins in my kitchen for all the different stuff. Which takes up a fair bit of room, but I do think recycling is important.

But I was washing out a load of jars this morning, and musing on whether all the effort, detergent, hot water etc I use to clean the tins/packets/cartons/bottles etc before I put it in the recycling bin is negating some of the environmental benefit of recycling.

I'm guessing you can't put stuff in the recycling bin if it is covered in food residue? But maybe lots of people do? So does that contaminate the whole lot anyway? Am I just wasting my time?

Don't get me wrong, I try to be as eco-friendly as I can. I use eco-detergents, try to buy stuff with less packaging, use cloth nappies...

But I do wonder about the recycling side of things sometimes. It seems like there must be so much effort put into it - I wash the packaging, take it to the recycling bin, it gets collected, then presumably it has to be washed again, sorted into different types, sent to a place where it can be recycled into something again (and just how energy efficient is that? I don't know).

There's a system here with some glass and plastic bottles whereby you take them back to the shop (or to a special machine) and you get a deposit back on them, and I assume they are just reused rather than being "recycled". I suppose like glass milk bottles in the UK, although I suppose most people buy plastic bottles from the supermarket now. Maybe people should be campaigning for much more packaging to be like that, that can be simply used again.

Perhaps having a recycle bin makes people complacently think they are doing their bit, but actually it is inefficient and not really worth doing.

I'm willing to be told I'm talking rubbish by the way . I just find it hard to get my head round the idea that I can chuck a baked bean tin, a tetra juice pack and an old ham packet in the same recycling bin, and they will somehow be efficiently recycled in a way that doesn't waste a load of time, energy and other resources.

My objection to recycling is different to yours. We are meant to do it to prevent global warning!!

I say bring on the global warming, we might get a summer then!!

The problem is that global warming mught just do the opposite and melt the ice caps and deflect the gulf stream further south resulting in colder wetter summers.

I recycle as much as I can as well, but use the water from other washing up to wash out tins, jars and bottles, so I am not using extra water anyway.

I'm not sure about it bring worth it, but round here it's certainly an effort! We have a cycle which goes:
Collectors don't empty the box for two weeks. Ring council, drivers come round next day and take everything, box included. Request new box, doesn't get here before next recycling day, so following week has double the usual amount.
Collectors don't empty the box, ring council... Repeat ad nauseum, though sometimes I'm seriously tempted to just chuck it all in the bin to get rid of it.
I'm beginning to wonder if I was out when they called to request their Christmas bonus, and I'm actually on a black list, because all neighbours are collected without any problems.
Maybe I should just sneak it all into neighbours bin under cover of darkness.

I do recycle as much as possible. But what I find extremely annoyng is that there are 3 bins outside here.
One grey- for normal household waste.
One blue- meant for plastic and glass and tin
one brown- meant for grass and cardboard.

But in december the council decides that we combine the blue and brown bins. so all our cardboard is now in with the plastics.

We are very fortunate that our local council makes recycling really easy. We have a green bin for cardboard and garden waste, a brown bin for plastic bottles, tins and glass and a grey bin for household waste. We were also given a blue plastic bag for paper. The plastic bag blew away long ago, but they will accept paper in any plastic bag.

Recycling is second nature to me now and when we go on holiday or even when we are out and about throwing an empty bottle, newspaper or tin into a general waste bin feels wrong to me.

I'm so used to recycling cardboard, plastic, tins, bottles etc I could never imagine going back to the days of chucking everything in your kitchen bin - actually, I don't think I could do it!

If you're organised and recycling bins are collected by council when they're supposed to (thankfully our's are) it's no effort at all.

Cardboard in with green waste isn't recycling it. It goes to landfill. The reason that maby don't collect it separately is that it has a low value at the minute. Carrier bags can be recycled, as can disposable nappies. The council don't use wash plants, but the people who buy it from them (or the end users) do. Just rinse things - no need for a thorough wash etc.

