People who can't understand recycling

[WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll]

Now I know that plenty of people simply don't 'do' recycling - whether through lack of adequate recycling facilities, disability, laziness, being of an older generation and never having got into the habit, not seeing the need, doubt that the stuff does actually get recycled rather than just being sent straight to landfill etc. etc. That's their personal circumstances and/or choice and these aren't the people I'm talking about.

Today is the day before recycling bin collection day. During the short walk to and from school, every Wednesday, I see a number of green bins that contain what nobody could mistakenly believe could be recycled as part of the doorstep collection service.

Leaving aside the people who put in things which we're always told not to, but which might seem ambiguous, like greasy takeaway cartons or tied-up black bags (which presumably contain tins, bottles, paper etc but could in fact contain any old thing), I always see at least two or three recycling bins with random tip-fodder in them - an old hoover, trainers, old ride-on toys/bikes, broken umbrellas etc.

Before anybody accuses me of appointing myself as the local bin police and deliberately going snooping, I have plenty of better things to do than go opening the lids and having a thorough rummage through strangers' wheelie bins. The contents are always plain for any passer-by to see as the lids never close properly - probably because they're not designed to have a whole broken garden chair shoved in them.

I could understand if people were being devious and selfish by hiding excess general rubbish underneath the legitimate recycling that wouldn't be noticed by a person as the bins are upturned and emptied automatically; but it's clear as day to anybody that it's a recycling bin full of non-recyclable stuff. The bin men (understandably) don't take them, so they often just sit there for days on end, sometimes to be taken in and then put out again two weeks later ready for the next collection.

Why do people do this? Are they really unable to grasp what a recycling bin is for? Even if they're being antisocial and couldn't care less anyway, it will still end up being their problem again when their bin never gets emptied. It's not the most pressing thing on my mind, but it never ceases to baffle me as to why they do it. Is this just in our neither-posh-nor-rough area? Any ideas?!

And particularly the pissheads who gather in the children's park nearby to drink all night, then smash the bottles on the ground for the kids to cut themselves on next day.

I'd like to put some of their broken glass in their food. Oxygen thieves, the lot of them.

Our council state very clearly on their website what can be recycled and provide stickers for the bin showing what goes where.
Textiles are thrown in your garden, despite being a recyclable item under their rules. Electrical items are picked through, so a satnav or mobile phone that can be sold on eBay will be collected, everything else, thrown over the wall into the garden.
Green waste is taken, if you are lucky, but the bags, which cost £3 each are never returned.
If you are lucky enough to get a response when you complain, it's "drive it to the tip 10 miles away".
Not just me, everyone in the village I live in gets the same crap service!

OP said s/he passes by Green Bins with non recyclables in them.

Where are these transparent Green Bins please? Never heard of anyone being able to see inside a Green (or any) bin before now to examine the contents.

Doesn't matter anyway, recycling is sent where now? I want the answer to that one, now that China has told us all to feck off with our tankers of Green shite.

being of an older generation and never having got into the habit

eh ??

When I was a child, everyone took their shopping bags or baskets to the local shops and reused - plastic / carrier bags are a relatively new invention
The milkman brought your milk round and you washed the bottles and put them out to be collected, where they then got reused
Water came out the tap and no-one was scared to leave the house without a bottle of it
You got money back when you took pop bottles back to where you bought them.
People darned and mended rather than throwing out clothes

I could go on and on. My grandparents did a lot more.

At least try to get your facts straight if you are going to make generalised ageist comments.

Again (sorry) WHERE does our recycling go?

No idea, nor has anyone else since China opted out.

That is why we need to ask about the reality of recycling.

If anyone has an answer that's great! And thanks.

OP, you did a terrific job at including a wide range of disclaimers in your post to head off the usual awkward brigade. Better luck next time !

The recycling system is ineffective, inefficient and uncoordinated.

Our green bins are open, more like storage crates, not wheely bins.
Makes it easier for the bin men to decide if they feel like taking it or not.

I stubbornly and autistically refuse to recycle because the government tells me I should. I was recycling before they started telling me to, now DH sorts the recycling because it really makes me feel uncomfortable.

I realise I'm in the minority.

I stubbornly and autistically refuse to recycle because the government tells me I should. I was recycling before they started telling me to, now DH sorts the recycling because it really makes me feel uncomfortable.

What???! I don't get this at all.

The government tells us to do lots of things on a daily basis- abide by basic government laws etc (road laws being one such example) does that make you uncomfortable too?

Ffs.

In Ireland and a lot of containers say 'check local recycling' When we rang up about most they're not actually accepted. I'd doubt many people checked and would say most people put them in anyway. That's terrible that people put that kind of stuff in, yanbu

My council expects me to wash tin foil and the like ….. nah, they get it dirty. I'm certainly not increasing my water bill and gas bill by faffing with dirty jars, pots, cartons and tin foil

These posts always surprise me. I recycle everything, wash everything that needs it. I’m on a metered bill and my bill has never gone up in the slightest. Neither has the gas bill. It isn’t hard to collect items then wash at the end of a wash up.

