Squashing tetrapak cartons for recycling - is there any clear guidance?

[wildfellhall]

My ds is adamant that we should wash and not squash and to keep the lids on.

My recycling bin will fill up much more quickly if I don't squash.

AIBU to wish for some standard guidance? Why is it so muddled?

AutumnLeaves24 · Yesterday 18:45
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I think you misunderstood my post. Aerosols ARE permitted (in recycling), which surprises me!!

Yes, I obviously misunderstood! Ours said not to, because they're metal and plastic and the two cannot be separated. I'll need to check, as it was a few years ago.

@BuBuzzieLittleBee - what LA do you live in as you can recycle loads?

Where I live in Hampshire you can only recycle paper, card & plastic bottles. They don't even accept glass (you have to find a glass recycling bin in a random car park somewhere to do that!)

if recycling plants wash materials, why are we supposed to do it at home?

You're supposed to wash recycling?

Because everything goes in together and all the oaper and card would be ruined by food and toiletries leaking onto it

Ours is sorted by hand at the kerbside so, yes, stuff needs to be rinsed.

Presumably though, unless people are washing containers to a very high standard, there is still plenty of wet contamination. I'd quite like a nosey round a recycling plant, I bet it's interesting.

It's not necessary to clean recycling to 'a very high standard', a quick rinse and removal of lumps of food is fine.

Am I right in thinking that there are some European countries where there is a national approach as opposed to the UK's crazy local patchwork madness?

Orrinocc0 · Today 08:06

You're supposed to wash recycling?

Yes, food, oil and soap residues all contaminate plastic and paper. You shouldn't put pizza boxes in the recycling, although it the lids are grease free, I rip them off and recycle. I put yoghurt, ricotta tubs, bean tins and the like in the washing up first.

And don't forget, the stuff is sorted by people and in summer, it must be a pretty unpleasant health hazard to handle waste covered in rotting food.

@HaleyBrookeandPeyton we're in Warwick District Council area, and yes- it is a very long list. All the plastic bag/film/wrapper things are new this month, so it's recently expanded. It really is good how much can be recycled- biscuit and chocolate wrappers, crisp packets, cling film, bread bags, outer wrapping of loo roll/drink multipacks etc. The only thing we can't put in is pet food pouches (or I guess any food in a pouch). And it's all processed locally too, which is good environmentally and for the local economy.

We're not supposed to crush things now, so it will be interesting to see if we fill our bin up now that everything is bigger.

For those whose councils don’t take shredded paper, my friend lives in one of those councils. She uses boxes of cereal, washing tablets and cat food pouches (has 4 kids and 3 cats) to put shreddings in. She buys those boxes of 40-48 pouches of cat food.

Or plastic milk bottles.

Council here will not take any cardboard packages which the food touches. So no to takeaway pizzas. Ok with supermarket pizzas if the pizzas are wrapped around in plastic

What does she do with the shredded paper? Puts it in boxes and then puts it in the recycling? I hope not. They will be saying 'no' to shredded paper for a reason, so 'hiding' it inside boxes is just causing problems down the line.

How much shredded paper do people have though? What are you all shredding? Surely almost all bills and statements are paperless now? If you just want to get rid of name/address then something like this is great. No need to shred and then things can go straight in the recycling.

Here we can put pizza boxes and shredded paper in with our food and garden waste. Very handy.

If you have just had a parent die or you are the executor to a childless aunt or uncle - there is so much paperwork they have.

A cousin in law to my DF when his DF died, they found so many receipts for things done in the 1950s such as installing the gas cooker. Interesting to read how much things cost in relative terms. But why did he need to keep 68 year old receipts when the cooker has been replaced at least 4 times (based on average lifespan of 15 years)?

Yet couldn't find the receipt for his last cooker fitted 3 years prior to his death.

We don’t even have a bin for recycling just bags that you put out and they don’t need to be washed out or anything .so much easier we just bung anything that can be recycled at home in the bag and chuck them out twice a week!

Yep. Been there. When my FIL died, we found about 8 years of unopened post. Bills, statements, pension slips etc etc.

But those circumstances are pretty rare. That's not the kind of shredded paper people are dealing with for their normal recycling.
But even with that paperwork, it's still quicker to run the ink thing over the account number than it is to feed it through a shredder.

Bank accounts need shredding as the information is everywhere.

Re shredded paper...

It's good practice to remove personal details from bank statements before recycling them, but that information isn't 'everywhere' - it will likely have your name and address at the top, and the account number will be on there, but that's all that needs removing. The fact that you spent £10.27 in Morrisons and had a direct debit of £200 to British Gas is not identifiable information.

That said...

1 - how many people actually have paper bank statements these days? The vast majority of billing and statements is paperless now.
2 - most councils which say 'no shredded paper' qualify this with 'a small amount is OK', which would mean the odd bank statement etc would be OK.

The PP who said their friend was getting rid of a lot of shredded paper in their recycling and implied they were cheating the system by putting it in boxes is not being clever at all. The reason they say 'no shredded paper' is because it can't be processed. So all they're doing is creating a problem somewhere else.

Of course there will be circumstances where a lot of paper needs to be disposed of confidentially. But these are few and far between, and are one of those where normal disposal rules don't apply. Just bag it up and take it to the recycling centre/tip if your council says 'no shredded paper please'.