To think that recycling is a piece of nonsense and a money spinner?

[handbagfettish]

For context, the Council have just delivered yet another big plastic monstrosity to everyone in the area. Apparently you can put certain things in it but for tins and bottles you need to wash the items and take the labels off first. Someone mentioned on the local Facebook group that she had seen the refuse collectors putting different types of rubbish in the back of the same truck. Are we being conned? Is everything going to the same landfill site? Really interested to know if anyone has any inside knowledge.

Jeremy Vine did a phone in a while back - some of it gets sent to landfills in Africa

Someone mentioned on the local Facebook group that she had seen the refuse collectors putting different types of rubbish in the back of the same truck.

Ahh an impeccable source then.

So why do coucils go to the bother of setting up recycling facilities and then not using them?

People have been saying this for ages.

Sometimes the contract for recycling will go to a firm that washes stuff. Other times it's better to pre wash. So it makes sense to set the expectation for prewashing.
Occasionally the contractor says they can't take the goods and there may have been times when items have gone to landfill but I've never actually had this confirmed.

I would rather recycle if possible. It saves electricity especially when recycling aluminium.

Yes yabu. Do you really think single use is sustainable? Do you really think that someone on Facebook is a reliable source?

Some bin lorries have two separate compartment so different bins can be emptied together.

A lot of rubbish is recycled at source. This is very common in a lot of areas. It is all taken to the same plant and sorted out there. This could be happening in your area.

Recycling is a tricky thing, a lot of waste that people have sorted is contaminated so it means that bin will have to go to landfill as its food contaminated.

Ultimately resources are finite and so we must recycle and generally find ways to live sustainably in order to survive

I get that we need to recycle but I wonder if producing thousands and thousands of big plastic bins is helping. And if we are supposed to remove labels surely the manufacturers should put peel off labels on tins etc? When I was young we had one bin that was emptied once a week. You got your milk delivered and put your milk bottles out at night. People carried their groceries in a cardboard box - there definitely wasn't the amount of waste there if now.

So basically the environment matters as long as you don't have to do anything or go to any convenience.

The bins are plastic because of its long life. They will be reused and reused for years and years. What material would you prefer the bins to be made of?

You are not being conned- it never goes to landfill even if contaminated (landfill tax is massive). Worst case it will be shredded for burning in power stations/cement kilns, therefore not wasted. The cleaner and ‘better’ stuff is sold to be recycled. The remains & unrecyclables are shredded as above, however this has to be paid for rather than sold so it is in your interests to keep your council tax down by only putting clean recyclables in your recycling bin.

Good forbid you should have to actually make any tiny bit of effort to save the world and its billions of inhabitants.

janetforpresident you're right -I can't be arsed with all the hassle, however my DH is a recycling bin ninja and woe betide anyone that puts something in the wrong bin!

Didntwanttochangemyname - I was asking for anyone that was informed on the recycling process - as above we are a recycling household.

And why can't anyone ever ask a sensible question on here without getting pelted!

In East Sussex, one landfill site has closed because it was full.

The council couldn't find another suitable site so they built an incinerator that generates electricity from waste instead, but it was massively costly.

Where there isn't space for landfill, I think recycling as much as possible is the only real alternative.

I work for a council. Not bins but another service that gets people similarly excited on Facebook.

I keep an eye on the local FB page as part of the job, and I have never seen more utter blige, inaccurate and downright wrong information about the service as I see there.

Stuff like ‘the drop in center was closed Wednesday because they are fiddling the figures so that it looks like no one goes then they can shut it down‘

When actually it was closed because we’ve just had a massive EU grant to renovate the building and improve the service over the next 5 years and this was all over the local media, social media and a bloody notice on the door.

some people are astounding dim. Fortunately we have a media department that actually responds to them. I couldn’t do it.

LakieLady thank you - an informative answer - all I was looking for.

why can't anyone ever ask a sensible question on here without getting pelted!

They can but this was your question...

AIBU To think that recycling is a piece of nonsense and a money spinner?

It's provocative and i am sure thats deliberate

Asking "does anyone know if all recycling actually gets recycled?" Would have got a different set of responses.

I didn't think the OP was saying it was an inconvenience or anything, just that she wasn't sure what was happening and was concerned it was a mass rip off. Tbh, not sure how the council is ripping anyone off as it must cost a lot to send out the trucks and the new bins. I 100% understand the frustration about peel off labels, not very environmentally friendly if you have to soak in 16 kettles of boiling water just to loosen the damned things. Keep recycling and doing your best where you can it becomes a way of life after abit.

And why can't anyone ever ask a sensible question on here without getting pelted!

pelts OP with food waste supposedly intended for brown bin

TBH, part of the reason I recycle is the fact that the rubbish bins only get lifted once a fortnight and there would be no room by the time I chuck everything else in. I can’t bring myself to put food in the brown bin after the infamous Summer Of Maggots! 🤢 Those fuckers bred in that bin no matter what precautions I took.

I used to keep all the glass up one end of my recycling box, plastic up the other end, metal in the middle, as requested. Then I watched out of the window as it all got tipped in together.

I watched a short film about recycling that showed how things are sorted once they go into your recycling bin.
If you get close to our bin lorries you can see they have 2 separate compartments.

Each council has different facilities and different systems. In some you take labels off, in othersyou don't have to. If you suspect something bad is going on you could maybe submit a freedom of information request about where your rubbish is going?

Also remember that black plastic goes into normal bin.

Everywhere I’ve loved you just chuck it all in together and it gets sorted at the recycling centre. The only thing they say is not to put lids on things (different types of cyclables and it can cause problems during sorting because they sort of put it on a conveyer belt and pick things out iyswim so putting stuff inside other stuff or putting kids on lengthens the process.