Partner chucks anything in the recycling bin 😣

[Stepstowander64]

My partner Litterally throws anything in the recycling bin, anything plastic, even nappies sometimes. He just treats it like a bonus bin and I feel like I always have to sift through and then when I moan about it I’m always the bad guy who moans about everything 🤯 AIBU!?

The collectors maybe need to get sniffier (literally!) about emptying recycling bins. If it's obviously contaminated they should slap a sticker on telling the owner to put it in general waste and leave it.

My council scrapped the recycling and increased landfill collections for a number of streets in a part of town that always contaminated the load. Landfill costs the council extra charges. They were better off targeting those areas and accepting the landfill than having several truckloads going to waste every fortnight.

Errors can be made, but just sticking random and unhygienic rubbish in because you don't care is a pretty major personality flaw that is probably evident in other areas of life. It's selfish and inconsiderate.

YANBU but I’m the one who does that in our house. I wouldn’t put nappies in but do I take all the plastic films off of containers? Do I heck

@BubblyBarbara

YANBU but I’m the one who does that in our house. I wouldn’t put nappies in but do I take all the plastic films off of containers? Do I heck

But why @BubblyBarbara - it take moments to remove the film.

That would drive me insane. I don't think I could be in a relationship with someone no couldn't even manage basic take like putting the rubbish in the correct bin though.

My partner used to do this. He stopped after I tipped it all out on the floor to retrieve the tea bags, dirty foil and kitchen roll. Every now and then the waste operatives will check your recycling. They can fine but usually leave it with a 'naughty' sticker on so you can be judged by the neighbours.

Sympathies OP. My husband is a quite senior professional in an intellectually demanding field. For eight years he claimed he simply could not understand what goes in the recycling and what in the bin. Not even different types of plastics - he claimed he "didn't understand" that you could recycle a cereal box.

Luckily he coupled this with lofty, disdainful sighing about how if more people had been the the rainforest like he had, they would take more care of Our Glorious Planet, which I was able to aggressively leverage, and he's much better now.

Although I've actually noticed that it's the more hippy-dippy type men who seem intent on recycling everything rather than binning everything, almost like if they just chuck it in there the refuse centre will be forced to improvise a way to recycle it. My former housemate used to do that and it drove me mad - it was exactly the same laziness just in the other direction. Is that your husband?

Sorry but he is an arrogant pig !

My mum does this - used tin foiled caked in cooking fat, used paper tissues....anything really just gets chucked in the recycling

We had a notice this week that our council is going to be checking peoples recycling because of this exact reason. I think they fine people who are caught putting nonrecycleables in it.

I couldn't stand this, not sure our relationship would survive his attitude

You need to talk to him. If I had to go through a bin unnecessarily because my DH was doing that I would be ticked off. We each have our jobs but we shouldn’t create more work for the other.

YABU. Life's too short to worry about stuff like this. I wouldn't necessarily chuck shitty nappies in the recycling bin but honestly couldn't care less if someone else does. It all gets sorted out at the recycling plant anyway, if a batch is contaminated it just goes to landfill anyway so what's the problem.

Wow really? Happy for a whole batch of recycling to go to landfill due to careless behaviour.
Yanbu op. My dh does it too. Or leaves rubbish on the side as he doesn't know what bin to put it in. So lazy.

Dp does this or he'll put things in the recycling that need to go in the black bin.
In the grand scheme of things it's not that big a deal

@contrmary

YABU. Life's too short to worry about stuff like this. I wouldn't necessarily chuck shitty nappies in the recycling bin but honestly couldn't care less if someone else does. It all gets sorted out at the recycling plant anyway, if a batch is contaminated it just goes to landfill anyway so what's the problem.

Wow, with people like you like this planet really is screwed. How selfish

I will point out with dp it's more the lids from tins, tops off milk bottles or black plastic. I wouldn't let him just put rubbish in there.

@contrmary

YABU. Life's too short to worry about stuff like this. I wouldn't necessarily chuck shitty nappies in the recycling bin but honestly couldn't care less if someone else does. It all gets sorted out at the recycling plant anyway, if a batch is contaminated it just goes to landfill anyway so what's the problem.

That attitude is disgraceful. We are all complicit in killing the planet and frankly sorting out our recycling is one of the easiest wins. If people kept doing this then councils will stop doing any recycling collections and it will ALL end up in landfill.

We have shared bins for our building and it drives me nuts when other flats put the wrong things in the bins.

My rubbish doesn't get emptied because flat B doesn't understand that paper and card go in the blue bin, glass in the green bin, and food/garden waste in the browny-orange bin.

At least I don't work in the recycling centre having to deal with the results of dirty nappies in with the rest of the recycling. Sorting by hand as it all passes along a conveyor belt.

Your husband should be ashamed.

@username58

Mine puts dirty stuff in the recycling such as plastic soup pots and empty milk bottles which haven't been rinsed so they make the house stink of gone off milk which is absolutely vile. But then he'll also chuck anything and everything in the rubbish bin. How hard is it for them to get their heads around!

Putting unrinsed containers in the recycling is disgusting. Was always amazed how many people did it at work.

my recycling men wont take anything non recyclable , they sift through the bins and leave anything they cant take. so no yanbu as who wants dirty nappies left in the bin

Mine does with orange juice containers etc as they don't take them
Here yet and yogurt pots etc
We have boxes though and recylcling is put on cart by bin men from boxes so they leave anything behind that can't go
I feel guilty as i had to put some veg from fridge that had gone off in my bin today and not food bin as its broken and I am awaiting a new one , i def couldnt chuck nappies or such in my recyling and contaminate it all as its you would contaminate the whole cart

Putting unrinsed containers in the recycling is disgusting. Was always amazed how many people did it at work.

Must be a worldwide thing - I worked in an office in NZ and was also amazed at how supposedly intelligent people (much higher up the pay scale than me) would eat their hot lunch and then just chuck the container in the recycling bin.

In the grand scheme of things it's not that big a deal

In the grand scheme of things it shows a level of arrogance that is not attractive. Within a relationship I would say that's quite a big deal.

Putting unrinsed containers in the recycling is disgusting. Was always amazed how many people did it at work.

IIRC at the time the recycling thing was introduced in Germany (back in the early 90s) there was a lot of discussion about washing out things like yoghurt pots. I'm pretty sure a lot of eco organisations did a study that said as long as it wasn't a lot of food waste it was more environmentally sound to put the dirty containers in the recycling as the process would clean it anyway, than to use water/soap/electricity to clean them in individual households. (but don't ask me where i read it because it was pretty much pre-internet and i can't remember that far back)

What a twat.