Friend Doesn't Recycle

[GetDownShepp]

I stayed at a friend's house this weekend and they don't recycle.

Surely I'm not being unreasonable to hope we all do this now?

Isn't this just second nature?

This is me exactly.

Our next door neighbours - a family of six - don't separate their rubbish. They have one bin that's always badly overflowing, and three that are completely empty. Occasionally, it gets out of control or the bin men refuse to take their bin because it's too over-stuffed... and then they hire a skip.

I really, really don't understand why they don't recycle. Not because I assume everyone cares about that kind of thing, and of course I get that people with four kids are busy people, but simply because it would so obviously be in their own best interests just to use the bins available to them, rather than cramming everything into one bin which isn't remotely adequate for the amount of rubbish they generate.

Not everyone is an Eco zealot.
My neighbour rams everything into the general bin and then goes round putting bags into other bins, skips etc.
They saving their recycling bins! 😐

People put others stuff in their recycle bins….our neighbour uses 2 of his for kindling for his log burner

If you don't rinse recycling then that entire lorry load has to go into general waste!

WTAF? What an astonishingly self absorbed thing to say

If that were true then all of it would end up in general waste because there is always going to be someone who doesn't rinse it out in a lorry load.

@TorroFerney Yes!

Not sure if my last post posted this image so I'll share it again....

@GasPanic It is true I'm afraid

My Council use one bin to put everything in - glass, cardboard, plastic, cans, paper etc.

There are some people in my road who never recycle yet our scheme is one of the easiest.

It feels callous to say "oh, we don't recycle" but frankly I don't think anything much of what we put in our recycling bins is actually recycled. Colour me cynical but I believe it's mostly a money-making/green-washing ruse because to actually, properly, recycle all of our recyclable waste (1) isn't technically possible (2) would be prohibitively expensive (3) beyond the logisitical setup of the UK.

It all ends up in landfill, being burned and/or dumped abroad or into the ocean.

Recycling just makes people feel better about using so much plastic but it doesn't actually achieve anything.

OK. So try this thought experiment.

A lorry load holds 50 houses recycling who all rinse out their containers.

I put one jar of non rinsed out bolognese sauce in my recycling.

How do they even find it to condemn the load ? Do they inspect each and every container, putting them in a holding area and then wait until they find one that has not been rinsed, then condemn the lot ?

They'd have to do that for every single load ...

My guess it is just a lie they tell people to try to convince them to make it easier for them.

More reason not to recycle then,….cos you bet a pound to a penny that someone on your street doesn’t rinse……it’s just not worth the hassle

My mums system is the same

It's crazy, I have a colleague who doesn't recycle. I asked about her bin getting full she said she just puts her rubbish bags in which ever bin she fancies! (As in general waste/recycling/garden waste) She said her blind Aunt is allowed to put rubbish in any bins as she can't see the colour difference, so she said if her aunt does why can't she 🤦‍♀️ she said she doesn't get paid to separate her recycling the workers at the dump do though 🙄

We have to take glass to the glass bank but I've near enough given up on trying to sort out recycling, the bloke lumps it all together

How do people justify judging others about recycling when unless they don't drive, don't go on holiday abroad etc, don't buy clothes from most of the mainstream online shops they're probably contributing just as much to the destruction of the planet it's so hypocritical

@GasPanic I don't believe it either, I don't know anyone who rinses it out and I've never been told to.

I had a colleague who didn’t. ‘Why should I?’ was the refrain. Unless she’d really thought there would be a fine or other sanction, she’d never do it. She never washed any cans or other containers that went in her bin, either. ‘Why should I?’
So disgusting - I do often feel sorry for the bin men, having to cart people’s stinking, maggot-ridden bins about.

I do recycle but I have a friend who works in the waste industry and he says a lot of it is just burned. We do have an incinerator site fairly locally but I'd always thought it was only for general waste.
And yet our local tips are very hot on separating and recycling. Woe betide you if you put things in the wrong skip!

I’d say the majority don’t wash the recycling. I know loads of people who don’t.

I stayed at a holiday site, Haven thing thus year. First time as it was good for kids. I was totally appalled when I went to the recycling big dumpster that people couldn't be bothered to separate recycling from waste.

We have to, it’s fortnightly collection for blank rubbish bin and alternating for blue recycling bin. No chance I’d go two weeks with just the black one.

We have weekly collection of food waste and I’ve seen the bin men tipping that into the black bin.

I don't really understand why people don't recycle. At the moment local companies are buying in decent quality recyclable material from overseas, to be made into new products while some people are so bloody lazy that they're just sending it all to landfill

Because you find out it goes to landfill irrespective? We diligently recycled for several years when it was discovered (made public) that there was not enough capacity at recycling plants, they weren’t taking recycling, so our local government area recycling was being offshored to third world countries - being used as rubbish dumps - as it could be done fairly cheaply. Then those countries jacked up their prices so that was no longer feasible so it all just went to local landfill which is when it became public. I thought it was just a local aberration but nope, turns out many other areas are just sending it all to landfill as recycling plants have a much smaller capacity than the amount being recycled so it’s somehow easier to just dump the lot. Giving you an idea as to why some people are ‘that bloody lazy’.