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.

Op- do you drive, do you heat your house? Have you heard of peak oil or coal reserves? I'm sure you're aware that plastic along with huge amounts of thing in our lives require oil in their production and for their production...

If you really hate it that much then you dig a big hole at the bottom of your garden and put all your waste there because I want to make the effort to stop landfill encroaching faster than it has to.

Recycling 1kg of aluminium saves up to 6kg of bauxite, 4kg of chemical products and 14 kWh of electricity. Again along with the metal we are back to power

lollyhop - how will recycling save our futures?

I do other things like washing because it is labour for me or my family. Of course I put no price on it.

ABetaDad, really? I'm not one for getting whipped into a panic by government propaganda but if we continue to fill our landfills at the rate that we are... you can see where I am going with this, right? OK, recycling might not save the world from its certain demise () but surely you can see how it's going to be beneficial to future generations IF we all do our little bit. Sure, YOUR families recycling pile may seem insignificant but add up everyones' in your street/area/country and it mounts up to a whole lot of waste that ain't going into landfill.

YANBU to be fed up of it but it does have to be done. I must admit though I dont wash out the bottles cans etc - they all get sorted out at the plant anyway.

Although I have been to a few of the waste sites for visits as part of my job and the ones I have been to dump ALL household rubbish in the same place anyway and it gets sorted by mechanical processing lines (have actually seen with my own eyes bottles from the recycling areas get sorted alongside tins, paper, nappies, food waste etc) so does make me wonder if I'm wasting my time, but I do it anyway

I think that, compared to the domestic chorse our mothers and grandmothers were forced to do:
scrubbing tables with salt, hand washing, using a mangle, filling the bath out of water boiled in kettles, making own bread, sweeps carpets with tea leaves etc etc then recycling is nothing compared with that.

And it is important.
My gran used to reuse and recycle as she was dirt poor and had nothing. Now we have to recycle as we all own too much.

I do not think we should dump waste in landfill. What I think we do is stop ths ridiculous recycling by hand sorting and sending half of it to China - where some of it gets dumped in landfill. What we need is proper incineration.

I have the same arguement about renewable energy. Building wind turbines out at sea or nuclear power plants or carbon capture coal fired plants is nonsense economics. Building hghly efficient combined cycle gas turbines (a technology already in widespread use) to replace all the old coal fired power stations makes good economic sense and is quick to implement.

No surprise to me that the environmental movement sprang out of communist/socialist thinking. Control of the population, dictats from the state about how each individual has to behave, quasi slave labour and/or massive subsidies out of taxes to make it all work. Topped off with a good dolop of corruption and hypocricy from the elite.

Don't even get me started on global warming.

Oh looky here!

Apparently the artic ice is coming back.

< childish aside >
'ABD: 'I require £10 / hour to work one extra hour per week.'

Really??!

ABetaDad - did you actually read that article?

"Scientists emphasise that the regrowth of ice in the Arctic and the fierce US blizzards are natural variations in weather which have little relevance for long-term climate change."

which rather undermines your position

OurLady - I'm a supermodel really so I am quoting what my cleaner gets paid to recycle on my behalf. Obviously, I dont actually do it myself.

LadyBiscuit - precisely what I think. The whole gobal phenomenon is just a natural variation in the weather. Funny how the global warmists jump up and down the minute we have a hurricane or slightly warmer summer as evidence.

I've read page one only and have to admit that I recycle everything! even till receipts, bus tickets and the paper from around tinned beans. Extra effort? a little, but I like the idea that I'm doing my bit for the future of the world and my children and their future families. Also, I have very little actual rubbish that can't be recycled, so that's saying something about our waste ~ isn't it?

And for what it's worth; I also think that the weather changes are possibly a natural thing, but who is to say what it should be changing to? I mean, the changes would probably be happening anyway, but how severe, what types of changes and how quickly could all be argued about really couldn't they?

I think you're being deliberately obtuse ABD because I know you're not thick. I think denial of climate change is incredibly scary and it always seems to be men who drive big cars who shout loudest ...

I dont drive and haven't forover 20 years. Neither does my wife. I work at home too.

I choose not to drive for personal and economic reasons. The economics should be the start and end of all recycling and enviromental decisions provding the externalties are being properly priced of course.

Margaret Thatcher reduced CO2 emissions in this country by ditching coal and allowing gas to be burned in power stations. She also massively reduced acid rain. Good economics reduces waste by allocating resources efficiently and that is good for the environment.

My stand point is that the environment matters too much to be abused by politicians and bad economics. That is why I dislike the way we do recycling in the UK. Total waste of time, effort and resources.

We can put environmental taxes on CO2 as we already do to take account of exteralities.

The problem is we do not tax all carbon and other emissions consistently across the economy. The cost is always maniplated in certain sectors to assist special interest/political groups. Again good economics gives the right signals for people and businesses to do the right thing.

aviatrix, spot on. We wouldn't need to be wasting so much time on sorting rubbish if we were generating less in the first place.

YANBU to be sick of recycling, and sick of packaging. The waste we generate in this country IS sick. Not a reason to stop recycling.

When I think what goes into my bin/recycling, so much of it is convenience packaging: - meat in a plastic tray, film lid and cardboard label because it needs to be pre-cut and weighed, transported and look attractive in a self service supermarket. Instead of walking into a butcher and asking for a eight rashers of bacon which would be packed into a small plastic bag.

Somehow the need for "convenience" "hygiene" "food labelling" "preparation instructions" "nutritional information" etc etc has caused us to lose all sense of proportion re: packaging. Because we are now such twits we don't know how to choose and cook our food any more, and in such a hurry we don't have time to ask a fellow human being to serve us. And put such low value on it that only supermarkets are viable.

YABU. I totally agree with undercovermutha - most people who come up with all these 'yes but' arguments against recycling just can't be arsed doing it.

Personally I think it's our national disgrace that we sit back and wait for 'incentives' to do the right thing. Other European countries don't act like this. They feel that their community and their world is actually their own responsibility, not something that the government should fix.

Our national laziness is shameful.

I don't bother with recycling I stick everything in blackbin bags for rubbish collection.Except grass clipping which I stick on the compost heap and branches etc which I burn.