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!

TBF, the environmentally conscious and all-round caring festival-goers at Glastonbury (and elsewhere) leave behind hundreds of tons of rubbish every time. The clean-ups take weeks. The majority of the litterers will come from nice middle-class families who wash their rubbish, I’d imagine.

So you don’t need to go Essex for litter.

Gosh, now who's in a tizz!

I wasn't accusing you of anything! I was genuinely curious as I can't comprehend your attitude and was wondering if this stuff just isn't of interest to you.

But your defensive response and your argument about other countries tells me an awful lot.

Another genuine question, do you educate yourself about the environment / UK biodiversity, etc? For example, by watching documentaries (the David Attenborough one in gardens is really good), reading articles, etc.?

Another

Honestly. I will leave this here before you have a heart attack.

I’m so glad you feel that washing a few jars is going to make a difference to the planet! Unfortunately, unless all other countries in the world follow suit and recycle everything in the same way then unfortunately it won’t make a jot of difference to the planet….

But I’ll leave you thinking that you, as one person out of the billions of other people in the world is somehow going to make a difference to the entire planet lol

Have a good afternoon 😁

Lazy, selfish, slovenly people exist at every level of society, right across the country. I myself am working class, and I was brought up better than some of the people on this thread, apparently.

Apologies, I was replying to the wrong post! I should have quoted @Denizen

Our council sent out a rather heavily worded social media post the other day, which was basically threatening (and I mean that word) fines to residents who don't take off any sticky address labels from their cardboard recycling. As anyone who has tried to do this, its not always possible to completely peal these off - even if you have nails. Where will this leave some elderly folk, who may not have the dexterity in order to do this.

You do have nothing better to do.

Seriously, recycling is important.

You eat the mine and the mayonnaise, don’t you? So don’t act like you’re too good to be rinsing out the jar.

Honestly, people need to wake up. It’s just recycling, just get on with it.

And I'll leave it there too.

Think of recycling like voting. A single vote rarely changes an election, but an election cannot happen without individual votes.

While recycling won't single-handedly fix the climate crisis, it is a crucial holding action.

It reduces immediate energy consumption, prevents local landfills from overflowing, and feeds a circular economy.

It’s not a perfect solution, but it is vastly better than the alternative.

If I do have a heart attack, I'll die knowing that perhaps I didn't save the planet, but I did my damdest to not make it worse.

You're not even "doing nothing", you're literally making the problem worse.

If you say so….

Jars are easy to rinse out?

Isn't Japan one of the worst countries in the world for pollution and emissions per head?

Good they have clean streets though!!

So you ARE happy for it to go to landfill then? You know most people have grown out of the ‘why should I do it, it’s not fair’ attitude that we have seen on this thread (from several posters) by the time they reach adulthood?

You do you but it’s not the flex you think it is.

People with that attitude are part of the reason the planet is fucked in the first place - I hope you will all be happy to explain to your kids and grandkids that you happily contributing to fucking it up 🤷‍♀️

I don’t believe it is only middle class people who are littering. And I agree pictures of Glastonbury after the event are really disgraceful.
As to Essex. I agree. But that is where the poster saw the rubbish. Much of the country can look like a litter bin has been knocked over at various times.
We have no civic pride. Or not enough.

Again I will repeat the same words I said upthread in response to another poster.

“You do realise that a lot of other countries, much larger than the UK that don’t recycle waste don’t you? So trying to accuse me of single handedly killing the planet is such a dumb argument if ever there was one!”

I wash all jars besides chocolate spread and peanut butter..They have been known to disappear. Otherwise I collect the jars for a few days, boil a kettle and add some of that to some warm water , give it 5 mins then tip it out and voila!

I wasn’t commenting on you. I was just pointing out that all sorts of people who say they’re concerned about the environment don’t do something as simple as taking their rubbish home with them.

Even though I think washing rubbish is unnecessary, very likely harmful to the drainage and sewer system and is, frankly, probably more of an involvement exercise than anything worthwhile, I would never litter. I don’t see the two are connected.

That poster isn’t ‘in a tizz’ as you so patronisingly put it. We get it - you are far too much of a cool kid to be bothered about collective responsibility.

I am a misanthrope and yet even I do my bit even though I am likely to be dead before the real serious stuff kicks off.

It’s partly to ensure that your descendants have a planet to live on. But then I read some of these points and wonder why I bother.

You are also in a tizz too lol.

If you wipe out an mayo jar, how is it more harmful than washing a plate where there has been mayonnaise?

All greasy deposits should be wiped off before washing anyway.

Most of the drainage issues are caused by morons flushing baby wipes down the toilet.

Yes, I agree. My point really was that you’d have to go a long way to find a gathering more supposedly eco-conscious than at Glastonbury. But that they treat that environment like shit.

I don’t think washing rubbish is related to civic pride, TBH.

U okay hun? I bet everyone thinks you are so cool.

Perhaps if you could just engage like an adult, you wouldn’t look quite so ridiculous 🤣

Cool?? Not about being “cool” lol. Not sure where you got that theory from.

I think you’re the one who needs to engage in being an adult rather than throwing your dummy out of the pram because someone has a different viewpoint to yours!

Glasto is full of middle class arseholes whose parents drive bloody great cars and jet off all over the world! But they think they are green. It’s gross really

You’re rinsing away the mayo from the plate (unavoidable) and from the jar (unnecessary). You could just throw the jar in the recycling - with the lid on if you’re that bothered - and it will be washed in the course of recycling, where there will be proper effluent disposal.

Wet wipes are also a big problem in the sewer system. But that doesn’t mean that fat, oil and grease aren’t.

We have always washed out our glass bottles and jars, plastic bottles of things like milk or juice and cans abd tins. With the new food caddy and bins for peelings, teabags, egg shells, bones etc I am actually thinking what will go in the black bins anymore? Unless you have pet bedding or nappies I am struggling to think what I’ll ever put in it.