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?!

But a hoover is made if plastic.

And a mixture of metal and other materials too (including manky old dust, dirt and grease, unless somebody actually took the time to take it apart to clean it before chucking it). And the thick plastic in a hoover is intended to last for years and is completely different from the thin, transparent stuff designed only for containing 2 litres of pop for a short time before being discarded.

Hoovers can be recycled/disposed of if you take them to the tip or call the council out to collect separately (although I think it's probably just the metal that they recycle, and then discard the rest) - or even put in your normal landfill bin if there's room - but the regular doorstep recycling collection is intended for single-material waste items whose contents are commonly consumed in numbers as part of a household's routine weekly living.

Surely, it's easier for each individual household to keep non-standard items out of of their one recycling bin each fortnight rather than a relatively few people (who are hardly living the dream in their careers) having to fish tons of rank old landfill waste out of the resulting mound coming from thousands of bins, whilst having to leave their sorting conveyor belt to haul it over to the huge reject pile?

I always recycle, but have been very sceptical since in the local bottle bank you have to sort, clear, green, brown, into different sections, as I pull away a lorry pulled up and lifted container into one pile on the back of his lorry, I wondered why I’d bothered

Ageism is about using generalisations to 'other' (usually critically) people of any age - so it applies if it's younger or older people.

Where I live the list of what you can actually put in your recycling bin is pretty short. I try to abide by it but on numerous occasions I have seen the bin men empty my recycling bin and the corner shops general waste bin into the same lorry so like other I am sceptical of the point in recycling.

The truth is our country does not have the facilities to adequately recycle. I really think that what we do as a household wont make even a tiny dent on the problem especially when businesses create so much plastic. However, it is always the consumer who is expected to change their ways or to make the effort (e.g. paying for bags, using paper straws, sorting the recycling).

@PhilomenaButterfly

I completely agree - I hate being patronised and nagged by the government and big tax-avoiding companies as well.

But surely, if the government/council provide you with a bin to use for your recycling, you can either choose to use it or not. Same with Subway, Starbucks, Amazon etc - if there are any aspects to the way they run their businesses that you object to strongly enough, you're entirely at liberty to choose not to give them any of your custom.

One of my neighbours uses her recycling bin to keep logs in for her woodburner and she regularly takes her recycling to the tip on the way home from work. It doesn't sound very convenient to me, but I fully respect her choice that works for her.

Why wouldn't people either just use the bin as intended or simply not use it? Unless they were deliberately trying to protest at the council for giving them an option?!

@Prestonsflowers – I’m also a coffin-dodging, pension-drawing, drain-on society.

In my case it is as many others have said – confusion!

To me anything that will burn – plastic of any colour creed or sexual orientation, paper, clean or dirty – can be recycled to recover its energy content, so belongs in the recycling bin. Incineration with energy recovery is recycling.
So that includes a largely plastic dead vacuum cleaner.

Anything made totally or partially of any metal whatever it was originally can be recycled. So that still includes that vacuum cleaner buts adds the dead ‘brolly.

Anything made of glass can be recycled. Apparently except Pyrex according to our LA for reasons I haven’t explored.

But our council is not interested in re-cycling only in what can be re-sold.

At one time it was no yogurt pots then they were OK. What’s special about yogurt pots? What changed?
Put a tin- plated steel tin or an aluminium can in the recycling? Well done Sir.
Dare to put a random steel nut or bolt in there and you are killing all the Polar bears.

What’s this thing I’ve just learned that black plastic food trays are a no-no? If the damned things must not be put in the recycling then why the blanket blank are they permitted to be used in the first place!

Thank you for understanding WeBuilt. If it were me I'd leave the bin empty.

It's so funny when the younger generation think they invented recycling! 😂

@GrumpyOlderBloke

Some very good points there - although isn't it meant to be very polluting for the environment if you burn plastic?

