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.

Gotta recycle, just like to gotta put the rubbish out. No biggie.

Anyway it falls under 'rubbish' which is men's work & my OH puts the bag out -(Seriously I guess I put more stuff into the bag & he mostly delivers the bag to the street).

My main 'gripe' with recycling is my kitchen is so tiny (in tiny London flat) and the recycling bag takes up soo much space. Until recently we could only put it on street once a week - but council has just started collecting recycling & rubbish twice a week now so that is helping.

If we get forced to collect our veggie clippings & put them out for collection then I'll be stuffed - no ides where that will go.

Too much bother??? what? It takes no effort at all. I love the attitude "Out of sight, out of mind"

Too much of "its not my problem" its everyone problem we all consume, we all buy pre-prepared stuff. Yes, years ago there were incentives I remember the pop bottles that came with the milk man but the supermarkets killed that and we all shop there now. Not many people shop at the butchers, debone a chicken and use every last piece, throw out a few pieces of brown wrapping paper. We buy in prepared cut up sizes in huge pastic containers because thats what is needed to look good and keep well.

ITS THE ONLY WAY FORWARD - we dont have a chose. It costs, it costs all the tax payers, the council has to cover all the costs.

It makes me laugh cos no one wants to live by a smelly landfill site. Not in my back yard!

Still lol-ing at 'tax on my time'. Except it's not really funny, just rather pathetic. How much worse does this problem have to get before people who consume acknowledge that it's everyone's responsibility?

Can't believe that some people are either so incredibly rushed off their feet or so incredibly lazy that doing the sort of basic sorting that a toddler would scoff at is a major problem for them.

goblinchild
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.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..

Erm I do but I'm obviously not so bloody perfect as you

Are you usually so condescending and bitchy... over a can of CAT FOOD

"If we get forced to collect our veggie clippings & put them out for collection then I'll be stuffed - no ides where that will go"

I WISH our council collected compostables!
you will be very lucky if yours does
the majority of my lanfill waste is now compostable and I hate it (having cut down on other waste - with a toddler, not a SAHM either, it took a tiny amt of effort and saves us money!!)
the other residents in my building will not allow a communal compost area and having looked into all options the only one that would work would be the council taking it away from me (no friends who have gardens are interested in taking it off my hands!!!)

If I ever get a whole house to myself the first thing I will do is sort out a compost heap
(sent lotto winning vibes my way cause I will do good things with it like compost all my waste and buy/build/convert a sustainable home )

followed recycle truck today dumping all the carefully sorted differentbins into the same usual dump and crush truck

Oldraver, one thing I REFUSE to wash out is catfood tins, it's disgusting. It just pollutes the water I think anyway...all that fat. Yuk.

I switched to using sachets anyway as the cat would leave a lot of the tinned food, and with a sachet it is gone in minuutes...shame they can't be recycled though that needs to be sorted out. I bung a few in the recycling bag anyway just to give them a hint.

thanks dylsmum, collection points for bags in store... will have to look next time i go, get food delivered which means they give you a zillion bags, 1 item in a bag sometimes! Cupboard under sink chocca with the things and would feel so bad sending a bag of bags to landfill, but altho i reuse bags (usually bag for life style) I dont need that many plastic ones.

bossyboop- don't get my shopping delivered but am told by friend that does you can give the bags to the driver when they bring your next load of shopping

Can anyone help me!! Trying to get hold of pool land book for little boy who refuses to poo on toilet. Tried bookshops internet docs and health visitor but still no luck. Getting desperate and stressed and seeking comfort in the easter eggs!!

Cool thanks will have to ask next time i get my shopping!

Does anyone else think it is just wasteful to send things to landfill that can be used again or recycled to make something new? Irrespective of whether or not it affects climate change. Is it not just lazy not to bother if youve got a separate box or bin?

Its also suggested that wasted energy affects climate change with advice to switch lights off when not in the room, dont leave things on standby etc I do this as much as possible, not just for climate change but also for saving my bills, it all adds up over the year, my philosphy is, "if its on, we're paying for it". But it also sets a good example to dd not to be wasteful. Do we really want to send messages to our children that we are lazy and cant be bothered and just dont care coz i bet they learn all about this at school these days, what will they say when asked what their family does to save the planet at home..."my mummy cant be bothered" and thats exactly how kids will put it.

Ive got a small kitchen but make space for 2 slimline bins, one for normal rubbish and one for recycling, its not a difficult thing to do when disposing or rubbish - pick a bin...its not rocket science.

voignier that's it then. Proves that recycling is all a big hoax and people are entirely justified when they can't be arsed to do it. Did you then follow it to a landfill site?

perhaps if we had to start burying our own normal waste in our own gardens then people might suddenly be all for recycling!

"Why won't governments just force companies to use less packaging in the first place?"

They do, we have an extensive european and domestic regulatory and legislative regime covering waste including laws on the reduction and recycling of packaging for packaging producers and retailers.

If you don't think it goes far enough then you should write to your MP. You should also be proactive in making purchases that minimise the amount of waste YOU create. Your waste your responsibility, not the government's.

