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.

Ponders - drinks and beans in plastic bags...didnt read all of thread but I have seen milk in sainsburys in plastic bags, and sealable jugs to pour it into tho not a lot cheaper than the cartons, but then takes up less space in the bin when empty but expect the bags will just go to landfill, local council doesnt recycle much plastic.

I get my milk from the milkman in glass milkbottles which are reused-even better than recycling.
We reuse jars mostly buy few cans and newspapers.But I wouldn't bother with recycling even if we did

I always put clothes in charity bags, such a waste for them to go to landfill when someone else could benefit from a bargain, plus take up too much space in my bin.

Thanks ABetaDad. Us girls are all so much richer now that you have explained the way of the world to us. Could you please use smaller words next time though please, got a liitle lost for a while

I am totally fed up with recycling tbh especially the yukky baked bean tins with a few beans at the bottom and tins of tuna (double yuk) and pesto jars and have found some men (my exh and my boss very dismissive of it.

The wine bottles are no problem of course.

I suspect in the majority of households its us matyred and worthy women (before I get flamed I include myself in that) who are doing it ie the small stuff while the men deal with the bigger picture.

I have been known recently to slip the odd can and bottle in the normal rubbish but will continue to recycle the vast majority of my stuff.

And yes I do care about the planet.

martyred can't spell today

and also have no man in my house to do it.

The dcs have recycling fatigue tbh as one of their primary teachers very eco friendly.

Also I just have to flush after every visit.

i am with you there, it IS more work for us woman.

we have on large black wheely bin , one large wheely bin for recycling, kitchen waste, garden waste.

3 boxes for tins, plastic bottles etc.

even with all the extra boxes, time is spent every week chrushing down the black bin waste.
which is taken away every two weeks.

the bin men dont take away tins , bottles unless rinsed.

during the summer months the green bin caused a swarm of maggots trying to get in my front door.
so this year are going to HAVE to pay to have it cleaned. we have no access to back garden with bin, and no where to tip out waste water from washing bin.
dont want to take bin through the house to get to back garden to wash.

it does have to be done, but way cant we have less packaging?
am sick of rippping up cardboard boxes for green bin.

and what do you see outside toys r us these days? piles of large cardboard as people dont have the space to store, or time to take cardboard waste to the dump.

we are a large family, our 4 kids are teens, so huge meals eaten a typical roast dinner will lead to two large trays of peelings and plate scraps to go in the bin.

and a tray of assorted tins, milk bottles etc to tip into smaller bins, all washed.
we dont forget to add bathroom plastic bottles as well. plenty of spot cream tubes etc and shampoo bottles as now all willingly washing bod and hair.

all = lots of extra work.

YABU. you were living in a fools paradise before you started recycling, thinking (as we all did) that so many people could carry on chucking so much rubbish into landfill sites.

and very U to complain about the work. How hard is a bit of sorting, fgs?

apparently my council said that you shouldnt put peelings in the green bin. only whole fruit or veg or garden stuff. Apparently thats what contributed to the swarms of fruit flies that plagued my bin last year. So now i put the peelings on the garden to compost.

I am sick of all the bins I've got to have outside my house...I have a green one for plastic and other rubbish, a black one for card, a bag for white paper and a box for newspaper and junkmail. Then I have a food waste box and another box for nappies. Oh and we only get our bins collected on rotation every two weeks so then the bin stinks of rotting food, and that only happens if we haven't had snow, or a bit of harsh rain otherwise it takes the council nearly a month to collect it.

To top it off most of it gets left on my drive because the dustmen reckon it's not their job to pick it up when any of it falls from the bin when they move it.

Yes YABU. There's no excuse for not recycling, none, particularly if you have children. You say you end up doing it all - well, the rest of your family need to be trained to do it automatically. It drives me wild when people moan about recycling - would you rather have a landfill site at the end of your garden? As for all this whining about companies should have to do it - so many people in this country expect all their rights to come with no responsibility attached. Why should the government have to do everything? Take responsibility for your own actions. When your children are in their 30s and have children of their own and they are shocked and saddened by the state their parents' generation allowed the world to get into, what are you going to say to them? "It was too much of a faff"?

This thread is so FUCKING depressing.

I want to live in Germany. Actually, I think I'm going to try. This whole country is going to end up as a big landfill site because people and councils are so bloody lazy. And climate change deniers for convenience too.

i don't believe that anthropgenic climate change is a proven fact, but recycling is less of an obvious green issue (it takes energy to recycle after all) than an economic one,

recycling and sensible reductions of packaging can make goods cheaper, - just 'reducing packaging' without thought isn't right (it has to be sufficient to protect the goods in transit..eg cream pots used to break easily and lots would be wasted, new packaging = less waste)

though OP, you making unncessarily heavy work - the plastics/ glass/ cans are going to be melted down at a high temperature - they don't need to be that clean!

i think new houses should be designed with a view to recycling though - it would be nice just to park the bins under chutes carrying everything straight out of the kitchen..

We have 2 bins and the council sort it for us, they incinerate the non recyclable. I recycle everything I can (except peelings - have a waste disposal) I stick the tins/bottles in the dishwasher (wedged normally in a tiny gap) What I do object to is as a small business I would have to pay the council for the privilidge of recycling which in todays climate I just can't afford to - drives me mad. I'm willing to pay the staff to sort it as they work but then pay the council when I am already paying for a business collection ..... Know there are lots of other folks in the same boat.

I don't do it

You are lucky if you have separate bins or just one bin which is sorted for you. We have a bin for glass and one for paper, so realistically plastic, tins and card board don't get recycled in our house as they involve storing them (in a 2 bed flat, tiny kitchen) and then a trip to the local recycling bank.

Swedish supermarkets charge deposits on drinks cans & glass bottles, & have recycling machines in the store you feed the empties back into for a voucher you can use at the checkout.

When I was a child pop & beer came in glass bottles with a deposit you could get back. Why can't we do that again for all drinks bought in supermarkets, instead using plastic all the time? A substantial deposit - say 50p a time - would encourage people to return the empties, wouldn't it? Returning doorstep milk bottles still seems to function well, without a deposit.

Of course what happens to our recycling is not ideal, reducing and reducing is much better, we recycle as a second last resort! But I still do it as it take MINUTES and we are running out of landfill and landfill tax is only going to go up and up and UP. However I make an effort to make it a last resort after reducing the amt of waste I am generating before even GETTING to sorting my landfill waste from the recyclables (washable sandwich bags, washable nappies, farm box of veg, use the LOVEFOODHATEWASTE website for tips to make my food shopping to further etc), and that does take effort but is worth it as it saves me money too!

re-packaging, food waste has a far bigger environmental impact (cradle to grave) than the packaging that may extend the life of food so it gets used. its not as simple as just making firms use less packaging because actually food waste is a much bigger problem.

Why should the government have to do it?? Because they get enough blooming council tax and various other tax out of me and if they didn't waste so much and keep spending it on themselves I wouldn't have to keep sorting out my own rubbish.