Even if the energy efficiency of recycling is questionable, the main benefit as I see it is that all this stuff doesnt simply go into landfill after one use.

I do my best to reduce the amount of my recycling by:

Buying fish, meat, deli produce at local shops rather than the supermarket because there you will get your products wrapped in maybe a single piece of waxed paper and a small bag, rather than on a plastic tray.

Ditto fruit and vegetables - never buy them in a plastic punnet if you can avoid.

I buy milk from the milkman - the bottles are re-used.

I buy bars of soap rather than liquid soap in bottles, and shower gel in refill pouches.

I use ecover cleaning products - you can buy refills of a lot of them.

I save all jiffy bags and reuse them as much as possible.

I really do think recycling is worth the effort. There is only so much rubbish we can bury in the ground.

I think you have to remember that there is limited landfill space. If we don't recycle all these items, where are we going to put them?

My council makes it very easily - basically everything goes in the blue plastics/metal bin. I have a compost, so anything organic goes in there. Our black general waste bin has so little in it, I wouldn't put it out if it didn't smell.

You don't need to use a lot of extra hot water and detergent for recycling - I just slosh them round after I've done a few dishes, so it's just hot soapy water that would have gone down the drain next anyway.

As to the sorting, well your comments show why it has to be a compromise - you have 6 bins in your kitchen and they take up space. If the council were to ask you to collect each things separately, keeping tetra paks in one bin and cans in another, then it would probably tip you over to saying "sod the whole business" and throwing it all into one black bag!

So they have to set up systems which take account of public perception as well as actual efficiency - say 75% of people are prepared to deal with 3 separate bins, 50% of people will use 6 different bins, but only 10% of people would use 10 different bins. They weigh it up and do the thing that a reasonable proportion of people will be prepared to make the effort for, and then pay for the sorting after that.

20 years ago I was told that recycling was the last thing you should do - after

Refuse (don't buy things with excess packaging)
Re-use (eg carrier bags as small bin bags)
Reduce (try to make choices which limit the amount of waste you create)

I dont mind recycling at all. I have 6 big wheelie bins (2 of each colour)
I actually get a bit tetchy when i go abroad if they dont recycle. It just seems wrong to put everything in the same bin!

We have bins for garden waste only (used to be for cardboard as well but the council changed it) so is redundant for half the time.
Everything else goes in another bin, but i do need 2 as when you have placed cardboard along with everything else theres not much room left.
Household waste bin (dont actually need 2 now as we recycle so much)
And we now have food recyclying bin which is like a dinky wheelie bin which we have got to start using it at the end of the week which i really dont mnd as it should stop the maggot infestation i have every year!!!!

What i do mind though is cleaning everything prior to putting in the bin, The council dont pay my water bill and everything is deep cleaned anyway during the recycling process. So i dont bother.

"What i do mind though is cleaning everything prior to putting in the bin, The council dont pay my water bill and everything is deep cleaned anyway during the recycling process. So i dont bother."

Don't you ever have any washing up to do that can't be put in the dishwasher? I do what AmuminScotland does and slosh the empties around in the same water after the dishes have been washed. It isn't exactly a lot of effort.

The only thing i dont put in the dishwasher is a huge baking tray we have and thats only because it doesn't fit. I dont do dishes in the sink.
I only use that tray once a week and only use a couple of inches of hot water to clean it. If i washed all my recycling i would need to fill the sink a few times to clean it all.

We usually fill 1 1/2 to 2 bins every fornight.

I didn't mean effort for me! I am happy to do it. But is what I am doing actually worth it in the bigger picture? It is certainly made easy to do here - there are efficient collections, and lots of municipal bins for plastic, glass etc.

I meant is a lot of energy being expended to recycle stuff, to the point where it isn't really the best way of doing things - should we be putting much more effort into simply reusing things rather than recycling them?

Obviously landfill is a bad option. But is recycling really this magical, green save-the-planet option either? We need to put this waste somewhere, that's true. So maybe what we really, really need is not to generate it in the first place. And maybe concentrating so much on recycling is sort of stopping that, because you think, oh, it's OK, I can recycle this, it's not like it will end up in landfill.

