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!

All change - good and bad - starts with one person. You are right, we can't control what other countries do. We can't control what everyone in this country does. We can't control what everyone in our own HOUSE does, half the time.

All you can control is you. The only change you can make in the world - good or bad - starts with you.

If enough people do the right thing, change happens. If enough people do the wrong thing, change happens.

Which side of the coin do you want to be on? The side that helped make good change happen, or the side that helped make bad change happen?

Similarly, if it really is all futile - would you rather know you tried to make good change happen, or that you accelerated the bad change? Given all you can control, is you.

We cant recycle card or paper that has had food on/in it.

They dont accept pot noodle pots either, amusingly the info leaflet has a cartoon version of a pot noodle (beef and tomato) with a red cross through it as an example of what they dont accept (so no yoghurt pots, spread containers etc)

I really do recycle everything they'll take. Family of 4 too on 2 weekly collection and often have to run out with an extra bag and ask nicely if they'll take it.

What change are you expecting the people on this tiny island to make when other countries that are much bigger than ours with a far bigger population aren’t “doing their bit”??

Yes I do all that, well not the baking soda but I promise you if I look at the used water it has a greasy film. Worse with things like a plastic mayonnaise bottle. Our local water authority said we should never put milk down the sink when they were giving advice about fatbergs so what do you do if the milks on the turn? Id normally wash the plastic bottle out but that's putting milk down the sink but if I don't do that I can't recycle the plastic bottle. To be fair I use skimmed milk so probably not much fat in it.

It does vary we can put all those in our recycling as long as the card hasn't got food on it. They take all the plastic pots and containers as long as washed out

😬

Oh and as the pp’s have commented above

All this talk of people “doing their bit” when even some posters on this thread have commented that their council don’t recycle certain items but other councils do! So even some councils aren’t doing “their bit”.
What’s the point when one council recycles yogurt pots and pot noodle pots but another council won’t? I take it the view about what is considered to be “recycling” various from area to area. It’s so hypocritical and quite frankly hilarious when you think about it!

"Other people are worse than me" isn't the gotcha you think it is. It's not a race to the bottom.

What a dumb comment. It isn’t a gotcha! Seriously… how is a tiny country like the UK “saving the planet” when other countries aren’t doing the same!

How lazy. Products with food still inside will not be recycled. It's not their job to clean them out, its yours.

I sometimes worry about whether the environmental cost is worth it - using the kitchen roll, heating the water etc - is this definitely better than not recycling?
I only recently learnt (I think) that things can't be endlessly recycled.
The logical place to intervene, surely, is at the point where the plastics are being created. Why don't we have a milk-bottle style system but for lots of foodstuffs? Like - mandated by the government, so companies just could not keep selling us new plastic containers with our foodstuff every week, and the only commercially viable option was to come round and not just deliver the shopping, but instead refill our jars? I know it would be complicated and difficult (and obviously I have not thought it through - sure there will be objections!), but I just feel like if we were actually serious about cutting down on plastic, then this would be the way to go.

The thing is, the actions you take can affect UK biodiversity, soil health, water health, etc.

Thia isn't all about the global climate crisis, it's also about maintaining local biodiversity and ensuring our green spaces aren't contaminated by increasing landfill waste.

So, by recycling responsibly, you can impact your local environment.

Wow, I can't believe it's that hard to swish a jar around in the leftover washing up water! How lazy! Dirty items can't be recycled so end up in landfill. Yay. Our glass/plastic/cans bin gets emptied fortnightly and it's usually less than half full.

Again, as I have posted above regarding comments from other pp’s… when some councils are recycling yoghurt pots and pot noodle containers, yet other councils refuse to take them then where’s the recycling responsibility? And what’s the point when some councils refuse to take items that other councils do. It’s batshit

@badger2005 Aluminium can be endlessly recycled, and glass is pretty good. Plastics can only be recycled once. So it's much better to wash out a glass jar and the benefit for a plastic bottle is not so great.
There are loads of zero waste shops - we get cows milk and oat milk in bottles at the doorstep, and we generally get our spices from a local zero waste shop. We try to buy other things in paper, glass, or metal.

