to be sick of recycling?

[Umleila]

It seems to me recycyling actually means more unpaid work for mothers. I'm sick of washing and crushing cans, folding cardboard, swilling out bottles and then staggering out with the box and bags for collection. Why won't governments just force companies to use less packaging in the first place? As it is we mums are just expected to clear up capitalism's rubbish.

yes it's a trend. Keep listening to the news and you will start to become aware of it. It's coming to a town near you

the EU makes the laws, the tax payer pays the bill and huge private consortiums reap the rewards. Eveyone's a winner except the public, who get stuffed as usual

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article1264946.ece

It does cheese me off sometimes especially washing out cans and bottles. We dont use a lot but do have a lot of cat food. I have recently had a waste pipe that had got blocked and was backing up into the shower bringing blobs of cat food up. I joked to the plumber it was due to the washing of cans out etc and he did say "well it wouldn't help"

I wonder if the Guardian's offices have multiple bins and if their green evangelists separate their rubbish as they compose their informative articles

Claig- did you join MN recently? All your posts seem to be geared towards the upcoming election.

no most of my posts are about education, have a look. What's the election got to do with this. Aren't you aware that Cameron believes in recycling just as much as Brown does?

but I'm glad you are taking notice, BitOfFun, it might help you to get a bit of sense before you cast your vote at the ballot box

My OH works for a recycling company and half of it gets shipped to China and the market has dropped out of cardboard etc, so they just take it to landfill!

I was at a bbq in the summer and mentioned that I didn't recycle. The response was as if I had told them I locked my children in the cupboard under the stairs! It's not that I can't be bothered but I feel as though I'm having the wool pulled over my eyes!!

So if I recycle it then gets shipped to China? Is that what y'all are saying?

Carbon Footprint, anyone?

claig - patronising, much?!!

Abetadad is right about councils making ndividuals do work where it makes more economic sense for councils to do it. Our council has all recyclables together in one bin and seperates them by machine. This seems far more sensible and has boosted recycling rates.

BelleDameSansMerci, yes I agree with you, I thought the same thing about BitOfFun

'I have recently had a waste pipe that had got blocked and was backing up into the shower bringing blobs of cat food up. I joked to the plumber it was due to the washing of cans out etc and he did say "well it wouldn't help"

We have a cat, but I dislike wasting food so I scrape the tin very carefully so that the dregs go into the cat and not down the drain.

YABVU.

It is EVERYONE's responsibility to recycle. Get your OH and your kids to pitch in if it is such a chore for you.
There is more domestic waste put into landfill sites than commercial waste - the more companies put into landfill, the more comes off their bottom line, as they have to pay huge premiums to put waste in landfill, since the Landfill Tax came in. Commercial waste is far more tightly regulated than domestic waste, e.g. you dump dirty nappies in your main bin, companies have to have clinical waste bins for nappies where there are baby change facilities, and clinical waste has to be treated as hazardous waste and incinerated, at extra cost to the company.

How about the incentive of having less landfill sites? Because that is where your non-recycled waste goes. And even waste that is Biodegrable will not degrade easily, as it needs oxygen to do so... not much oxygen when it is covered by several thousand tonnes of other waste! Chemicals in that waste will then leach out into ground water and contaminate it if the waste is not correctly segregated, and it is not cost effective for councils to seggregate your recyclables for you - so if forced to do this (as councils have recycling targets now) council tax bills will rise even more!

Belle - only certain types of waste will be incinerated, it depends on how much energy is produced, plus the emissions as well which determine what can be used in energy producing rubbish incinerators.

Valpollicella - here is the calculation of my time.

I spend 4 mins per day (or 28 mins per week) recycling.

I require £10 / hour to work 1 exra hour per week.

I therefore calcuate the value of my time consumed by recycling is:

365.25 x 4/60 x £10 = £243.50

That is not cash out of my pocket but the value of my free time that the local authority forces me to give for free. Multply that by 100,000 households in my local authority area and pretty soom we are at £24.35 million.

That is the dirty little secret of recycling. The true cost is hidden in all teh free time we are forced to give away so someone else can make a profit.

claig, you're good...

BouncingTurtle, thank you. I have genuinely been wondering why.

