...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?

Same sort of thing here . We have;

4 different wheelie bins
1 recycling box
1 food bin

I really don't want my garden taken over by all those bins, it completely pisses me off

We now have a really easy recycling system, almost everything goes into big green bin, collected once a fortnight (yoghurt pots, milk cartons, juice cartons, cling film, tin foil, paper, card, etc) and the rest into black bin collected weekly. It is so easy that it's no hassle.

Went up to my mother's a week or so ago, and she doesn't do recycling (apart from newspapers) as she's elderly and infirm (and bloody minded!) and it felt really odd putting everything in one bin. I was waiting for someone to clap their hand on my shoulder and tell me off!

Funnysinthegarden - no, my mother in law doesn´t live on her own - yet still generates so little waste. The old folk where I live also only have wheely bins that are c a foot and a half tall - adequate for their needs for the every other week collection.

Onagar I AM completely under the impression that people (in the UK in this context) CHOOSE to generate waste. You live in a consumer society where for many people shopping is the favourite leisure activity and you choose to buy massively overpackaged products in the supermarket. The high street in the UK is full of tat, throw away tat put in yet another plastic bag. I haven´t seen this in other countries in Europe.

I do it dutifully, but also hate it.

Our recycling dudes often don't show up, which means piles and piles of crap either in our kitchen or outside our house in the miniscule boxes the council provide.

I also watch them sort it sometimes, and they are so careless, I wonder if it is really all being recycled?

The big issue I've found with it is that there are parts of the local area where there simply isn't the space by each house for them to store bins. I'm thinking of one area in Derby I go to with terraced houses, no access round the back by car - so outside each and every house is a black, brown and blue bin and it looks flipping hideous. The collections when we lived over there were so bad, someone actually nicked my wheelie bin full of rubbish in order to procure a second one for themselves!

Round here it's not too bad (apart from someone nicking my glass bag and I can't be bothered to ring up and request a new one). We've got a black bin and a green bin - anything recyclable gets slung in the green one, the rest goes in the black - I'm not bothering rinsing out plastics and stuff, but cans and things I'll separate out. If they reduce my council tax bills by the amount the added labour saves them - I'll get really into rinsing out plastic etc - but until then they're just getting cardboard and the easy stuff.

Hate this two weekly "rubbish-rubbish" collection thing though - you never know which week it is for the bins, everyone in the street watches till someone works it out and cracks and puts their coloured bin out first, the normal bin's a stinking mess by week 2 in the summer, and getting over the Xmas period your bin's full to overflowing - and they refuse to empty a bin without the lid shut flush on it around here - they'll leave you a snotty sticker, and an already overflowing bin, which you've then got to deal with for another 2 weeks (at which point we borrow the empty house next door's bin) - what the heck does that do to HELP the situation?!

I heard the other day from one of my tutoring parents that they'd had so many problems with ikky stuff in their bin, they'd rang the council who offered to send out a "rubbish audit" person - who looked in their bin, diagnosed the problem as "you're throwing the wrong sort of rubbish away - don't" and left.

I think that the 'holier-than-thou'ing' isn't that helpful .

Packaging is unavoidable, no matter how hard you try.

E.g.

• I have an allotment, I grow my own veg. What I can't grow I get from a veg box scheme. Boxes and cartons are recycled by the delivery people. When I get fruit/veg from the supermarket I don't choose pre-wrapped or use the little plastic bags.
• I use cloth nappies.
• I get my meat from my butcher, which is wrapped in fairly minimal packaging.
• I get my milk in glass bottles from the milkman.
• I buy value packs of washing powder, etc. to try to reduce waste.
• I make a conscious decision when shopping not to buy items with silly amounts of packaging.
• I have a wormery and compost bins and the little food thrown away is recycled.

HOWEVER, I still generate at least 3 black bin liners of unrecyclable waste every 2 weeks .

I have no intention of being holier than thou.. I don´t use washable nappies or do a number of the very environmentally friendly things you do. But I do think recycling is just not in the British psyche yet and this to me is the problem. Someone pointed out I said recycling is a necessary evil, yes it is to me, but also part and parcel of life and non-negotiable. Just like I wouldn´t say I´m fed up of blow-drying my hair, it´s just one of those things you have to get on with...