I think (some) manufacturers are already trying to reduce their packaging, or make it easier to recycle. My tissues are in paper now instead of plastic, juice bottles are thinner, aome other foodstuffs are packaged in cardboard instead of plastic.
However, there will be a fair bit of design work and testing to change packaging, so it's not going to be an overnight change.
The good news is that a lot of these companies will have regulations or requirements which are driving them down this route, for example, ISO14001 has a heavy focus on cradle-to-grave-to-cradle considerations from the design phase, onwards. I.e. they need to prove that they have considered the whole life cycle of the product.

You're just refusing to even consider what anyone is saying to you. I don't know how your response even relates to my comment.

You remind me of my narcissist brother ☺️

So you don’t have an answer as to why one council regards recycling yoghurt pots as helping to save the planet but another one doesn’t then?

Look I do not disagree with a lot of your points …. however, everyone in every country throughout the world needs to do the same regarding recycling, pollution etc. Just simply having our little tiny island when other much larger countries don’t give a shit about recycling…. And even within the UK, you have one council willing to recycle yoghurt pots and another that refuse to recycle them isn’t going to “save the planet”. Especially when local councils within the same country cannot seem to agree nor sing from the same hymn sheet on what should be recycled!

You’re either trying to “save the planet” or you’re not! It cant be “Well recycling yoghurt pots only from certain areas of the UK but not recycling them from other areas will save the planet ”.
It has pretty much the same logic as during covid when you went to a restaurant and Covid could only get you if you stood up but not sat down.

I had no idea people put unwashed jars etc in the recycling! Cold rinse under the tap unless the jar is greasy then dishwasher. I do however, like OP, draw the line at washing packets that have had raw meat in them. You are not supposed to rinse chicken or a joint before cooking as you can mist the kitchen with pathogens. Be even worse with packaging. Ridged contianers might go in the dishwasher once you have got the film off the top but that is such a wrestle I think it is also dangerous from a raw meat perspective. The squashy packs that mince comes in now would not clean in a dishwasher. So raw meat and fish gets wrapped and put in the general waste bin.

I do have an answer, but it's a lot of typing for someone who is not keen on changing their point of view.

It tends to be driven by the type of facilities available. Some local authorities simply don't have the facilities in their area who deal with plastic waste. Some do. Some facilities are old and can't cope with that level of waste yet and some are incredibly advanced and can deal with most types of waste. It can also be a budgetary issue too.

This is literally my job. I support certain industries in sustainability practices via a trade body, and we work with government quite a lot.

When I say that individuals can impact their local area, I'm not pulling bullshit out of my arse.

“It tends to be driven by the type of facilities available. Some local authorities simply don't have the facilities in their area who deal with plastic waste. Some do. Some facilities are old and can't cope with that level of waste yet and some are incredibly advanced and can deal with most types of waste. It can also be a budgetary issue too.”

So realistically some areas having certain facilities when others don’t is pretty much the same thing I’ve been saying… that some councils can take certain items and others can’t. So realistically it probably isn’t going to make much of a difference. Individuals may be able to impact their local area but globally it won’t make much of a difference.

Again, I totally get your points and I appreciate you taking the time to explain.

It will make a difference globally, in that it won't make things work and will likely make a positive impact.

However, the benefits will definitely felt locally and UK-wide.

As I've said a few times now, these things WILL impact soil health, water health and biodiversity in the UK.

A lot of lazy people on here - "I never wash any jars".

That would be brilliant and I would definitely do it and if they mandated it like charging for plastic bags, people would have to get on board. Unfortunately lots of lazy people out there and companies like Coca Cola that want to convince us recycling means there's nothing wrong with buying endless plastic bottles, because it's cheaper for them. (I support recycling just very aware it's far more important to reduce and reuse!)

A domestic circular economy.

Smaller, cleaner, healthier landfill sites.

Better use of council tax.

Lower household costs as you start to clock how much you bin and rebuy (j-cloths, food bags) vs washing reusable cloths and storing food in reusable washable tubs.

A small dent on the global waste problem, which is better than none.