To inwardly rage against people who won't recycle

[siblingrevelry]

My dad told me that his neighbours either side have told him they 'can't be bothered' to recycle as per the new scheme in the area, and will just continue putting everything into their main bin.

It pisses me off that people are seemingly allowed to opt out of this public duty. I am very environmentally aware, although i realise that scraping shit off babie's nappies is a step too far for lots of folks, but why should I and many others bother washing tins, squashing plastic and taking out the recycling when others don't?

I appreciate that the jury is still out on global warming, but there is no denying that the physical space this stuff takes up in landfill affects us all.

Lazy, lazy, lazy!

Bloody hell decaff how do you cope!? There are 3 of us here (DD is 16) and I have 2 full freezers.
Not that they are full of Ben & Jerrys

Oh please, siblingrevelry, ever heard the phrase you'll catch more flies with honey than vinegar? (Topical given the subject matter, I suppose!). Don't be so self righteous, it doesn't suit you. And I'm one that does recycle as much general waste as possible, but one whose council does not make food waste recycling as easy as other authorities seem to do.

I recycle if I remember but I really don't care. I'm not proud of the fact nor ashamed, I just don't care.

Basically have to shop more often Juice. And choose one type of frozen "vegetable of the week" to have available at a time.

Ben & Jerry's doesn't fit standing up but it does lying down

Me too Bell I just can't be arsed. I do love telling the tree huggers about my gas guzzler though. It's fun to reassure them that what they're saving from their carbon footprint I'm more than making up for just driving around for the fun of it.

Aww decaff, I'll perhaps not take my freezers quite for granted any more. Must be difficult.

To be fair I bought the second for my dog Jack, (his pic in my profile) he was very ill with liver disease before he died and I home cooked and froze all his meals so we had an extra freezer to store them in from eBay and I bulk cooked and froze. He had white fish, parsley, asparagus etc all put into tubs and stored for a days meal.

After he died we didn't really need it but I reasoned it would be useful at Christmas. I then proceeded to fill it with crap and 18 months later I'm not sure how I coped without it. I perhaps should be spurred on to be a bit more energy saving and sort it out really.

I'm amazed how many people are ignoring the few comments that have pointed out that very little recycling is actually recycled but in fact dumped in landfills. For those who get a nice warm glow from careful methodical recycling please please do some research.....

I recycle in that I stick the respective types of waste into the brown/black/ green/ grey bins. I can't even look at the bins without getting annoyed.

I have to put food waste and garden waste into the (big) green wheelie bin and I have a vile food caddy for the kitchen. It gets emptied weekly.

Thee grey bin for general waste is only emptied once a fortnight, it's a small wheelie bin ie only fits two full black bin bags in.

It's beyond ridiculous. I have dirty nappies which go in the grey bin. It's like having an outside toilet on my garden.

I called the council to ask for a bigger grey bin. Their helpful suggestion was to use reusable nappies.

I was rather amazed by that as well, Grumpy.

But people do what they need to do to feel good about themselves, really, and don't let facts get in the way.

I don't recycle. Never have never will. Not interested.

friday13 you say "countries with stuff worth recycling are in population decline" I'm not sure how that helps with the overall problem of resources. Especially as the people in those poorer countries tend to head for the richer ones.

"The world population has experienced continuous growth since the end of the Great Famine and the Black Death in 1350"

The only thing slowing it down is that so many people are starving.

Whatever we do to 'save the planet' by changing individual behavior is wiped out by having more individuals.

I'm not sure what we can do about it, but convincing people that putting empty tins in a different bin is going to help is one way to avoid facing the problem and make politicians look like they are dealing with it.

My next door neighbour puts her main bin out overflowing every week but not the green bin.

I want to talk to her about it but don't want to stickybeak.

Her dh died & he used to do the bin stuff. She's not English so I don't think she understands the green waste 'rules'. It still annoys me to see food waste spilling out of the top of her bin every week. It's a shame when we have a very good recycling scheme here & easy to use kitchen caddies given out by the council.

She uses our bin to put overflow rubbish in because she can't recycle.

I need to get a life. Rant over.

SDTG I do all the rinsing with the bowl of used water that builds up while I'm doing the washing up that merits straight-from-the-tap water, as you guessed.

I do think we should all recycle, in principle. However, it is simply pissing in the wind while junk mail and over packaging is allowed

. It's reduce, reuse, recycle FFS so why are Virgin Media allowed to send me a big fat envelope every fortnight that I do not want and goes straight in the recycling unopened?

I have a dishwasher so don't have old washing up water and I think it's immoral for us to be all using gallons of clean drinking water, a luxury that half the world does not have access to, to wash our rubbish, prior to it being shipped across the world to be dumped in China or India.

I work at a recycling sorting centre. It doesn't get land filled. It gets sorted, and sold. It's a business.
Last year the uk used over 400 million tonnes of raw materials. They're not everlasting.
An aluminium can can be recycled indefinitely, and saves 90% of the energy needed to make a new one. Saves water, saves pollution, saves money. It's a pretty small contribution to looking after the planet, but it's a bit of a no brainer really.

I think it's immoral for us to be all using gallons of clean drinking water, a luxury that half the world does not have access to

Yeah, up to a point. But that's essentially the "eat your lunch, there are people starving in Africa that would be glad of it" argument. The UK does not, whatever shroudwaving might be occasionally attempted by the water industry, have a shortage of potable water. Using less of it doesn't provide a single drop extra in sub-Saharan Africa. It might make you feel better, but practically the least of our environmental problems in the UK is water.

I do think we should all recycle, in principle. However, it is simply pissing in the wind while junk mail and over packaging is allowed

. It's reduce, reuse, recycle FFS so why are Virgin Media allowed to send me a big fat envelope every fortnight that I do not want and goes straight in the recycling unopened?

I have a dishwasher so don't have old washing up water and I think it's immoral for us to be all using gallons of clean drinking water, a luxury that half the world does not have access to, to wash our rubbish, prior to it being shipped across the world to be dumped in China or India.

I do think we should all recycle

Including our postings, it would appear.

Oops don't know why it posted twice like that.

I really object to using hot water to get jam etc out if jars, I try just to drain stuff over them.

If I had a water meter all recycling would remain dirty. It gets rained on anyway.

I live in an apartment. We don't have the recycling bins just one main big bin. We haven't room in the apartment for recycling boxes and such

If I could I would.

I'm pretty sure that in my council area the recycling does a actually get recycled, because it is collected by a separate company not the council themselves. I assume the company couldn't exist if they just put the stuff in landfill, that would just cost them money.

It's obviously not the case everywhere, but there definitely must be some recycling somewhere that actually gets recycled.

Our household rates are really low (we don't have council tax here, its rates) and the council always say that one of the reasons is because they recycle so much so can avoid landfill costs. No idea if that's true or not, but if it is, it makes me wonder why all councils don't do the same?

It's actually "reject, repair, reduce, re-use, recycle"

We need to stop BUYING the stuff and the packaging. I remember unpacking my hoover and leaving the cardboard and polystyrene at the shop.

Nowadays I wouldn't bother because I can put the cardboard in the blue bin.
So the problem is passed back to an individual level, instead of the manufacturers.

you do know who was the original re-cycler in Europe right?
so next time some German gets on their high horse about recycling (which they do) remember that.
I am pretty much convinced it all goes to landfill anyway or gets shipped to developing countries.

here it is taught as refuse (as in reject), reduce, re-use, repair, recycle, refuse (as in rubbish) - so you get a twee little circle of waste management........