DH and recycling

[Karou]

I hope I am being unreasonable because I'm not going to manage to change him.

He recycles everything - strips the metal off wine bottles so that it is correctly sorted and also steams labels off jam jars. This however is not the problem.

I am also an avid recycler however I do read the labels - so if a bag or plastic wrapper says 'not currently recyclable' I bin it. DH insists that 'they should bloody well work out how to recycle it' and pops it in with the plastics . He recycles used tin foil, cling film, he even insists on reusing his tea bags two or three times. Nothing gets to the black bin, he has been known to fish stuff out of the bin that I have surreptitiously put in there.

If I am being unreasonable I shall try to stop cringing and just get over myself.

Our council also has a list of what can be recycled, with warnings that contaminated loads mean the whole lot going to landfill. There's a comprehensive list of what can and can't be recycled on the council website. They advise that if in doubt, put it in the black bin. So if your DH is concerned about the environment, he's actually making things worse by trying to recycle forbidden items.

We had a warning letter from the council about this a while back - our next door neighbours had tried to recycle polystyrene, and the binmen got the house numbers mixed up. There was a shiny new "Bin it right!" sticker on next doors bin. Along with all the stuff about recycling going to landfill, they warned that repeat offences may result in the council refusing to take recycling from our house altogether. The council said this was a rare sanction and a last resort when I rang them to complain about the mix up, but it's a possibility you may want to mention to your DH.

Surely the council must be able to deal with contaminants - that's the risk of any recycling scheme.

Ours does recycle tin foil...

But if it causes trouble and your council say not to do this then he shouldnt.

The bin we can put plastic bottles, cans and glass jars/bottles in has a list of things we can't put in it:
Don't put these items in:

aerosols
foil
other metals
Pyrex
light bulbs
window glass
broken glass
juice cartons
yoghurt pots
plastic food packaging
other plastic items

We aren't allowed to recycle brown envelopes in the waste paper bag either.

The refuse collectors have scanners and if a bin has a "contaminent" in it they won't empty the bin and they attach a contamination tag to it.

We have to put our bins at the end of the cul-de-sac and once someone lobbed some drinks cans into our garden waste bin, so it wasn't emptied, so I know this isn't an empty threat.

Your husband is being a self entitled arse.

We have never been warned, just occasionally they leave stuff behind.
We can recycle aerosols - I was surprised about that. Also does take tin foil just not dirty tin foil.
Bunbaker, your council sound rediculously restricted - no brown paper envelopes, why ever not?
I'm going to print off the guidelines and pin them to the bin. Entitled arse just about sums him up sometimes