YABU If you really feel 'mums' are having to do it all, maybe you could use it as an opportunity to teach your kids about protecting the environment. we have a recyling bin and a none recycling bin in the kitchen and the littlest of our girls enjoys guessing which bin it goes in, she knows all about why we do it and what it will mean for the future of the planet.

It can be annoying, I lost track of how much time I spent yesterday crsuhing easter egg boxes! But everyone has a responsibility and I would argue that mum's especially should care about this as its our kids and our kids kids who will feel the benefit in years to come.

Thats my twopennies worth anyway!

xxx

ABetaDad - Sorry to say this when I have never communicated with you before but how flippin ridiculous!!! By that logic Id be getting my knickers all in a twist because I do 20 mins washing up a day, spend 45 minutes cooking dinner, 10 minutes recycling, half an hour walking the dog, 30 minutes reading my kids stories... arghhhh

It's 'free' time. Time to carry out all of your unpaid responsibilities and in this day and age one of those is recycling.

In our granparents time they didnt recycle. But they also didnt have washing machines, tumble driers, microwaves, online shopping, food processors etc etc we have it soooo easy does it really matter if we 'waste' 10 minutes a day doing something that will litterally save our childrens futures...????

And would you prefer if that 24.3 million had to be paid out by the council to recycle rather than us all spend a few minutes a day? Aren't funds stretched enough already???!!!

YABU.

Without wanting to come over all eco-warrior, we've all got to take responsibility for recycling. It's your rubbish, you deal with it. You only have to rinse and pop the cans/jars into the designated bin. Imagine the binmen who have to actually empty the bins, sorting out other peoples' crap as they go along.

Yarninmonkey, we used to live opposite a middle-aged couple who liked a few (hundred) tins of beer per week. They used to overflow out of their recycling bin and blow all down the street if it was even a bit windy. They never picked them up. So I used to collect them up, pop them into a carrier bag and loop the baga handles over their windscreen wipers on their car, then when i saw them in the street I'd say "ooh, i collected some of your escaped recycling last night. I popped them there for you so they wouldn't blow around the street because I'm sure you wouldn't want to litter everyones' gardens " They soon got the message and then they would tie a bin liner over the top of the recycling bin to stop stuff blowing out. I'm sure they thought I was a right prissy little tit though.

I find it extraordinary that so many people think it's SEP (someone else's problem). No, it's your rubbish and your problem.

You're right, Ormrenewed. Recycling has got to work its' way into our psyche, I'm afraid. It's a relatively new thing for us in this country so we still feel like it's a chore. Interestingly, the first time I visited America about fifteen years ago, they were already big on recycling. Interesting since our american chums are much maligned for causing many of our eco problems.

op-youre just lazy imo.and a little selfish.

ds1 sorts most of our recycling-hes nearly 9 and very interested in anything to do with refuse,reuse and recycle.maybe i should be done for over working him and getting him to 'clear up capitalisms rubbish'.

Not meaning to pick a fight but if you weren't a capitalist, you wouldn't need to (personally) be clearing up capitalism's rubbish.

I'm no angel and we get through a fair amount of packaging in our house (although I refuse to leave the house without a carrier bag) but we do try and offset it by recycling what can be recycled. On the otehr hand, one of our friends is a real "good lifer"; buys clothes from charity shops, never uses supermarkets etc so has very little packaging to waste. If HE was moaning about clearing up capitalism's rubbish, I'd be more understanding but surely if you're doing this it's only because you're a capitalist yourself?

YABU. The people on this thread who are concerned that recycling is pointless because they think it is all going to landfill/china etc etc, are using this as an excuse for laziness. If you really felt strongly about it being a waste of time, you should: research into it further to find out what is happening to your local recycling waste; talk to your council/MP; campaign for improved recycling services. Oh but wait, I forgot, that would all take time!

Recycling (as a principle and an action) is a great thing to teach your kids. Lead by example. My 3.5yo DD knows what can be recycled, and regularly says things like 'I've got some cardboard, that can be recycled can't it?', and trots off to put it in our recycling bin. She is learning a valuable lesson IMO. And for example we also bought her (and all her cousins) boxless easter eggs and told her why we had.

Stop being lazy, set an example, and if you're worried about its efficacy then do something about it!