Our bin men say that all the stuff we carefully recycle ends up in landfill...

[charliecat]

Do yours say that?

There was a dispatches programme on that comfirmed it was happening in Ireland, they recycled bits n bobs, but tons got sent straight to landfill.
Does anyone know any different? (Husbands/brothers/friends working in the field actually recyling things?)

i dunno, i've never seen them.

we don't have a recycling programme as we live in a tenement and hte council doesn't offer recycling to tenements.

we have a recycling centre nearby, however, and we walk our recyclables there.

I know the majority of stuff in my area is reycled - I used to work for a company running some of the local facilites.

WHY can't I spell today?!? (or yesterday, or the day before that....)

worrying isn't it? How do they get away with it if that is the case? I have thought about trying to follow the truck in my car to see where it goes, honestly!

A side effect of the growth in recycling is that the price you can get for recycled materials is coming down. We are already seeing cases where "recycled" glass is being turned into sand. Glass is one of the best materials to recycle, so it will get worse for almost everything else.

Being arts graduates, councils and government are focusing on campaigning about recycling. They want to "alter perceptions", and really hate the idea of actually doing stuff.
This means that almost not money is spent on research on how to make recycled materials more useful. There is no point whatever sending large polluting extra lorries round to collect paper, plastic etc separately if you can't put the materials back in the cycle.
That may sound cynical. Here's a test.
Look at the next half dozen news pieces you see.
They're about "altering perceptions", aren't they ?
See any in depth pieces on "what to do with this stuff"?

No.

oh come on DC. So if they were science grads they would be doing more about it? I doubt it. Arts grads can still consult/hire people who do have ideas. They just choose not to.

I saw a news article where they found lots of our recycled waste on huge dumps in South America. The councils were sending it there and paying the countries a fee as it was cheaper than disposing of it in the UK. It was all stuff from the green bins - they took samples of rubbish with addresses on (junk mail) and traced it back to the people in the UK.

When I am Prime Minister:
-All packaging will be made from either re-cyclable or biodegradable material.
-Bottles will be re-used rather than re-cycled - all beer and soft drinks distributors will be obliged to choose from one of 4 basic colours / shapes so that the collection and re-use of bottles can be communal and simple.

afaik, some councils are much better than others. Some do it because they have to by law, do it badly and without any sense of motivation. others do it properly and well and the stuff gets re-used.

We have a great collection system, and people seeem enthusiastic, but it is obvious from the bags I see waiting for collection that no-one undertsand waht can and can't be put in the bag. People include waxed juice cartons, plastic bags, crisp packets, all sorts of plastic. But then it isn't simple, and different areas take different things, so re-cyclable packaging / plastics can't be marked in a way that would be understood nationally. What a way to run a railroad!

Someone was taken to Court yesterday (?) for not using her recycling bin properly, and contaminating other waste!

I know a couple of people who work on a landfill site, they have told me this before - a lot does end up in th landfill because so people don't wash their recycled stuff properly and so the arsey workers will insist the whole lot is landfilled rather than recycled!

My dad refuses to recycle as he says we shouldn't be doing the councils jobs for them - what do we pay our council tax for ?

eh?

yes. Eh?

We seem very good at setting up systems to produce products, with the profit incentive obviously the driving factor. Unfortunately with recycling the systems are chaotic, forced and with little money incentive. In fact the money incentive is all arse about face because they are there as penalties (rather than profit incentive), such as the landfill taxes. These taxes have encouraged dumping/cross-border waste trading to avoid the tax costs and therefore involvement of the criminal underworld.

I agree that more research and support needs to go into collection/sorting systems that are efficient and into finding good re-use markets. The products need to be better than just 'OK' (e.g. I can't stand some of the recycled plastic park benches/tables, as they're ugly and badly made!). Otherwise recycling is going to continue to be an activity for urbanites to relieve their consciences and little else.

Message withdrawn

I am forgiving DC for his odd views about artsgrads today because on the thread about rebellious children quite a few people said they would be disappointed if their children became mathematicians.

However, I would still love to hear the full story of DC and the artsgrads and learn exactly what it was they did to him.

rather than recycling we should be lobbying for things like much less packaging in the first place.

Message withdrawn

That recycling thing again;

'What's the UK's biggest export (drum roll) .......... fresh air! Yip, after those goods from China have been off-loaded, the shipping companies scratch their heads looking around for something to fill them with. There's not a lot available but there's not much point in those containers returning to China empty as they're burning the fuel anyway.

Problem number two; what to do with the increasing amount of recycled paper and cardboard piling up in the UK? Aha! Lets fill up those empty containers. What do the Chinese do with it? They pulp it and turn it into packaging ready for all the various goods that make their way back to us again. Hmm, seems like a neat cycle. Or is it?'

For more on the environment see; this website.