Council will only recycle water bottles?!?

[MadamePlatypus]

My recycling box wasn't collected today because apparently the council will only recycle plastic milk or water bottles - whatever the brand, not any other kind of plastic.

I don't buy bottled water and I have a milk man so don't need them to recycle these things, but apparently they can't recycle an Ecover laundry bottle, even if I take it to the tip and put it in the plastic bottles skip. And if an Ecover laundry bottle is in the box they can't collect my papers or cans either.

I can kind of see where they are coming from - I suppose it is difficult to sort plastic and they just assume that milk and water bottles are the most used kind of plastic and generally made out of the same material. However, its a bit annoying. Hmph!

it is very annoying especially with not only this (though our council do take them) but things like yoghut pots that have a recycling logo on them.

i am fairly sceptical about plastic recycling - I only recycle things that have the symbol on them, but even then it adds up. Our council doens't collect plastic in boxes but I can take it to the local tip

Apparently, even a bottle with a sign saying 'please recycle' will be rejected. I think the problem is that its not like paper where you can more or less chuck it in together - you have to recycle different kinds of plastic separately. The impression I got from the guy I spoke to at the council was that it is too labour intensive to check all the bottles so if they can't identify it very quickly (e.g. it contained water) it goes to landfill, even though it could have been theoretically recycled.

Oh well, I suppose reduce and reuse are always an option.

I get juice now from the milkman as it's in glass bottles - tetrapacs can be recycled, but think you have to send them away to Scotland? so I've stopped that. I do think about packaging a lot more now when I buy my food, so much of it is just unnecessary

does that mean you cant recysle bottles of coke / lemonade either?

thats madness IMO

I can only take type 1 and 2 plastics to my local point. Living in the sticks i only have a grey bin collection at present.

Our council sent every household a leaflet saying which plastics they collect in the boxes, which are those marked 1' and 2' (codes are listed here). This includes lots of things other than milk and water bottles, including some supermarket fruit punnets, some ready meal plastic trays and some bottles for toiletries and household cleaning products. Every council seems to have a different policy, but you could always ask them which type of plastics they are collecting and then ask if you can put other examples of those in.

In theory, other types can be recycled and you can take them to plastic recycling places, but I don't know where you'd find one.

I'm very confused about this plastics recycling. In the box provided to me I can recycle plastic milk bottles, water bottles, washing liquid bottles, bleach bottles - in fact any bottle without the lid on. Why not the lid? No plastic trays, but can put tin foil in there and foil takeaway cartons.