@GBhome... I think you've totally missed the point of the thread and your generalisation of the tat-filled, shopaholic 'British way of life' as if you're some kind of learned anthropologist peering at us from afar is starting to become offensive.

No-one's suggesting that we all rebel, stop recycling, stick up two fingers and go back to the past. (At least I don't think so) We're all just paying homage to that quintessential part of the British psyche which is to have a bloody good grumble but get on and do it anyway. And if you really did know anything about 'the British way of life' you would know that already.

I agree Chil1234. This thread is an excellent example of 'mutter, tut, conform' .

GBhome, it would be fun to have you come and do the shopping and watch how you get on. Even if you stood in the shop and removed all the packaging you still have to dispose of it. Wherever it goes it has to be dealt with so it makes no difference.

You might try only buying items that were not packaged, but you'd soon be in trouble there as that is how most things are sold in this country.

You are right in saying that we choose to live here. We could all emigrate tomorrow I suppose. What's the best country to move to with less packaging then?

GBHome, I think it is a lot more in the "British psyche" than in the psyche of a number of the other nationalities living here in the desert

IF I have been so offensive (???) then perhaps I have hit a nerve Chili. By the way, an excellent perspective on a culture is coming from it, leaving it for a while and returning home.

Onagar there is an element of choice in this. The Brits are huge consumers of pre-packaged meals for example. This is not the norm in other countries. If you took a trip round the supermarket with me you would see that I DON´T HAVE THE OPTION to buy the highly packaged goods I invariably turn to for SC holidays in the UK. They are just not on the shelves.

Say I fancy lasagne. There may be one (generally for 1-2 people)in the refrigerated area in my local supermarket. In the UK I will have a VAST CHOICE - vegetarian, beef or lamb, chicken lasagne, quorn, mega size, weightwatchers, light, low fat, finest, children´s,etc etc. There is something for everyone and every budget range. It is CHEAPER to buy one than make it yourself and that is very tempting. I can then throw the leftovers in my mother´s oversized bin and it will be lost there. Mulitiply this by every household and every meal. This is where I´m coming from. And it´s a problem.

However, I clearly falsely remember having far more robust conversations than this with fellow Brits without causing such offence. So I´ll step out and leave you to your grumblings, in peace and unchallenged..

I don't think that it's what you're saying GB, more the tone that it's coming across in which is getting people's backs up. I don't disagree that as a society we consume and dispose of far too much, I just don't think that all of the blame can be heaped at the doorstep (so to speak) of the consumer. To say 'if you don't want the packaging, don't buy it' is too simplistic, as my own efforts have shown.

oh goodness I would love to have more prepackaged meals available here, but we still apparently produce vast amounts of general waste per person.

And back in the UK people don't think it weird to have reusable shopping bags - so you don't have to fight off the bag packers who all seem to have been to bag packing school where they learn not to put dissimilar items in the same bag.

I guess the perspective on a culture thing depends on where you have gone when you leave your original culture - I still reckon the UK is pretty green minded as cultures go, all things considered

I dislike it less than chucking everying in one bin which makes me feel queasy. But it's not much fun. So i take note of what I'm throwing away and try to buy less of it. Like, milk delivered so no more rinsing out milk cartons - yogurt maker so no more yogurt cartons.

If you hate it, do the leaving packaging at the supermarket thing, or find ways to buy less packaging. The increase in packaging even since I became an adult (not THAT old a gimmer emoticon) is ridiculous.

massive xpost sorry! [gets coat]

The 'leaving the packaging' thing is quite funny to do though.

In my local supermarket I'm asked (as I dump 6 apples of the conveyer belt) "don't you want a bag for those" in a tone of voice suggesting I have no standards and SS should be called to take my children away as they're obviously in grave danger. Especially as I've already endured slack-jawed staring at my baby in a sling while I get said apples .

10 miles down the road, no bother!

But it is always more complicated than you first think... Looking at GBHome's point about ready made lasagne: one ready meal generates probably one tin-foil pack. (washable and reusable and/ or recyclable)
plus probably one manky bit of cardboard or cellophane, (not easily recyclable)
plus an outer of cardboard. (recyclable)

Making it from scratch however, even if you go all local shoppe, will need a packet of lasagne, a bag of mince, a bottle of milk, a pack of cheese and various herbs and spices. Fine if you have all these things on the go, but for a small family, to buy all the bits and pieces might mean more waste and more packaging (albeit some of it recyclable) . Are there vegetables in lasagne? if so you also have to compost the peelings.

