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.

bossyboop- the milk bags from sainsburys can be recycled along with other carrier bags- quick rinse and can then go in the carrier collection points in store.

KAEKAE you are aware that it wouldn't ACTUALLY be the government doing it I mean if the council did start washing out and sorting everyone's recycling it wouldn't be your local MP down there with a pinny and some rubber gloves, it would be some other mere mortal like us washing YOUR rubbish!

Husband collects all the stuff and leaves it in an annoying pile at the side of the kitchen bin. He wouldnt let me buy him a 3 compartment recycling bin as he said it wasnt large enough. When I am sick of the untidyness I just chuck it in the normal bin, if he doesnt take it to the recycling place. Our council collects cans, bottles and newspaper and provides a box, I havent a problem with this. Its the nasty pile of plastic milk cartons etc which the dog tends to nose about in, littering the kitchen I object to. But lets be honest with 4 kids there arent enough hours in the day to rinse out bottles and cans.

KAEKAE you are also aware of course that the government doesn't get your council tax, the council does. Hence its name.

I'm not going to be holier than though but in our council we have weekly bin collections and a fortnightly recycling collection (a small plastic box). All the council takes is glass, tins and newspapers, which is utterly crap. However every supermarket now has plastic, clothes, and card bins at least and it's no effort at all to take them down when you do the normal shop. I live in a small house with a small concrete yard and I manage to do it - it's easy. If you have a dishwasher stick the tins in the dishwasher then you won't get beans on your hands, if that's an issue. Can't believe how lazy some people are

Well the governement, the council it all amounts to the same thing really...one way or another whoever they pay to clear it will be getting paid and the money will no doubt come from the tax payer.

I agree, this is very depressing. Suprised to find so many people on MN who think they don't have to be part of the solution. But great to see the gang who do! I agree, we could definitely come up with better systems for managing our waste, including recycling, but they're unlikely to involve relieving all of us from any responsibility, and just because the system isn't perfect yet is no excuse to opt out. Doesnt mean we all have to like recycling, but come on...

Terrifying thought that if you can't put a price on something it's not worth having - the environment is notoriously hard to value and even when you can price environmental goods and services, you miss out the intrinsic worth of some of its most wonderful bits. The price of carbon can give you a price for a rainforest, but not of the tigers and toucans in it.

Children have a total love and fascination for nature. When do we forget how beautiful and important it is, and start thinking of it as an optional luxury?

I fail to see why it's such an effort, I keep a large tesco blue bag in the kitchen (which is tiny btw) and shove all the plastics/cardboard in there, empty it twice a day. If tins are washed out/emptied as they're used, it's no hassle either. It's minutes out of my day, the kids know to put things in there (I have 4, older ones all know value of recycling in fact 6yo gives me lectures!). It's important, thus worth making the effort. DP is appalling, he shoves anything into the bin, but still doesn't make me NOT want to recycle cos he can't be bothered.

We have had fornightly bin collections for the last 5 years. This has helped recycling rates reached one of the highest levels in the UK.

We have two bins, a green recycling bin and a grey refuse bin. If I do not try to recycle all I can, my refuse bin would overflow. Bins that are open by more than 2 inces are not collected!

What annoys me, however, is the number of friends/acquaintances that just use the recycling bin like the refuse bin because the refuse bin is full. If a recycling lorry is contaminated by just one bin, the whole lorryful needs to go to landfill.

it does shock me how many people don't recycle when it is collected from your front doorstep!

we dont hve a collection in our block of flats, all though noone at the council can give me a reason why. . so we have a box we collect it all in and walk up the recycling bank with it all. even my 3 yr old knows how to sort the rubbish. an gives anyone lectures if hey dont do it properly or leave lights on "stop killing penguins" is her fav phrase much to her dads disgust

See, I don't get what the problem is if it's made easy for you. round here though, they won't collect glass with the recycling collection, so you either have to throw it in the normal bin (not happening in this house) or save them up and take them to the bottle banks. I usually have a box of glass bottles in the boot of the car on the off chance I'll go near the bottle banks (not anywhere useful like in the main council carpark, they are in odd places like the Homebase carpark, I don't go there every week). I don't understand why our council won't take bottles. (I'm sure a wiser MNer will explain why they'll take plastic and paper and cans but not bottles)

What is annoying is remembering to separate out food for compost heap, but then that's DH wanting good compost rather than the council...

Umleila you are definitely not being unreasonable!!! I spend about 15mins a day washing out containers, folding, crushing etc. etc. I HATE doing it. Not 100% sure if it is actually recycled but I do it anyway. I think its about as annoying as unloading the dishwasher and cleaning the bath.

It is not easy for me to recycle and does not make me one of the ''lazy people'' that I don't do it, I think. I do not have the room in my tiny kitchen for seperate bins, and am not going to walk out of my back door and down a long entry to get to my blue bin, every time I use a tin of beans/bottle of milk. It all goes in the bin and then the ''bin lorry'' takes it away. If I had the room for two different bins, or my wheelie's were right outside my door I might. But it is too much like hard work. Sorry folks.
PS Some people on here have been downright rude to the OP. Nasty.

dylsmum same situation here, we live in a village and apparently they can't fit a recycling truck down our road. We still recycle, we end up with piles of the stuff and then fill the boot of the car, (no recycling centre within walking distance or in our nearest supermarket) and take it the 15 minute drive ourselves. This does annoy me as I feel the cost to the environment in an unnecessary car journey could well be as bad as not recycling. I really don't understand why people don't recycle if they have a bin right outside their front door though!

