...or is anyone else secretly fed up with recycling?

[Chil1234]

I do it, of course I do. Socially responsible, obedient, middle-aged woman, terrified of getting a big sticker on my wheelie-bin that I am - what choice is there? I've got the two-sided Brabantia for the compostable waste, I keep my reusable shopping bags in the back of the car, I'm even tipping the dirty washing up water on the plants to conserve that. But as I look at my little collection of rinsed-out bottles, cans and cardboard waiting to be sorted outside into their relevant bins, bags and boxes I can't help feeling a twinge of nostalgia for the days when you used to just throw stuff away and forget about it. I threw a dead battery in the 'everything else' bin this week and felt positively subversive.... yet elated.

Anyone else a reluctant green?

I rinse the tins of cat tuna, but I confess to throwing out mayonnaise jars because they are too hard to rinse out

I love it. It makes me feel useful.

Paper, plastic, card in the green bin.
Glass, foil, rags, batteries, garden waste, metal, wood get taken to the tip to be sorted.
Food waste in the compost bin.
Un re-cyclable pots / lids to nursery for art and crafts.
Anything else goes in the grey bin.

I rinse everything that goes in the recycling - otherwise I feel guilty about the poor buggers who have to sort through it all at the depot, so I make sure it's all clean and unstinky. I don't understand how mayonnaise jars are difficult to rinse out - hot water and fairy liquid, easy peasy.

I do quite like recycling - it makes me feel like I'm doing something vaguely positive, even if I know deep down it's all deeply futile.

I get really fucked off with the number of yogurt pots I have to rinse out every day.
I am a bit nostalgic for the bad old days too.

I just chuck all the tins / jars / pots in the dishwasher as I go, paper labels removed of course. I don't do washing up.

Ours is pretty easy tbh. We have the bin in the kitchen and a recyling box under the sink, which we empty a few times a week.

As we have 3 wheelie bins we don't have to sort much. ALL the recycling goes in the grey bin, all the rubbish in the green bin and garden waste in the brown bin.

No faffing around sorting glass and plastic bottles, they all go together..

And it gets collected on alternative weeks so the wheelie bins never overflowing etc.

Works well

YADNBU. i dont even bother recycling now just bung it all in together as week after week they refuse to take it as kids throw crisp packets in!!

and in this weather i have to use it to store normal rubbish, as my other bin overfills due to having 3 in nappies. have asked council for another bin but no such luck.

Ours was easier in Central Beds - everything in one recycling wheelie bin, bags for garden waste and a food bin.

Now in York there is garden wheelie bin, paper box, glass box and cans/tins/plastic. Shouldn't be harder but it is.

Am doing it though

Yes drives me bonkers, exacerbated by hoarding DH who can't bear to throw anything awway. Sometime I feel like I am living in a great big recycling bin myself, what with the amount of stuff hanging about waiting for some unlikely future use.

I was relieved when the council decided we could recycle foil though, as at least we don't now have to hoard every single takeaway container we have ever had...

I don't find it a faff but we are lucky that we can put all the recyling (other than food and garden stuff) in one box.

I never wash any of the stuff out - life really is too short. The boxes are out at the front of the house so if there was a smell from it I wouldn't notice it (we live in a Victorian terrace).

Never had them refuse to take it away due to the lack of washing out yoghurt pots.....

YANBU. Millions of people running the hot water each time to wash out each tin and using washing up liquid. Then getting into cars to drive take stuff to recycling points. This is supposed to be a good thing?

It's easy for councils to make more and more of these rules for other people to follow. Then they tick a box to show they are making an effort to save the planet and get a pat on the head.

Also whatever time this takes (And it adds up) you could put to better use.

There was a little bit of sense when it was just say put large amounts of cardboard/paper in a different box, but now it's just getting ridiculous.

Ah yes, the rules. One leaflet I got from my council painstakingly explained the definition of a 'plastic bottle'. It has to be a bottle - not a tub, not a container, not a box - a bottle.... ummm... made out of plastic. There were illustrations of various plastic bottles (big green tick) and other containers (big red cross) in case you still weren't sure. In the old days a leaflet like that would have earned a dismissive laugh as I threw it away (I know what a plastic bottle is, sunshine - I've got a degree) into the nearest bin. But now I'm studying the stupid thing and taking it deadly seriously!! I hate what they've done to me.