There's more legislation in the pipeline too which will see Local authorities and private sector waste handlers having to up their game to ensure that at least biodegradable waste is managed better. European Landfill diversion targets are being doubled and it looks as though Defra will be introducing legislation to entirely ban certain biodegradable wastes to landfill.

One solution for certain biodegradable wastes is as a fuel stock for heat or combined heat and power generation (via incineration, or maybe, possibly even gasification or pyrolosis). However, these plants are few and far between because wherever they plan to put them there is usually a public protest.

I can tell you that at the moment a significant chunk of contaminated wood waste from this country is chipped and shipped to Germany for use as fuel in a large energy plant over there simply because there is no demand for this material in the UK.

If you want more information on the impact to the environment and human health of waste incineration plants, take the time to read the reports and information sheets provided by the Environment Agency on their website. Modern plant and abatement technology mean that the impact is negligible.

I would also point out to ABETADAD that you need to take into account transmission losses across the UKs aged national grid when discussing the relative efficiency of centralised power production. Hence gas power stations connected to the national grid and located miles from the source of demand are nowhere near as efficient as a biomasss or waste CHP plant connected to a decentralised heat and power network.

Yes companies should use less, the first example that springs to mind is easter eggs! Was nice to see some companies not using the plastic mould inside the box but cadburys still did. When I get stuff delivered from Boots nappies etc, they come in a massive box and space is filled with loads of that brown paper to pad out the box - to protect the nappies??!! Some companies fill the space with those air filled plastic bag thingys which cant go in the recycling bin. I should get inventing...I need a material that has the strength of plastic but the biodegradeability of paper...!

APG, you sound as though you know a lot about it - what should I say to him? It's my experience in the past that you need a proposal for them to consider rather than saying you don't like something.

Should we bring back a campaign of dumping the excess packaging at the till? I don't know the answers, but it's encouraging to see that some of the easter eggs were packaged better this year, which suggests that some manufacturers are getting the message.

bossyboop recycling begins at home. I reuse those air filled bags when posting presents. And there is always SOMEONE moving house who needs boxes. As for the nappies, you could use cloth

I think that these days people just think of recycling in terms of what they can send off labelled "recycling", and not, what it should be, which is re-use and altering etc.

If I have a pair of leggings with the seams going I don't bring it to the fabric recycling bin at my local supermarket (or complain that the council doesn't pic up fabric recycling from my house), I chop it up into washable kitchen towels. I hold clothes swap parties, send stuff to charity shops, and only the stuff that is REALLY scrappy and useless goes in the recycling.

My kids nursery collects empty bottles to fill with glitter and lentils etc as sensory toys.

Why BUY lunch boxes and tupperware etc when lots of food comes in containers that can be re-used rather than put in the recycling bin (and a lot of it these days is no5 so BPA free and safe for using in the freezer!

Y'see, shipping our recycling off to china is not ideal, but it IS meant ONLY as a lesser evil to landfill and incineration. The recycling collection should only be for stuff that cannot be reused some other way!

If you reduce and reuse you wont have a massive recycling bin to worry about!

I just had a dress delivered from Ghost. Big cardboard box. Inside was a stiff paper bag with ribbon handles. Inside that was the dress with special Ghost tissue paper with ribbon. I was caught between 'ahhhh isn't that lovely' and 'tsk! How wasteful'. At least no plastic though.

orm Ghost dress!....

It is very lovely

I got a bit scared when I saw how it emphasised all my curvy bits as I normally try to hide them but it does hang and fit beautifully.

you can go on and on about cloth nappies..feel free to join in...about the electricity and water used to wash them and how that is also not good for the environment and the extra detergent you use - all gets packaged up and all the wasted energy and pollution that goes into making it and delivering into store and ive never even mentioned presoaking... blah blah blah

You can write to your MP about anything you please. They work for us don't forget and if we have a particular concern we are free to express it.

If packaging waste is your thang, and you don't think government is doing enough legislation wise to force change amongst producers then you should do your research, check out the relevant european directives and transposed domestic regulations and suggest improvements. That would take some commitment. Perhaps there are already groups out there lobbying on this issue, you could join them or you could start your own pressure group on the issue.

Failing that, why not just write a letter expressing your concern about packaging waste and asking your MP what action they and their political party intend to take to tackle the issue, particularly in light of dwindling landfill, increasing landfill diversion targets and potential bans on biodegradable wastes like paper, card and wood which are both commonly used in packaging. Demand a response. Your MP probably won't have a clue what you are on about.

bossyboob cloth is a lesser evil. no-one claims cloth nappies have NO environmental impact, just that they have LESS of an environmental impact (in whole of life analysis) than disposables.

I do agree salbysea! I have read before that on the whole cloth does have less of an environmental impact than disposable when it all gets weighed up however for me the extra workload put onto me having to deal with the cloth nappies (especially if you have a newborn) would cause me to be a bit more stressed and frazzled and an unhappy stressed mummy leads to an unhappy stressed household. So its home environment vs the wider environment and whats happening in my house wins every time. Thats what this whole thread seems to be about what people can be bothered to do/what they have time to do. Tho i think it would be a bit daft if someone said they couldnt give a milk carton a quick rinse under the tap and put it into the recycling bin because it would cause them too much stress!