To be annoyed at Tesco meal deal sandwiches?

[Sweetforthesummer]

New to mumsnet so if I get things wrong in this post please excuse me.

Anyway, the other day I got myself and the DC a tesco meal deal for lunch.

I had to get back to doing some jobs so I left the DC to finish their sandwiches.

I came back to check on them about 20 minutes later and found torn paper from the sandwich wrapper all over the kitchen table.

I asked DC1 what on earth was going on and they explained to me that they had to peel off the plastic to recycle the card. 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

We cleaned up the card in the end and recycled it but AIBU to think that working, busy people aren't going to go to that much effort to recycle some paper?

Went back to tesco today to get some more and they claim to be fully recyclable on the packaging.

Yeah right! Obviously I'm still going to use them so just a rant really.

Just put them in the recycling as is. One of my work clients is a major manufacturer of recycled cardboard and their input material is a lot of household cardboard recycling. I was talking to one of their technicians about this very issue the other day.

To them, as long as there isn't significant actual food waste in the box it really doesn't matter.

They expect a certain amount of impurities, which are removed as part of the process as a matter of routine. Grease and plastic windows just make up part of that.

Fuck knows.🤷🏿‍♀️

Not just Tesco ones - I've tried with coop and M&S too. The mechanism just doing work.

There was a short bit about this on some type of 'recycling' (how to live more sustainably) programme not so long ago. Apparently the sandwich wrappings aren't currently as recyclable as companies would have us believe.

I also live in a block of flats and was under the impression that the recycling is actually recycled. But same as a PP, because a lot of the other flats don't think they need to bother, it turns out our recycling dumpster goes in the regular bin wagon. I still do split the recycling, but only big things like plastic bottles etc and not the smaller things. Until our council just collects it as one and sorts it all out like some councils do, there's not a lot I can do. I do take my glass for recycling to the bottle bank though.

This happened the other day?

Yes?

Really don’t get some of these replies - especially given what we know about climate change and the problems future generations are going to encounter

This is a problem.

I don’t think OP was making a massive drama about this - just having a valid rant that a major company isn’t making it easy enough to recycle one of their top selling goods - there being thousands upon thousands of similar sandwiches being sold across the country each day - probably all going to landfill for this exact reason

landfill just sits there - for millions of years - with nowhere to go- with new packaging sucking the worlds resources, impacting ecosystems, using energy and thus Being one factor contributing to the climate change we are seeing. The world has limited resources when are people going to realise that

this should be everyone’s issue

You were at home? If you're that concerned about recycling, why didn't you just make sandwiches yourself or teach DC how to? It takes no time and there isn't any pointless card and plastic involved.

I’m not going to ask my DCs to pick up litter

I despair!

Exactly, people seem to forget that it's reduce reuse recycle.

If you were really concerned about the environmental impact of sandwich packets you'd just make your own, instead of trekking to Tesco to buy them.

I'm in Team OP. Fortunately, where I live it's ok to put the window envelopes in the mixed recycling as they are incinerated
A lot of the biodegradable packaging takes years to disintegrate and needs exposure to sunlight, and some cardboard needs to be peeled away from the plastic before it can be recycled. It's greenwashing.

I get these sometimes at work. There is a really small tab on the packet that allows you to peel out the plastic bit. If you start there it's easy but it's a bit like finding the end of the sellotape! We have card and soft plastic recycling locally so it's quite easy to split the two bits apart and put both in their own recycling bins, but I agree it could be more straightforward/obvious how to separate the packaging

I came back to check on them about 20 minutes later and found torn paper from the sandwich wrapper all over the kitchen table.

It's the suspense building for me

Went back to tesco today to get some more and they claim to be fully recyclable on the packaging.

Yeah right! Obviously I'm still going to use them
This is the bit where you’re BU, OP. Your rant is justified – recycling should be easier and clearer and unified across the country. But once you find something that isn’t, and that annoys you, surely the answer is to stop buying it?

Tesco recycle all soft plastics now. I put mine in a pedal bin bag and once a month drop the bag in the cage on the way in

www.tescoplc.com/news/2021/shoppers-can-now-return-all-their-soft-plastic-packaging-to-recycling-points-at-every-large-tesco-store-in-the-uk/

Yes this.

I doubt much of what we put in recycling even gets recycled.

Where I used to work nobody took lids off bottles and milk cartons, and they can't be recycled then, nor dirty stuff, and it was all dirty. It probably gets dumped most of the time.

I do recycle but I won't go out of my way like that.

😆

Where I am you leave the lids on bottles and they can’t recycle the lids on their own but they can when they are on bottles.

I’m ill and jetlagged but I immediately thought this

why is this even a thread?

and yes I’ll be hiding it now because it’s a total waste of time.

What do you put in your recycling then?

This may feel harsh but it is better to try to avoid consuming products that rely on plastic packaging in the first place. I am not certain even half the stuff we recycle gets adequately recycled.

Maybe stop buying sandwiches wrapped in cardboard and plastic then. 2 days in a row. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

More of an issue for me is the crap quality of the fillings in the meal deal sandwiches.
Cleverly marketed to look like a bargain, but definitely a false economy.