YABU. get a grip, it's not that difficult, and it's at least an effort toward being a responsible consumer.

Some plastics are not recyclable so you have to check the bottom of item!!

As an anal retentive control freak (my own words) I love it. All that sorting, all the lovely different boxes and our extra ones for stuff that can be recycled at the dump.
Our council just added tetrapack recycling - sighs with deep joy. Dump is on way home from work so being good citizen I combine trips.
I'm weird I know.

It's not difficult @chandellina, and I did say at the outset that I feel obliged to do it... but it's monotonous and repetitive. What was once a simple act of 'throwing away' has become another daily chore with rules and timetables, requiring instruction leaflets and threats of fines. Ironic that we spent much of the last century inventing labour-saving devices to free mankind from the drudgery of everyday household tasks and most of this one (it seems) dreaming up ways to return them by the back door.... past the wheelie bin, the bottle box, the compost, the water butt....

I love recycling.

Unfortunately, the binmen who collect the recycling bin once a fortnight usually can't be bothered to drive up the lane where I live, so consequently my bin has only been emptied five times in the year I've lived here and it means frequent trips to the dump (6 miles away) to get rid of the recycling. The council helpfully suggested that I do away with my recycling bin and just get a bigger rubbish bin (because they always bother to drive up the lane to empty that one). I said no, I want to recycle, thank you very much. Tell your lazy-arse binmen to come and collect it - I drag it down the drive every second week for that very reason.

I don't mind the recycling. Quite soothing, in a way, crushing boxes/plastic thingies etc.

But I am mildly irked by the compost bin thing. I keep forgetting to buy the degradable bags for it. They slide down inside the bin when you chuck food in so you have to hoick it out. I had three small bulldog clips to keep it in place but two sprang away from me.

And the bluebottles appear to think I am hosting a muck party especially for them.

As for cans, I only wash them out and put them in the recycling when I'm in a good mood. Otherwise they go in the regular bin and I'm not apologising for it, so there.

My SIl is a waste management consultant (no, I don't think it was her childhood dream, either) and she is very scathing about the benefits of recycling/net material and emission 'saving'. That has demotivated me somewhat.

I still do about 75% of what I could do. Don't do kitchen scraps etc. Our council is pretty good, though, which helps.

I don't mind the recycling really.
I rinse any jars and put them in the box with the wine bottles!

I don't mind the paper/cardboard.

I rinse out tins, and put them with the cans.

We now do bottles, yogurt pots, marg tubs, fruit punnets, meat trays etc., and I'm supposed to wash the darn things!.....I cba with that so I just bung 'em in the box.

All of the above are collected every 2 weeks. This is no problem.

The problem is with the smelly household waste. We do compost veg peelings etc.. But what is left goes in the bin and in this hot weather it stinks. Our fortnightly collection for this rubbish isn't until next wednesday. I tipped 1/2 bottle of jayes fluid in the bin to try and mask the smell but it's not working!
And there are blue bottles buzzing around it. I wrap the rubbish in plastic bags, and pressure wash the wheelie when it's emptied. What else can I do!

Regardless of how recycling saves resources etc etc which I am sure people can argue about until the comes come home, if you happen to be familiar with any landfill site you would be more keen to avoid putting any more in there than you have to. The one near our town has grown and grown - and not you can see it from miles away. It's horrible. We will run out space for these thing sooner or later.

And we put all our food waste in the food bin. There is none in the wheelie bin.

Hormonesnomore - that sounds exactly like our arrangement (are you in N. Wales?) and we're having the same problem with food waste. Also, we don't produce much waste that can't go in our own compost bin, so it just coats the bottom of the huge green bin and gives the flies a party .

However, I'm pleased that our council bothers. My mum lives 15 miles away and her authority are really pants.

OrmRenewed, What happens to your foodbin?....Sorry if you said earlier!

I do recycle all the plastic stuff by the way I just can't be bothered to wash it.

Once a week collection. We have a small caddy in the kitchen which is emptied into a bigger sealable bin when it's full.