To think England is way behind Scotland with recycling?

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Happy to be corrected if I'm wrong.

We just spend the weekend in the Lake District in a caravan. I couldn't help but notice the lack of recycling bins (maybe just not looking in the right places). We had a few wine bottles & plastic milk cartons but at the caravan site there were only general waste bins. We took them with us when we went to the nearest town where there was a Sainsbury's but could find any glass or plastic recycling. In Scotland they are everywhere Supermarkets, Car Parks, Leisure Centre etc. I also noticed homes had a general waste bin & cardboard/paper. We have general waste, plastic/tins, glass, paper/cardboard & also a compost bin for food waste in our area in Scotland. This really worries me with the state of the planets waste problem.

I think it depends on the area of England tbh.

Where I am we have a garden waste bin, food recycling bin, glass/can/ plastic bin, cardboard bin, a bin for juice cartons only and then general waste can’t be recycled waste bin. And all the supermarkets round here have at least glass/can and cardboard recycle points

A bit of a meaningless statement without backup facts.
Anecdote - I live in a London Borough. We have weekly collections of rubbish, glass, paper, plastic and tins. We have fortnightly garden waste collections if you pay a small fee. We have collection of large objects if you ask the council. We have a fabulous tip/dump/recycling centre where you can recycle practically anything from electricals to printer cartridges to carpet to batteries.

On a recent holiday with friends in Edinburgh they put everything in one bin.

So the the answer is: "It depends"

In England generally speaking all of the recycling goes into your domestic recycling bin and gets sorted at the depot. Has been like that in Australia as well which is by and large ahead of the game environmentally. Never seen a bin just fir cardboard though but then again I have never been to the Lake District.

I live in England (London borough) and all of my recycling goes into one bin.

Where I am it depend on the size of roads and driveways. We have bins for general, recyclable, glass and garden. 10 miles down the road it general and recycling in different coloured bin bags. In the same way I wouldn’t form an opinion of Glasgow and call it Scotland, I wouldn’t judge England on a caravan holiday. Especially given the population differences and density.

YABU

It varies hugely by local authority. My mums area every home has about four different bins for all the recycling options.

Some authorities are shit yes, but not the entire country!

FWIW Republic of Ireland was, in my experience, ahead of the UK on recycling because the private bin companies charged by weight or volume (can’t remember which), so people had a clear incentive to recycle as it was cheaper! Possibly my family were just more concerned about the cost than most thought!

As I said I'm more than happy to be corrected. The whole waste/recycling thing worries me for the future. I thought the UK was pretty good at recycling so was surprised whilst in the Lakes we struggled to find a recycling point for glass & plastic. I'm really glad to hear most areas are doing their bit.

I actually done my MA dissertation all about recycling rates!

From comparing the Local Authorities it appears that increased rates of recycling occur when there are fortnightly collections of general waste and as many types of recyclables as possible to be collected from as close to the home as possible.

It is so very regional as each LA is responsible for their own recycling rates but there is a great push to get everyone up to the 50% EU target by 2020.

Areas of higher proportions of flats or areas of remoteness tend to perform the worst.

Taken from UK Statistics on Waste by DEFRA

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/683051/UK_Statisticson_Waste_statistical_notice_Feb_2018_FINAL.pdf

I'd be really interested to know what they are doing differently in Wales!

Blostma It can be argued that it is because their devolved government has more direct involvement in policy making than rest of the UK and have a drive to push for 0 waste

Well looks like you're wrong OP, according to Floeer's chart it's Wales, England, NI, Scotland in that order.

Seems to vary.

When I lived in Glasgow city there was no recycling.

Out in the burbs, only 20 minutes, we have 5 different bins.

Another 'Scottish person bashing the English' thread. Yawn!

There'd be uproar on here if English started bashing the Scots....

In Wales you are given 4 different kinds of recycling bins and they won't take the rubbish if improperly sorted. It's quite strict but effective.

I'm not sure on the Edinburgh one, I've stayed there a few times and there were all manner of recycling bins, so perhaps it depends on the part of the city? I find the UK so inconsistent in general on recycling though. Some areas are hot on home recycling, some provide good recycling bins in town centres but every area seems to have its own little system.

Like pps I know the environmental impact so usually look for the right bin and separate rubbish at home, but I imagine many people are put off by that.

From my research it did appear that people were fully aware of the impact of rubbish and benefits of recycling, especially since Blue Planet II but it came down to ease of removing rubbish and direct impacts on their day to day routines whether they were more likely to recycle or not.

It is politically controversial to start strict rubbish, which is probably why some Council are not so focused on tackling collection regimes.

Also, education only had very limited impact in improving long term recycling rates.

Wales has done great because it has been their government that has directly got involved with waste collection policy rather than leaving it up to LAs like rest of UK. People have no choice there but to recycle their waste, by not recycling they will be causing themselves more angst.

But yes I suppose YABU to think England is way behind Scotland with recycling as stated further up thread, Scotland is actually slightly behind England. We should all be looking to Wales for inspiration.

Glasgow has been recycling for about 12+ years: that's when we got our blue (recycling) wheelie bins. I'm sure before then we had boxes for "official" (ie collected) recycling - and the supermarkets for many years before that had had plastic, glass and paper recycling. (So as we live in a house that has been divided in two, that means eight bins on the driveway! )

I think it took a while for recycling bins to get sorted for the middens (bin areas) of the tenements and other blocks of flats.

We now have, on alternate weeks, green (general) and brown (garden and food waste) bin collections with, on the intervening weeks blue (plastic, paper, tin and carboard) bins collections, with, every 4 weeks the purple bins (glass).

Where Scotland (as a country) was behind Wales but ahead of England was charging for bags (and in Scotland the only exceptions are for fresh fish and meat - paper bags still count).

I think we are also further down the legislative process for requiring deposits/refunds for glass and plastic bottles than England (at least, it was announced months ago - don't know what its current status is). Don't know what Wales is doing on that.

Feese, I am certainly not English bashing at all. I said at the beginning of my post that I was happy to be corrected. I was more worried about the waste issue our planet is having not been taken seriously in certain areas. We love coming to England

Another 'Scottish person bashing the English' thread Yawn!

Nothing in the OP's post is bashing the English. What a distorted interpretation.