I'm not sure about this one. I have been guilty of passive aggressive recycling in the past, ie not to wash the odd tin or yogurt pot, because 'if they want me to recycle this stuff they can bloody well have it with the stuck peanut butter in it'

but generally in recent times I have started to see it as MY waste, my rubbish, therefore MY responsibility...and yes I still don't wash everything because it's nearly impossible to get some things clean but I do try.

Ours don't collect glass which makes life quite tricky, I try and save it up but often it gets binned, because I have nowhere to put it and it takes AGES to fill a whole box with the amount we throw away.

Paper and plastic etc no problem, I can't bear chucking it in the bin now. Feels so wrong.

But as ABD says, it's what they DO with it and how it is managed that needs sorting out.
I had a horrible boyfriend once who refused to recycle anything at all because he said large companies throw away tons and tons of cardboard etc, what we chuck has little bearing on it...but he was a tight git anyway, so it made me more pro recycling if anything.

SleepyCaz
"It is not easy for me to recycle and does not make me one of the ''lazy people'' that I don't do it"
"But it is too much like hard work. Sorry folks."
I think that is a bit of a contradiction
I recycled in a galley kitchen with my recycling bin up a hill (via a path at the back of the building)
It didn't feel too much like hard work to me, I washed up my recyclables with my washing up and it sat on the draining board and each morning I took it to the wheelie on my way out

Peaceflower raises a good point! just because a reporter followed a load of recycling to landfill doesn't mean the council aren't bothering at their end, often it means that people who can't be bothered to comply properly are RUINING it for everyone who does. I lives somewhere where the communal recycling bin was FURTHER AWAY than the land fill bin yet someone took the effort to go all the way to the recycling bin to dump their LOOSE nappies in there even when the landfill bin was full

• does anyone REALLY think it should be ANYONES job to sort through other peoples nappies to pick out and wash the recyclables in that load?

I just find it laughable that all these people who say 'woe is me it is too hard for me to recycle' don't seem to give a bat's arse about the legacy they are leaving for their children. We are a small island. Where the hell do you think all your rubbish goes? We have nowhere else left to put it. It is just the most short sighted blinkered attitude you can have.

The lack of responsibility expressed by some on this thread is shocking.

It's YOUR rubbish and there is no AWAY.

Is is really a case of out of sight out of mind? How very selfish.

Its funny isnt it how people are happy to beleive that the rubbish lorries take it all 'away' where do they think it goes?? It all depends on whether you consider your home to be the little house you live in or the planet as a whole.
I sound a bit 'disney' but copping out with and 'out of sight out of mind' attitude is just too selfish for words.

Laziness is like a disease in this country!!!

We recently moved to North Yorkshire.
In our last 3 places - Hampshire,Fife and Cambs we had big blue/green wheelie bin type recycling bins. Into these went glass,tins plastic bottles,paper,cardboard and newspaper and magazines.
It was emptied fortnightly

Here though we have a tiny blue box and a blue bag
The box is for tins,plastic bottles and glass.
The bag is for newspaper and junk mail - but nothing with a window envelope and no cardboard.

If the blue box is full, and we put the excess recycling into another plastic tub and leave it out they will not empty it. The nearest palce for me to recycle my excess plastic is 10 miles away.
So I put the excess into the normal household waste bin. I did ring and ask why this was and was told
"well the council elected to have the recycling sorted at roadside(lorry has different compartments), if we had it all put into a big wheelie bin type recycling bin then we would have to employ more people to sort it out,so that saves money plus we have a large population of elderly people in teh area and they can't possibly be expected to push another wheeled bin out"

No but you expect them to carry a blue heavy box!

'Out of sight out of mind' - yes, off to a landfill in China.

And I do -follow- -like- -a- -sheep- recycle, as I do want to save the planet - I just don't think all our efforts are met with equal effective effort at the other end.

Happy to be proved wrong.

Sleepycaz, I cans ee the problem with having a small kitchen but could you not just keep a carrier bag hanging up somewhere for the tins and so on...we use a plastic tub (like rhino tubs, etc that you can get in B&Q) with a recycling sack in it - it just lurks somewhere on the kitchen floor, yes space is tight here too but it makes it so easy just to chuck stuff in.

We also keep a recycling bag in the living room for bits of paper, one in the hall for junk mail, packaging etc...there are loads on the go at once.

We fill loads more than we di rubbish bins - probably use about one or two binbags a week (including pet waste, nappies) but about 2 or 3 recycling bags. If I didn't recycle I'd be emptying the bin at least twice a day!

I agree councils do as little as possible too. It is an endemic problem in this country, from government and councils down to individuals, the 'do little as possible pass the buck' attitude.

when we lived in a flat with a small kitchen we had cheap white bins that stacked on top of each other with flip tops - one for glass, one for plastic, one for cardboard. Took up a small corner.

bins from IKEA btw.

Saltire, we had a blue box. I rang the council and had to buy a large blue wheelie bin for recycling - cost about 35 quid and they delivered it.