I'm bin police too .
I'm also glass recycling police. Some neighbours drink a lot every week.

Meglett, it sounds like you live on my road....

I don't know the answer but had a bizarre conversation at work recently where our customer service lady wondered out loud why her water bottle said on it that it could be recycled but the plastic bag her bananas were in couldn't be. Cue the boss and I pointing out there are different types of plastic. Her response: really? I didn't know that! (as if "plastic" is an element on the periodic table ). We then told her that the council supplies a list of recyclable items each year on the back of the collection calendar, and if you missed that it's on their website too. "How did I not know this? They should teach this in schools!"
And she's 25 while boss and I are in our 40s. She's not thick, either, just spectacularly unobservant I think.

PIL are like this. Well, FIL is. He doesn't really believe there's an issue with rubbish, just chuck it in landfill and all will be great. He thinks having several different bins is a total waste of money and clutters up his garden. He hates that "they" are telling him how to dispose of his rubbish - it's his, he paid for it and he'll bloody well dispose of it in any way he sees fit. MIL is much more reasonable and will sort it properly when he's not looking.

Ive watched our bin men throw it all in the same dustbin anyway

I recycle what I can, I'll rinse out tins as soon as I've used them so it's easier and break down cardboard etc

However our council doesn't recycle glass among other things, you have to save it up and take it to a bottle bank. I don't drive and with children I don't risk nor have the space for glass hanging around. So unfortunately it goes in the normal waste.

I have a friend who was throwing all her wine bottles in the recycling until I told her that it probably made it all pointless as her bottles would be smashed and all the glass would be mixed up in the rest.

Our current system doesn't work. I did see a documentary about it and once the different items where sorted and squashed together they weren't even being recycled if they didn't have a buyer for it.

I'm sorry for inadvertently and unintentionally upsetting all of those accusing me of ageism. Nowhere did I suggest that all older people have trouble understanding recycling, but I merely suggested it as one of a number of possible reasons why certain people (obviously those in the minority, as most people - young and old - manage just fine) may not be able to get used to it.

I have known some people who feel this way. The vast majority don't.

My mentioning of people of an older generation was in no way a criticism of people's age - just an acknowledgement that they (as have I, and I'm also of an older generation although not what would be described as 'elderly') have lived in the time before doorstep recycling was a thing.

To avoid offending anybody, I'll make an addition:

people under 25 who have therefore lived their whole lives with doorstep recycling being a normal, ubiquitous thing, but who have somehow struggled to get used to this new change that hasn't ever not existed during their lifetimes

These posts always surprise me. I recycle everything, wash everything that needs it. I’m on a metered bill and my bill has never gone up in the slightest. Neither has the gas bill. It isn’t hard to collect items then wash at the end of a wash up

If you have a dishwasher, you don't have washing up water. And in any case, a lot of what British households 'recycle' ends up being shipped abroad to go in landfill, for incineration or is dumped in the sea. Makes all that effort washing rubbish sound so utterly pointless doesn't it?

I'm sorry for inadvertently and unintentionally upsetting all of those accusing me of ageism. Nowhere did I suggest that all older people have trouble understanding recycling, but I merely suggested it as one of a number of possible reasons why certain people (obviously those in the minority, as most people - young and old - manage just fine) may not be able to get used to it

Sorry - but this is just as bad. You may not have intended to be ageist, but your post was!

OP said s/he passes by Green Bins with non recyclables in them.

Where are these transparent Green Bins please? Never heard of anyone being able to see inside a Green (or any) bin before now to examine the contents.

I know my OP was quite long, so I can understand if you thought tl;dr, but I did specifically address this point in anticipation!

Sorry - but this is just as bad. You may not have intended to be ageist, but your post was!

How so, please?

I'd completely understand if I'd said 'all elderly people', but I neither thought nor wrote that. As children don't usually tend to put the household wheelie bins out and young adults have grown up never having known any alternative to doorstep recycling, that one point, among all the other given suggestions which haven't been picked up on and criticised, is surely a valid possibility among the middle-aged (like me) and older generations?

Would I also be considered ageist were I to, say, complain about some children screaming non-stop when using playgrounds, on the basis that there might be a whole load of over-40s excitedly racing up the climbing frame and whooping with delight on the seesaw? In fact, that could be considered more ageist as adults could in theory choose to play in a playground, whereas a 23-year-old could not possibly have lived 46 years ago.

I presume that ageism, like sexism and racism and all of the other isms, doesn't only work one way?

But a hoover is made if plastic. Can't it be recycled somehow? I grew up with recycling and I don't really get it. I just put all the dry plastic/paper/metal into the recycling. It all gets sorted anyway so they can pick out the recyclables and the things that don't belong can go into landfil.

I'm autistic. Lots of things make me uncomfortable. I'm an adult and I have an environmental conscience, I don't need the government to tell me to recycle. I also don't need them to tell me to eat 5 a day, or every food company to jump on the bandwagon. I don't need Subway to tell me that if I have all the salad that's 1 of my 5 a day. I have all the salad because I like salad. Telling me it's 1 of my 5 a day makes me not want to have any.