AIBU to collect plastic wrapping and tablet packaging for recycling?

[MsGreying]

Are you all collecting up the plastic wrapping and taking it in store to recycle.
You can do crisp packets and all sorts.
It does mean the grey bin has less stuff in it but means I have to actually go to the supermarket to get rid of it. We have home delivery for almost everything.

We're also saving up tablet packaging to take to either superdrug or boots. We now have a large bag of that. I don't go near either of those shops though.

Perhaps actually I'm just realising I don't go to shops anymore.

AIBU to not like taking recycling to shops.?

Oh, OK. Well I'm not doing that then. ¯\(ツ)/¯

Through your next door neighbours letter box.

Don't do that unless your council.specificaly says to do so. You'll contaminate the whole batch and it can mean literal tons of recycling being sent to landfill.

If you can't/wont take them.to the correct recycling point it's better to throw them in the general bin.

Yes, we do both of those things.
I was so glad when the soft plastics in supermarkets started.

Before that I was our local terra cycle crisp packet collector. Collected empty, used, supposedly clean crisp packets and sent them off to terracycle for a few quid per kilo as a fundraiser for our school pta. I was sending off 30-40kg of crisps packets a month, (that's a LOT!) but I had to go through all donations and pick out the ineligible items so each load wasn't contaminated. The things people used to chuck in to my collection bins with their crisp packets was gross. General rubbish, used tissues, sticky sweets, the odd sock, pet food wrappers. The worst was some kindly person had collected several black bags worth from their workplace and stored them in a barn before donating. Mice had got in, the crisp packets were shredded where the mice had eaten them, they stank of mice wee, were covered in mice dropping and in one bag, 2 dead mice. I had to bin all of those as it was just too gross to sort through.

Always take soft plastics to the supermarket. Weirdly the cage for it is either empty (I am putting the first plastics in it) or so full you have to balance it carefully on top, there’s no ‘half full’ ever.

Hard plastics, tins and glass go in the wheely bin. Sad Brummie face here though (☹️) as it’s been full for over a year so now it clutters up the hallway until I take it to the tip.

You probably don't need to. Must people are near enough to a collection point, just look it up.

@MsGreying yes I do, a few of us neighbours recycle batteries, pill packers, tin foil & soft plastics. The rest of us are lucky that one of the neighbours takes most of it, most of the tine as she goes to an activity next to where it can all be dropped off. The shops in our village don't take any of it & I get my shopping delivered, so it would be a PITA if my neighbour couldn't take it, but I'd still do it as I now take several tablets a day & my conscience wouldn't allow me to put the packaging in the general waste. One of the 3 chemists in the village should really offer a collection point I think.

My council is shortly introducing soft plastic recycling. We can already put tetrapac in our plastics recycling.

Blister packs can be deposited at Boots stores. If you sign up to their recycling app you get 100 advantage card points per 5 blister packs deposited on a £5 shop.
Their recycling scheme also recycles difficult to recycle items like mascara, make up, toothbrushes, interdental brushes etc. You get 500 points via the recycling app per 5 items deposited, on a £10 shop.

I take soft plastics to one of the supermarkets. Aldi, Lidl and Sainsbury’s have bins here, not sure if Tesco do as we’ve only recently moved here and I haven’t checked.

I’m back to binning tablet blister packs. I used to collect them and take them to Superdrug but there isn’t one which collects them in our new area, I didn’t know that Boots now collect them though so will start saving them again.

@ExOptimist That reminds me, I think I saw a make up recycling thing in Sainsbury's somewhere, it said they take any brand.

Tesco delivery drivers will take soft plastics after delivering your shopping if you ask them.

Don’t do that. Household recycling does not recycle soft plastics hence the supermarkets take it back. That’s why everyone on this thread is doing it.
you will be contaminating all your recycling box as well as the total bin lorry and it will all have to go in landfill as your items are not recyclable in that manner.

also pill packets are not recycling in home recycling. It’s glass, cardboard, tins and certain kinds of hard plastic (you need to check the box it will say) it’s really important you recycle only things that can be recycled.

You can’t generalise that soft plastics aren’t collected with household recycling; each area has differs rules.
We can put soft plastics out with our fortnightly recycling.

Yes we save and take the soft plastic, supermarket is only 5 min walk though. Don’t really take any medication so havent thought to do blister packs!

Soft plastics recycling is currently misunderstood as it’s burnt for energy recovery, much like non-recyclable waste, or sent offshore to poorer countries for “processing”. A tiny proportion is made into pellets for bin liners or similar. The technology for sorting and re-use doesn’t exist in this country or is prohibitively expensive.

The only reason supermarkets take them is because they have been asked to by the government. Retailers then wear the costs of recycling the soft plastics and it’s hoped this will get them to change their packaging of goods.

If you like taking plastics to the supermarket by all means keep doing so, but the concept currently is really just rearranging the deckchairs.

Why did pet food move to hard to recycle pouches anyhow? Always used to be tins.

A lot of the problems could be dealt with be enforcing standards on packaging to make it easier for automation to sort / pick and appropriately recycle.

This would also have the benefit of making it easier to roll out similar in other countries. Its a worldwide problem, and only doing it in western nations doesn't really see solve it.

@MadisonAvenue the Boots recycling is not at all branches, you'll need to check you local ones.

I do pill packet recycling as I look after my parents' prescriptions and they generate a lot.

I don't yet do flimsy plastic, that will be the next step I guess.

Thank you, I’ve downloaded the app, just checked and the one in the town centre where we moved to do. They take make up packaging too.

The Boots warehouse and distribution centre on the other side of town is also listed as taking make up packaging. Surprised that it would be open to the public to go on site with a few used foundation tubes.

This is often said and it really annoys me. How can plastic bags "contaminate" a container of used cans, bottles and paper? We can work out how to extract oil from beneath the sea, but we cannot pick out plastic bags from glass bottles? And yet the council bins accept dog poo bags etc and presumably that has to be processed by some unlucky sods somewhere!

Our LA now collects soft plastics and I take my medicine empties to Boots.

why would you BU??

I've a carrier bag full of recycling to take to Boots chemist.
You can take empty prescription and non prescription Codine/Anadin/Paracetamol or the like, you can also take empty toothpaste/make up products.

There's an app 'Boots Recycle' which shows you what items can be recycled, there's quite a few.

If you have one you get advantage points added to your loyalty card for doing so.

I also take soft plastics and batteries to the supermarket, its surprising how much is wrapped in plastic.

TBH I recycle anything that can be recycled.

@Dalmationday and @ProfessorBinturong. Thank you for telling me about this. I have been recycling with no problem for many years and have never heard or seen “soft plastics” mentioned. If I’m doing it wrong, of course I want to change that but what is meant by “soft plastics”? We just got a new calendar and instructions which I’ve looked at and they’re not mentioned. To add another level of complexity, we don’t have any large supermarkets nearby and I rarely visit one. I’d be prepared to stockpile, like most on here seem to, and make a special trip (polluting as I go!)

Soft plastics are plastics that are scrunchable, like bread bags, chip packets and cling film.

No I don't recycle this plastic. I used to but after reading more about it, I've come to the conclusion that it's a farce and greenwashing of the highest order.

Nope. Soft plastics go in the bin.

Tried it for a couple of weeks, but the place to drop soft plastics was full twice, and missing the third time. Not bothered since.

I’d like to recycle my tablet packets because I use loads of them, but when i tried to find out how to do it with boots you had to individually photograph every one of them to verify them or something, so they just go in the bin