But how can you melt down plastic without using loads of energy and generating loads of fumes, and how can you get it to the recycling factory without lorries and fuel etc etc?

I do all the things like buying soap, bubble bath etc in refill pouches, I always buy loose fruit and veg, yoghurt in glass jars instead of plastic pots, loose bread in the bakers... I still have a full recycling bin.

And I'm the same, I put everything in the dishwasher.

Maybe I'll start saving bath water to wash out the recycling with.

Everything goes in our dishwasher too!

With the recycling, I'm happy to do it, but what really gets on my wick is, we have several recycling boxes

1 for cardboard and paper
1 for tins
1 for plastic
1 for glass

We sort all this stuff into their relevant boxes, the bin men get snotty and the council threaten you with fines if you put a scrap of paper in your tin bin by mistake and then they dump all the recycling into the same bloody bin lorry

We have clear bags for paper/card/plastic and tins and black sacks for household. We have to PAY to get garden waste taken away (unless you take it to the dump) and they don't take glass.

Apparently we are the best recycling local authority in Kent

Do you put your non stick pans, baking tins, roasting tins, sieves, graters, potato peelers, sharp knives etc in the dishwasher as well? I wouldn't dare.

Why not Bun? I put everything in the dishwasher except my two biggest pans (which don't fit). Doesn't do them any harm.

The instructions on my non stick pan specify not suitable for dishwashers. My sharp knives don't benefit from dishwasher cleaning either - but I am a bit precious about them as they were expensive. My potato peeler goes black if I dishwasher it and my wok is carbon steel and definitely not suitable for the dishwasher.

I agree that recycling isn't the best thing - but it's something which councils can do, and I think it's better to do it than not, IYSWIM?

But yes if we could get through to people that we'd all be better off generating less waste to start with, then that would be even better.

It's happening a little at least - things like carrier bags have become one area where people actually think through the "cradle to grave" aspect of our choices. 10 or 20 years ago you were considered a mad old lady or weird hippy if you took your own shopping bags to the supermarket and reused them. Now you are seen as a normal and responsible person.

It's slow, but it is happening. Perhaps we need to pick the next thing to focus on and get all MNers to agree, so we can start a trend?

My non-stick pans have always been fine in the dishwasher.

Ditto knives, peelers, graters, etc.

The only accident we have had is when I put a crappy plastic spatula in there and it went all bendy

Yes everything goes in the dishwasher and have stood the test of time.

I do have to replace those small round cake tins once in a while (but i use them as mini roasting/baking trays as well) as they eventually go rusty. But these used to go rusty washing in the sink before i had a diswasher.

Other than that everything is fine.

If anyone is interested, Abel and Cole deliver organic veg boxes to your door and they recycle all waste/packaging is very minimal - www.abelandcole.co.uk

I don't know what the current research says, but I think this is still true:

Metal is always worth recycling. Always. The energy it takes to get new ore out of the ground & make it into metal is vast. Especially aluminium. Plus huge amounts of water used in mining. You can't get better than metal recycling.

Mobile phones are good to recycle: rare earth metals inside them if naught else.

I'm not sure about batteries, probably well worth it (chemicals + metal).

Everything else is a bit nebulous & may depend on where you live. Textiles in the UK get overwhelmingly reused well (shoddy for rags & resale to rest of world). Glass pretty good, plastics & paper a bit iffy.

Paper-cardboard can be burnt, too, though, which may bring nearly as many benefits (compared to recycling) if used to generate heat or energy.

The main problem with council recycling is all the contamination; the value of council recycling would go way up if the contamination rates could be drastically cut.

Reduce, reuse, recycle, a mantra to remember in that order. So don't buy it if you don't need it, try to find new uses for old stuff, and only recycle when you can't reduce or reuse.

Confessions of An Eco-Sinner is good for facts & figures, but may be out of date now.