To ask if you recycle your plastics?

[motherofthelittlescreamingone]

I'm not asking about the yoghurt pots that all councils take that don't take much effort to recycle, but about the cellophane wrapper packets that are marked "recycle with bags at big supermarkets" or similar. I only became aware that they were recyclable over lockdown when I was at home and life slowed down a bit and on maternity leave subsequently I made an effort to collect it all and put it in the bin at the supermarket.

The relevant bin is really very small in my nearest supermarket and I just can't believe that many people do recycle there.

I guess I wondered how many people are like I was and just were unaware that this existed, or have I been massively behind the curve?

My car boot is full of bags of those plastic wrappers, they sit there and I try to shift the load bit by bit as I find the supermarket bins are often full. However, our local council recently informed us we could put the plastic wrappers in our recycling bin! It almost sounds too good to be true but I'm genuinely excited about it!

www.citytosea.org.uk/plastic-recycling-doesnt-work/#:~:text=Over%20the%20last%20few%20years,plastic%20pollution%20around%20the%20world

First one on Google, not necc the best

I recycle EVERYTHING!! I live less than half a mile from landfill and it’s fucking disgusting.

Where can you still buy the paper & foil-wrapped Kitkats!?

I agree- YABU to assume that ALL councils accept yoghurts pots! Ours don't event take glass!!!

I've recently moved from London where I put every recyclable I had in a single bag and it went out weekly. My new home is very different. They only collect paper, then tins/plastic bottles fortnightly. They won't take glass, nor yoghurt pots, plastic trays etc, not even cartons at all from the curb collection!!!!

I'd have no idea where anywhere local would take plastic bread bags, wrappers etc, but would be willing to find out?

@TwoTowels I buy them in Tesco. It seems to depend on what type of pack you buy.

I swap between the packs of 4 x 4 bar, the packs of 9 x 2 bar and the packs of 21 x 2 bar, depending on which is cheapest (it seems to change every week)!

As far as I can remember all of the ones with 4 bars are wrapped in plastic. But some of the two bar ones are wrapped in plastic and some in foil and paper. I've just been to look in the kitkat cupboard and (strictly in the interests of research) opened a new pack of 21. They have foil and paper.

Yep, we do. I rinse out anything like salad bags etc and have an octopus peg thingy from ikea that I hang them on to dry, cat food pouches go upside down on a drainer. Then into a larger bag and drop off at supermarket - our Morrisons has one of the big cages. We have a food waste processor next to our sink, compost bins in the garden and we now average less than half a bin bag full of rubbish per week.

No, we use the carrier bags that the shopping is delivered in for bin bags for food, kitchen & bathroom waste.

@MarmiteCoriander try the Coop.

Yes we do. We recycle everything possible and take it to Tesco to recycle if the council don’t pick it up, it’s not hard to take a bag of things in with you. We put out one black bin of rubbish out a month! Sometimes not even that. For 3-4 adults dep who is home.

@MarmiteCoriander I had similar thing when I moved from London, we just googled it and found Tesco will recycle plastic bags and pet food pouches that aren’t collected. We just take a bag once a fortnight into Tesco. We put out only one bag of rubbish for the council a month now.

We do, but I agree the majority of people don't know you can do this and the recycling points are too small to cope if everyone did.
Recycling in general drives me mad how different councils do it differently. Ours used to collect tetrapaks but then stopped. We've been buying juice in plastic bottles instead but it's a) more expensive and b) hard to find. I recently saw one where the company was celebrating "using less plastic" as an environmental achievement but they had changed from plastic bottles to tetrapak which is much harder to recycle!!!

@Nat6999 the point is that most people don't know, it's not just carrier bags, you can recycle all soft plastics in there including crisp packets, packaging from veg etc etc. We have almost no landfill now because we recycle nearly everything but most people don't know about it.

Our local shop has a bin for soft plastics.
The larger supermarket a few miles away have very large crates and they're always full so plenty of people use them.
Although crisp packets don't always have 'recycle at larger supermarket' written on ours do take them and along with biscuit, bread and vegetable wrappers they soon mount up.
I recycle everything that can be recycled.

Big tescos take soft plastics like this. I do it when I have the time - it’s ridiculous for the councils not to take it.

Our council has massively reduced our capacity and collection schedule for non recyclable stuff so I have to or our bin would be overflowing. I drive around with it in my boot till I'm near a supermarket and do it then. Because we shop online so never actually go to a bricks and mortar supermarket. I have a plastic bag by my recycling box and it goes in there as that can be recycled with it itself.

So does your delivery service not take it? I only found out Ocado did perhaps after Covid lockdowns. When they re-started collecting "their" and all other supermarket bags, they also collected crinkly plastic. You get re-imbursed on "theirs" which is fair enough.

We take ours to Sainsbury's about once every two weeks. Easy as pie.

@Topseyt123 have you checked on the council website? If you are putting stuff in they can’t recycle you may just be contaminating whole batches of recycling that can’t be processed here and could, sadly, end up abroad where it will be dumped or burned because it can’t be processed there either. There was a documentary on about this a few years ago.

Yes op. There are currently 2 charity bags full blocking our tiny utility room. It drives DH mad having every chip bag, crisp packet and yogurt film hung up drying before going in the bag. It drives him more mad that I started all the collecting but he’s the one that ends up dropping them off. Let’s not get started on the sack of medicine blister packs in the garage!

I have a bookshelf full of those blister cases! I only go near where they are recycled very rarely so they've stacked up. But my dentist is round the corner and going in November so must remember to put them in my car between now and then!

Yes I take mine to the supermarket every couple of weeks. It makes a big difference to how much rubbish I throw out.

@Chesure Superdrug with a pharmacy recycle them. Sadly not one very local to us, hence having a bin bag full waiting to take!

We don’t have any supermarkets near us!

@Thrownunderabus ours isn't allowed a pharmacy because it's close to other established pharmacies. Lloyds do it but only 1 vaguely convenient one.

Yes, we take it to the local coop or tesco. Hardly have any rubbish in our landfill bin since we started doing it.