to not do the weekly recycling??

[ihavenotime]

I have name changed as dont want a ripping in my usual name

We dont have time in our house for the weekly recycling, we have 3 dc,
dc1 is disabled
dc2 just started nursery school
dc3 is under 1.
DH can work over 60 hours a week, so im left by self most of the time and running round after 3 children by myself i dont have the time to farkin sit their and sort out all the recycling in to the appropriate boxs, then wash out tins, take the label of tins or plastic.
I dont have time to pick my own nose let alone all of that.

Anyone else not do it??
Right got my hard hat ready

we have 2 kitchen bins - one for waste , one for recycling
bottles go under the stairs until we take it to the bottle bank
it's not hard an doesn't take any time at all to rinse a yoghurt pot after eating it and putting it in the bin

not really. you just have to remeber which kinds of plastic they do take. so milk bottles yes. croissant boxes no. you don't have to sort much, there's only 2 bins.

Jesus, I'm not taking labels off.
Never mind 'if you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem' etc - can it REALLY be energy efficient - and hence carbon-rational- for people to do that invidually rather than it being done at the other end on a larger scale?

fwiw anna8888 my dad's in france (rural) and he has a whole load of faff with the rubbish. he has to sort metals (foils, tins etc), different plastics, papers, then glass. plus he has chickens and a compost bin. so he has like 8 rubbish bins.

Kathyis6incheshigh, I wonder this. People say "it takes no time at all" but of course it does really. If you multiply time expended and energy (plus any water to get labels off etc) by how many people must do it you may well find it does more harm than good. The big advantage to the authorities is not that it's being done efficiently, but that they are not having to do it.

This is also my dh's job but he was away lately and I had to do it; it's not that hard!

YABU - you should recycle as much as poss so your children grow up in a pleasant land with minimum landfill.

Ihavenotime - I don't think you are being unreasonable. Your life sounds hectic and tiring, and it is your right to choose not to do something that's too much for you right now. Crokky is right to suggest that you recycle one catagory of things - it's a start, and if it's all you can manage, then it'll still be more than many people are doing!!

To be honest, this sounds like a bit of a cry for help - you sound stressed and like you've got far too much on your plate at the moment - and other people having a go at you isn't going to help.

Exactly Onager.

From some of the comments here it's obvious people see recycling as a moral obligation (though buying less doesn't have the same obligation, strangely). Which is fine as long as the sums add up, but they do need to.

The item in the news recently about councils having such a mountain of unsold recyclables that they are asking the govt to make MOD sites available to store them was interesting, I thought.....

Your dc2 would probably like to sort things as a game.

I don't understand why you have to do it once a week.

I have two boxes by the front door, one for paper/card, and one for plastic & glass. When ever we use something from either category, then the empty packaging goes straight into the box instead of the bin.

So they are. I didn't know that. Makes nonsense of it doesn't it.

"Thousands of tonnes of cans, paper and glass could be kept in recycling mountains as Bristol City Council struggles to sell off household waste."

Do you have it picked up like your rubbish? We did once, but we have a secure entry door system and they can't get in (we've even had rubbish sitting downstairs for a week if no-ones left the door on the latch). Anyway, we wash it, bung it all in bin bags (DP does try to sort it all out) and take it all (usually 5 bin bags worth) to Morrisons and their recycling point every 3 weeks. It's not very nice to do in the pouring rain. My parents annoy me as they have theirs picked up every 2 weeks and they don't recycle half as much as they should do. The PIL recycle everything like us and theirs is picked up.

I can understand where you are coming from but as mentioned before it is better to get used to it as you may get fined in the future.

I have two boxes in my kitchen (one for paper/one for plastic,glassetc) Everytime I go out to the general bin I take the recycling out. I find this system easy.

BTW, I never wash anything out!

Have done it for so long now I don't think twice about it and am shocked when folk say they can't be arsed and chuck it in the bin.

Selfish basically. So YABU.

I recycle a massive amount, but I certainly wouldn't bother for a year or two in your situation, until they fine you. FGS there are more important things in life when you have young disabled children.

We have two bins in the kitchen - landfill and recycling.

I do not take labels off jars and tins but I do rinse everything out, otherwise it smells.

I cannot compost here because there is nowhere to put it or use it.

On a Sunday night, DH sorts through rubbish as he transfers it to correct council bins for collection next day. Makes me love him even more!

Takes about 10 minutes, including wheeling the bins round for collection. Not too bad, but our kids are older.

Don't let the green mafia make you feel bad. It's what we do collectively that counts, and collectively we have to support people who find green behaviour impossible for whatever reason. Because I am doing so much, consider yourself let off for the time being as I have personally compensated for you!!!

I think the hassle factor varies from council to council. My parent just put all recycling in one big bag that gets collected every other week. The only hassle is rinsing things out (they stick them in the dishwasher), and finding space for the bag in between collections. Our council liked paper, plastics and glass/tins separately, so I had to find a bit more space for stuff. Now we have a wheelie bin for all recyling it is very easy, I just take out the recyling and stick it in the bin every night. No problem. I think that if you are finding it difficult concentrating on the biggest amount of rubbish is very sensible. It is a pity that all councils don't take the same approach, but I think it is to do with the facilities they have available, and of course how much council tax is being spent on it (bearing in mind this is your money they are spending).

Apparently after you have carefully sorted it, washed it, bagged it and taken it to a recycle bin it is passed onto contractors and dumped somewhere.

rubbish collected for recycling by at least four British local authorities ended up on Indian farmland. ITV's Tonight programme found British waste, including children's report cards and a St George's flag, buried in farmland wells near the migration path of wild elephants in the state of Tamil Nadu.>>

I don't get why people don't wash things out
There is no point taking an unwashed jam jar to the bottle bank....

Maybe you should move to Mid Sussex where we have one recyling bin which everything goes into not sorted or anything.

I admit I recycle alot more this way. And we have as much recycling as we do rubbish (big wheelie bin collected every 2 weeks).

What used to really piss me off where we lived in Brighton is they started off saying they'd take plastic bags and clothing, etc and then slowly but surely struck those things of the list and started a PITA system of everything being seperated into plastic bags (which you got back) and it never bloody fitted in the 2 boxes they gave us.

Apparently alot of it all gets bunged in together and sorted out later on anyway. Grrrrr.

Why's that Compo? Surely the recyclers wash it themselves anyway as the first part of the process?

In the UK we had our bins by the back door off the kitchen and would just drop it in as it came up and not stockpile in the kitchen.

We're now in Canada, and they've just introduced a kitchen scrap bin for composting. It's picked up 1/week, the other recycling (1 box for all) is picked up 1/week and the landfill stuff also 1/week. The hardest bit is carrying it down 3 flights to the curb.

YABU

why do they stipulate we wash it then? so it doesn't matter if things aren't washed and have labels on cos they do all that? damn I've been wasting my time