Our Council's advice is to put plastic bags in landfill. Duh?

[PeachesMcLean]

Our local council has just introduced a composting scheme (good). However in the general leaflet it has distributed about rubbish and recyling, it still advises to put plastic bags in with the landfill waste. I know our supermarkets have recycling facilities for these, which I use, but does anyone else think this is a completely stupid thing for the Council to put on its leaflets? Or is it sadly very normal? What do other local authorities for plastic bags?

Theres recycling for plastic bottles but not bags here. Our council hangs plastic things off of all the wheelie bins if youve put out the wrong bin, or if theres going to be a change in collection, and they dont say RECYCLE me or anything else on them...another 60,000 items for landfill then??!!Argh

It's really different from county to county, even town to town.

Our council take our plastic bags, along with other recycling in orange plastics bags. However, at my Dads house, they have the recycle bins (the green wheelie bins) but they don't take plastic bags.

This year, we're being encouraged to recycle all Xmas packaging, including the wrapping paper.

On the other hand, DH's work collegue says that if they find wrapping paper in their recycling, they put a label on it saying "contaminated!"

I would contact the council and tell them, maybe as it's your local supermarket who operate the recycling they don't know about it? But yes very foolish to say put it in landfill, there's enough going there as it is.

It's also our local sainsburys and tesco that recycle plastic bags here, they have a big collection bin just outside the front door.

I don't understand why all plastic bags aren't made biodegradable. I think somerfields and the coops are and I buy biodegradable bin bags from kleeneze so there is such a thing, just don't understand why others aren't following suit, although Tescos are giving green points for using your own, which I do but the plastic bags are not really upto the job of multi-use.

ouR Tesco bags have printed on them:

Please reuse or reycle me

100% degradable

story here re Tesco bags

is that a new thing iota? it's a good thing and hopefully sainsburys etc will follow suit

see the link Furball - it is recent - since September

soory crossed post

Also I don't get why more bin bags aren't though as afterall they are actually only destined for the tip

Thanks everyone. At least it's not just here that's a bit rubbish (if you'll pardon the pun...) The council do know about the supermarkets - it just strikes me as odd that they don't mention it in their leaflets and some people would then think it's just fine to put bags in the landfill. The containers at the supermarkets are always full with piles of carrier bags at the side, so some people must be getting the message.

My local Sainsbury's has had a plastic bag recycling scheme for ages and has just started using biodegradable plastic bags too.

I think council policies vary because it depends what the waste company they contract does. My old council used to collect everything in one bag, which was fab, but here you have to separate everything and stuff is collected on alternate weeks. Gets so confusing I've no idea what to put out when.

You would be amazed at what gets landfilled!!! Even things you think are being recycled sometimes end up there! I used to work for a Wildlife Trust on a SITA landfill site, as Education Officer...showing local schools around the site and encouraging them to recycle and reuse.
Its very difficult and expensive to recycle (compared to putting waste to landfill) and other alternatives (such as incineration) are actually uneconomical.
Things are getting better though...modern landfill sites are being very careful about what they accept, and how they actually deal with the waste. They even produce energy from the landfill gases which goes toward the local energy grids. Old landfill sites are being landscaped and turned back into wildlife havens.
Still need to do far more recycling though and sort out money for doing so.