If ready-meals weren't generally so foul, there could be a case for them being more efficient in terms of packaging, not to mention the power used for cooking and washing up versus 5mins in the microwave and eat it straight form the packet.

To me, the problem is that the research is never done properly, and the motivation is always profit. As someone mentioned earlier, even the councils are often jumping through hoops to get particular grants, or not lose funding from central government, rather than looking at the whole picture, and actually trying to save the planet.

GBHome I think we all agree with you there is too much packaging (less packaging would mean less faffing about with recycling after all!), but your initial post on this thread was that you were disgusted (I believe that was the work used - too tired/lazy to check back) by us complaining about having to faff about. Which you seemed to have taken to mean that we would refuse to recycle. And therefore totally missed the point of the thread.

Also your generalisations of it being because the brits somehow want lots and lots of packaging (and I guess therefore more recycling - which I think we've all categorically said we dislike doing) and yet want to just chuck it in the normal rubbish.

Which again we've already said that we don't do.

I don't think us moaning that recycling is often badly organised by local councils and often made very difficult to do (see any posts by members who live in flats) is so disgusting. I think that the systems in place that make it so difficult are disgusting.

YYY, I am exactly the same OP. I do it, because I'm too obedient not to, but I really resent the amount of hot water I pay for, to wash all the tins and bottles out. And I'm really not convinced that they aren't just dumping half of it anyway. The sheer amount of time and effort and space needed to recycle properly now is utterly exhausting. God alone knows how people without much garden/storage space manage. And my kitchen and utility room are full of flies from all the green food waste that's knocking about.

You know it must be MN when you see comments like :- " no dead animals or radiocactive waste "

Made me smile.

Our council expects a moderate amount of sorting, and this year provided a sort of lunch-box type affair to stay in the kitchen for food waste. Mine is still in the hall, and if they ever ask, I will tell them I eat everything I buy (which is 99% true - can think of nothing right now which I have decided not to eat).

I rebel against the idea of wasting water to wash bottles or anything else - if I am going to be charged for it (water meter) then I expect a right to choose.

hate it, hate it, hate it but try to do it, and am really p**d off that current waste bin is mainly full of non recycable food wrap and yogurt pots ( at least round our way) and MAGGOTS See post on good housekeeping

I also cook mainly from scratch, but it's all the blumming food trays and overwrap that gets me eg strawberry punnets, lettuce bags, etc

Did my little protest at Homebase today. I bought 2 wind-up lanterns for camping. They were packed in that rock-hard shaped plastic, so I asked for a scissors and cut it all off (took ages) and left it on the counter. The assistant didn't even ask what I was doing, but I don't suppose they can recycle it anyway.

Now how about THIS...? Had a few doggy old potatoes a few weeks ago that were well past their best with longer legs than Cyd Charisse (one for the oldies there) and I did NOT throw them in the compostable foodwaste green bin thingie wotsit. Instead I planted them in some big tubs and forgot about them. Now I have great big potato plants and presumably a few potatoes in the earth beneath. Ker-ching! Now if recycling brought me a few £££s a bit more often I might be a less grumpy green.

In our house we have:

Non-recyclable bin (cat litter, nappies, dust, yukky stuff etc)
'Soft' plastic recyclable bin (yoghurt pots, plastic bags, cellophane, most packaging)
'Hard' plastic recyclable bin (like shampoo bottles)
Foil (like yoghurt pot lids) bin
Metal (like beer tops and cans) bin
Tetra pack bin
Waste food bin (to which we can add garden waste in the wheelie bin outside)
Paper bin (although that does include glossy paper and card)
Glass and jars box
Batteries container
Lightbulbs container
Wine bottle corks (!!) container

Errr.. I think that's it. Theoretically there would also be a bin for electrical goods, but we haven't had any broken electrical stuff, so I haven't included it.

Oh, and the council collects ONLY the types of rubbish that I have bolded. Everything else we have to take to the dump ourselves. Most of our trash consists of plastics and tetra packs.

Pain. In. The. Arse.