I don’t want to wash up chicken packets and jars of mayonnaise!!

[ChristmasBaby2026]

My council like many have recently changed our recycling. We now have:

• a bin for paper and card
• a bin for “mixed recycling”
• the food bin
• the black bin
• the garden bin (which I have to pay extra for 😡)

The only substantial change other than the number of bins to put things in is they will now collect glass whereas we previously had to go to the bottle bank.

But it now means they are now only collecting our black bin once every THREE weeks (and currently not for 4 because the new system has stupidly started on a recycling week).

How are families supposed to only have rubbish collected once every three weeks? There is simply no way.

I do recycle but I have always drawn the line at washing up gross things like packets of mince and jars of mayonnaise. But apparently the council have decided people have nothing better to do. I wouldn’t resent it so much if I thought it was actually making a difference but my landfill mayonnaise jar is not the main problem here!

I did not say glass goes to landfill.

It can.

See info that is published for London ^^

@Megifer Read the published info for London- a whole load of glass can be sent to landfill if it's too dirty.

And i said it contributes to fat bergs. People swilling out fatty food containers will be contributing towards fat bergs. Even if only a little bit.

They won't.
If your 'logic' applied there would be a ban on washing up.
Using detergent emulsifies the fat and changes it.

I mean they are not given bins for recycling. Not locally here anyway.

I read it. But I’m not convinced by it. It just looks like a handy excuse for sending stuff off for burying when they want to.

I put it in the dishwasher. All of it. Even before recycling was a thing. Just thought it would be nicer for the bin collectors if I tried to limit rancid stuff.

And me. I think it’s minging not to wash them out tbh.

I don’t think that’s true. The more fats that enter the system, the greater the likelihood of problems. We can’t stop it, because we have to dispose of some fats (which are present in human waste anyway, though generally bound). But we can make fat clogging less likely by not unnecessarily rinsing fats down the sink. It’s not just a litre of Mazola that does it.

Fuck me - you non jar washers must have absolutely minging bins.

I got in to the habit of washing recycling as a child when we had to take recycling down to the communal bins in the village as there were no door to door recycling collections.

I do think we have to look beyond our own inconvenience and at the bigger picture. We need to recycle as much as possible, so that means we all need to do our bit. Do I want a food waste bin in my kitchen as well as a regular bin? No, but I'm planning ahead for when that system starts in my area later this year, and will turn my normal kitchen bin into a food waste only bin, and put wrappers etc into perhaps a hanging compostable bag.

Washing jars and meat trays, I do it already. Not fun when it's something oily like peanut butter! I wipe the remnants out as best as I can with paper towels and then wash them in soapy water. I aim to remove as much as possible before that step as our kitchen drain blocks easily.

We could learn a lot from the Japanese!

I prefer looking at actual sources, not AI mash ups.

The actual reason from what I can see is more about cleanliness at those particular plant. Which is fair enough. And the contamination point seemed to be about non recycling getting mixed, or greasy pizza boxes etc being recycled.

Regardless, thats all irrelevant to the original point that unwashed jam jars in an entire truck load of recycling would not doom that load for landfill.

Do you think vaccines put microchips in your body and mobile phone masts are reading your brainwaves, too?

Don’t be silly.

Only temporarily https://epas-ltd.com/grease-disposal-myths-how-misconceptions-lead-to-fatbergs/

Otherwise they'd just send in a litre bottle of Fairy to tackle fat bergs.

Weird to be put off washing packaging which has had fresh food in you’ve just eaten…?

How do you cope with touching the meat or mayo itself, if you find the packaging so awful?

And the contamination point seemed to be about non recycling getting mixed, or greasy pizza boxes etc being recycled.

Yes, those seem to be the problems (if you take the link at face value).

How ironic that is, someone assiduously cleans all their recycling but includes things that shouldn’t be in that bin…and condemns the lorry load to landfill.

I agree. It's called being an adult.

The local council area I grew up in were the first to implement the sort of wide-reaching recycling we see now. My mum was washing out yoghurt pots, removing the paper labels off tins of beans, and putting potato peelings in a little council-issued caddy in the early/mid-90s.
As a result, she's spent the bulk of her adult life carefully washing out every single thing.
I'm afraid I'm nowhere near as good... If packaging is clean, I'll recycle it. If it just needs a quick swill and shake, then fine as well. But something like a ketchup bottle... Nah. Binned as is.

It does make a difference.

its really not that hard. It takes seconds.

Even of you didn’t want to surely you don’t want your recycle bins full of old bits of food, attracting rats, foxes and wasps etc. I’m no domestic queen but its just part of being a grown up,

I don't mind washing jars but black bin every 3 or 4 weeks is awful

Haven't had time to read the whole thread. I do rinse out my recycling but that's mostly because I don't want it stinking my kitchen recycling centre out.

I do find it hard to believe that a whole bin load of recycling would have to be sent to landfill because some people haven't washed and dried their recycling.

Mainly because, as is evidenced in this thread, a lot of people aren't prepared to do this so it seems unlikely that even a single bin load could be collected anywhere in the country where literally every household has cleaned their tins and bottles. They must all have a proportion of dirty stuff in them.

My local authority regularly sent messages encouraging washing rubbish for many reasons - keeping your kitchen fresh, nicer for the sorters to work with, etc,
But it was never stated that it was essential.

I don't understand what are all these meat juices spraying everywhere? Don't turn the tap on full maybe?