I completely agree about the black plastic food trays. I don't know if there's a particular reason why companies use them - better heat induction in the oven/microwave, maybe (quite good reason) or they just think it looks more premium and they can therefore charge more (not any kind of acceptable reason at all)?! If it is the former, our council (and presumably others) allow any colour EXCEPT black - the reason given being that their machines need to be able to 'see' at least a tiny bit of light pass through to be able to sort it; so if they used very dark brown or green, the induction properties would be pretty much the same and the trays could then be recycled. Why ever would the council ban/tax single-use carrier bags but not do the same with black food trays, when it's such an easy, painless 'win'?

And as for junk mail that plops through the letterbox, bearing a huge 'PLEASE RECYCLE ME!' logo. You do know that not using unnecessarily in the first place is even better than recycling, don't you? You burden me with your marketing rubbish, but now I'M somehow the potential baddie if I don't properly sort YOUR unsolicited litter for you?

As you rightly say, big companies and governments may claim to love recycling, but they love money far, far more.

It's so funny when the younger generation think they invented recycling! 😂

Very true! Although, recycling is actually a retrograde step and much more wasteful compared to simple re-use, as we always used to have. Plastic might seem more convenient when out and about and safer when very young children are around, but making bottles and jars/containers out of sturdy glass that could be returned, washed thoroughly and used again makes so much more sense.

They still do it in Germany, Austria and other countries. It's actually a lot of fun quite satisfying posting your used bottles in a machine built into the outside wall of the shop, hearing the whirring and clanking and then receiving your coupon for the deposits on your next ones.

Again, it's what suits global business and makes them more in profits and any other concerns come a very distant second.

PhilomenaButterfly

I've visited my local recycling centre as an accompanying parent for my DD's school visit. Twice! It was fascinating and I would thoroughly recommend it to anyone's children's school as a potential educational visit.

My local one (run by Viridor) services Stockport Council and afaik has one of the best recycling rates in the country.

We have recycling bins that you put steel/aluminium tins in together with glass and plastic bottles. The recycling runs along conveyor belts through a set of machines that crush the glass, draw out steel with large magnets, remove aluminium with some clever reverse electromagnetism and 'blow out' plastic bottles using infra-red technology.

On both occasions I visited there was a huge amount of non-recyclable waste on the conveyor belts which was largely sorted by hand. One thing that really struck me was how plastic/glass bottle lids contaminated the recycled glass as it when everything was crushed, the lids fell through that grating that was supposed to only let broken glass though. I now find myself drawn to my work's recycling containers and end up removing all lids from bottles .

I once heard someone say if they want everything recycled they can clean it themselves, I’m not washing it all up. Ffs.

...posted too soon. Was going to say I bloody well wash everything, it’s not difficult.

I chuck anything made of plastic or metal in the recycling bin along with the paper & glass (we can in ours).

I don't particularly care if it's the wrong plastic TBH - either the person working on the conveyor belt will pick it out or it'll just be shipped to whatever 3rd world country has the contract & chucked in a field over there.

I know a couple of people in my area who have received letters from the Council for putting the wrong things in the wrong bin. I am not sure what would happen if they did it again!

In our area the council won't collect recyling bins from repeat offenders.

People here are pretty ignorant and lazy when it comes to recycling

I disagree. The problem is that there is no nationwide strategy. Every area should have the same rules.

Where I live used to be quite advanced on recycling, now it is somewhat behind other areas eg I can't recycle tetrapaks, yogurt pots etc or plastic bags. Things don't generally go to landfill here, they are incinerated to generate electricity, so I think the council is lazy about recycling.

My mum and I get completely confused when we visit each other as we have such different systems.

I am disgusted about the landlords of the building I work in. They don't provide a recycling service as part of the service charge. Everything, and I mean everything, goes to landfill. Even glass and paper. How is that even legal? My boss has now decided that we (as in the business) will pay for a recycling service outselves.

Our council significantly reduced the size of our general waste bins without increasing the types of rubbish that can be recycled. It's fairly logical that this will lead to people putting stuff in the wrong bins.

It really doesn't h elp when the whole rubbish collecting / recycling systems are so completely different in different local authorities.

Inward composting and recycling where possible "before it was a thing."

The "system" has lost credibility in the UK at least.

I believe aluminium cans are worth recycling but as to the rest I'm not sure.

I still compost in my back yard.

(And When did they start adding plastic to teabags?!)

That Should read " I was into.."