Recycling yogurt pots etc.............

[girlandboy]

does anyone's local council recycle the plastic that yogurt pots/margarine tubs are made from?

We eat approximately 28 yogurts a month and consequently throw 28 pots in the black bin which goes to landfill. We perhaps use 2 margarine/spread tubs a month and about 4 ice-cream tubs as well. There are only so many of these that I can re-use for storing food in for the freezer.

I have started making my own yogurt to cut down on the yogurt pot situation, and I suppose I could buy an ice-cream maker as well, but I'm damned if I'm making my own butter just to cut down on packaging thats not recyclable.

My council doesn't recycle any of these items and I was just wondering if any of you ladies have a council that does.

well mine says it doesnt do yoghurt pots but i always put them in mine and they have never complained i think its just the papery ones that they cant recycle.

butter cartons they do recycle.

Our council looks through the bags (they are transparent) and if they see something in there that doesn't conform then they won't take the bag. All the above items count as "non-recyclable".

Yeo valley's organic are recyclable, i'm fairly sure in the plastic. i got an email from them about which ones were/weren't.

Hmmm...interesting. Thanks

The other problem with putting plastic in the green bag is that they won't take anything that isn't "bottle shaped"!!!!!!! I can feel a visit to the council coming over me

tesco's have recycling centres that take plastics.

got that wrong! just looked on yeo valley web site! am wondering now as i am sure there were yoghurt pots that were recyclable!

am on a mission to find that yoghurt!

My local council has been top in the country for the last two years for recycling. We can put just about everything in including cling film, all types of plastic, paper, card, glass, clothes, fabric, shoes.... and so on. We also have a separate bin for garden waste. It used to be compost (ie veg peelings, cores etc) aswell but they have stopped that this year.

We have 3 full sized wheelie bins for all this though which isn't great if you have a small garden!

I feel very lucky cause I think if it wasn't so easy here I would be a bit lazy about recycling!

Pinkspottywellies - now if your council can do it, then I wonder why the others can't. Obviously yours have found a recycling plant to take this type of plastic. This is all ammo for my letter to the council.

They probably ship it all to China at great fossil fuel/environmental expense or make out they recycle it and shove it in landfill!!!!

Ask schools/nurseries etc if they could use them. We use them for glue and paint. Also for putting resources in on tables eg counters, money

If you want to find out any more info for your letter thier website is here.

Oh we can put juice cartons in too I think - you know the tetrapack stuff

Oh, here's the list of things we can recycle.

Thanks for that PSWellies. We can recycle tetrapaks as well, though the council don't collect at the kerb. I take them to a recycling point at my local Somerfield.

Ours take the same as yours, though ours will take catalogues and phone books. Ours won't take plastic bags/cling film unlike yours.

I can now question my council and compare them to yours! Ha!

My council (Lambeth) are part of Western Riverside, and they use laser-guided air jets to sort the plastic bottles from the paper/card etc.

So I figure if it's clean plastic of type 1,2 or 6, and roughly the same size as a squashed bottle, eg a fruit punnet, it goes in, otherwise best not. A bunch of four clean yoghurt pots stacked together might work though...

Some butter comes just wrapped in paper.

pinkspottywellies - when I worked in waste policy delivery, we did a lot to show off Kesteven and get other councils to copy them, and trust me, it's all sorted in the UK and mainly recycled here too. Only contaminants would end up in landfill, and recyclate only gets exported if there's no market here (so some will always get exported, as you need to create the supply to meet the demand).

laser guided air jets?

ilovemydog: Yes:

www.westernriverside.org.uk/materials_recovery.php

Not sure whether they use software to home in on plastic-looking stuff, or if it needs a person to operate - probably a mixture.
Some separation facilities use lasers and grabbers to automatically separate black rubbish bags from orange recycling bags. Worked a treat, except the public were convinced that if their recycling and rubbish were picked up in the same truck, the recycling couldn't really be being recycled...

Have to admit I don't really understand why so many people are convinced stuff doesn't really get recycled - it all gets weighed going into the landfill so the operator can get paid per tonne and landfill tax paid. And yes, some recyclate like pelleted green glass is shipped overseas - but generally people consider manufacturing stuff in Britain and exporting it is a good thing! I know there's been a few cockups (mainly due to NIMBYs delaying planning permission for recycling plants that the recycling was collected for, but that's a whole nother long rant), but people seem to write off the entire waste industry in a way they don't for other services.

Hm...think I might go back to work in waste after my mat leave! Should be exciting as councils desperately try to meet the 2010 landfill limits!

you can get some yoghurts in glass pots.

But they are heavier therefore use more carbon to transport.

Cannot win

I'll maybe just stick to making my own yoghurt and putting it in individual pots in the fridge.
It just annoys me that my council won't recycle yoghurt pots/flora tubs/ice-cream etc

We have a box for plastics, yoghurt posts, margarine tubs, bubble wrap etc. Separate one to the glass one.

ours only takes paper, glass and tins. they won't take any plastic or any cardboard including cereal boxes and greetings cards. waste of space!

HappyMummy - who is your council? This is all ammo for my letter to my council, ie. if their council can do it, why can't you??

They gave us a fridge magnet poster type thing of all the items they will recycle and the tubs to use. Council is Cheshire.

In our mixed plastics red box we can put -

bottles (no lids or caps)
yoghurt pots
margarine/ice cream tubs
shopping carrier bags
plastic film/wrapping/bubble wrap

blue box

steel food/drink cans
Aluminiun food/drink cans
biscuit tins
aerosols
bottles and jars

green sack

newspapers/mags
catalogues
brouchures/junk mail
tele direcs and yellow pages
envelopes/office paper/wrapping paper
books and manuals
corrugated packaging
pizza boxes
tissue boxes
ceareal boxes
greetings cards
juice cartons and tetra packs
kitchen and toilet roll tubes

Brown bin

grass cuttings and weeds
plants and leaves
hedge cuttings
cut flowers

Extras
mobile phones/toner/ink/spectacles.

Hope that helps with your letter.

Our council takes yoghurt pots, butter & ice cream tubs etc- we have a blue wheely bin for reyclables- such as plastic milk and pop bottles, tins, glasses. There is a caddy in side the wheely bin for newpapers, junk mail etc aswell. (We put all the cardboard in the brown wheely- gatden waste- but I think this is goingt to stop soon. Why is everyone different?

am [enviy] of you lot with various different coloured boxes. we just have 1 black box and then have to use carriers if it won't fit in the box.

We have three wheely bins
green- house hold non recyclable rubbish
brown - garden rubbish & cardboard & shredded paper
blue (with caddy fitted into the inside) all plastic pots etc, glass, tins etc. Newspapers and junk mail goes into the caddy.
We recycle a lot more than my sister or mum because it is just as easy putting it in the blue bin rather than the green.
i am a new convert to recycling- used to have a weekly green bin collection and it was full , but now have a fortnightly collection and my green bin is only ever half full.
We are in Stafford BTW.
Recycling in our area has gone up by around 150% since they introduced the blue recyclables- i don't know why this isn't offered UK wide