Storing soft plastic recycling

[Telemichus]

We’re really pushed for space, soft plastic doesn’t get collected by the council, so we don’t have a bin for it, and not all the supermarkets have collection points, so would need to store at home until we’re going to the right place.
How do you keep yours? I want it quite contained, so a hanging bag won’t do I don’t think, s it will pop out of the top. I suppose maybe a drawstring bag?
thoughts welcome.

We stuff ours into one of the soft plastic bags that we’re going to recycle, e.g a bread bag. You can fit a surprising amount in and it compresses down well so doesn’t take up much space. Once the bag is rammed full, I tend to pop it in the car and drop it off next time I’m at a shop that offers soft plastic recycling. Many do now - the little Co-ops all have a small pedal bin inside, Tesco and Sainsburys have large cages outside the store and even some Aldis have a bin now too.

We use bread bags too.

I use one of the bags too, keep it in my car boot. We get big ones from our cat litter. I tie knots in the bags to make them small, sit them on the hall table and take them out when I next open the front door.

I did not know soft plastics could be recycled!!

Thanks for this thread - will look up my nearest collection point.

Thanks. I will find somewhere to put a bread bag to stuff. Actually I think I have one of those ikea bag holders somewhere, maybe if I cut that down a bit. When I say we’re short of space, we’re really short of space so things need to be so they won’t get knocked over or impede doors opening. Oo. Maybe it would fit inside the under sink door.

I use one of these bags that are left for charity collections. It hangs on a hook inside a cupboard door.

You can get special long thin drawstring bags designed as carrier bag storage - they do help compress down the carrier bags - so should work for soft plastics too.

I notice that Sainsbury's saying they cannot take soft plastics with labels on, so another recycling job to do, cutting them off.

You've just reminded me that I saw this on facebook the other day and thought it was a good idea!
https://whollyshrink.com/

And yes to cutting off any paper labels, some mail order bags it's not worth it as they are so covered in labels, same with yellow labelled supermarket stuff.

I have sometimes placed the soft plastics in a canvas bag and hung it on the coat rack.. it is so I don't forget to take it to the shops when it is full! 🤣

I frequently hang things on the front door handle so they can go to the car but generally they are ignored until they fall on the floor or I take them.
right so no paper labels. I think those will just go in the bin tbh at the moment things need to be easy.

I like the look of the compactor, 30 quid though. I wonder if a big rock would do 😂

We use one of the bags we are planning to recycle to line a small tall plastic container that stands in the same cupboard as the vacuum cleaner. As you shove the soft plastic down, it compacts itself to be honest and you get a nice fat brick of plastic after a few weeks.

Honestly, it mostly gets burnt for energy recovery, same as black bin waste. So if you have black bin space, there’s no difference between that and hoarding it for the supermarket.

There is no effective and economical way to recycle soft plastics.

I have been using the bags my Harvey Salt Blocks come in. They'd be going anyway, they're a great shape/size & stand by themselves. But my neighbour who takes it to be recycled insists you can recycle things like strawberry punnets which are obviously bulky & don't squish down.

if many of you are using bread bags you can't be recycling these punnets ets, is she wrong? I 'think' she takes it to Tesco.

Then how are many products being sold as 'manufactured from recycled plastic'?

Because there’s many types of plastics and they have varying levels of economic recyclability. Soft plastics are the very lowest on that scale.

The most valuable plastics are hard, clear plastics.

I have a small bin for them. You find that as you stuff them in, the bin sides will hold it in, as opposed to stuffing it in a hanging bag, which doesn’t have the rigidity to do this. You only need a small bathroom sized bin as they compress to a very small size.

My council collects soft plastics, all bagged into one soft plastic bag (like a small bin liners, bread bag or carrier bag or something).

So something like this couldn’t go in because of the label?

I really, really wish we could get clear answers on recycling & whether we’re all just being fooled. It will though help with our black bin as we’ve gone to 3 weeks, which is fine, but every little helps.
I repair the answer is really to try not to buy things with packaging, but have to balance time & cost. The nearest greengrocer is quite far & not near anything else we go to.

Ugh image under review. It’s a very dull pic of the film kid of coleslaw that has a label.

Is it printed onto the label? Those are fine, it's the stuck on paper ones that are the problem.

I just use one of those tall slim bins from IKEA. It's slim enough to sit next to our normal rubbish bin (which barely has anything in it now!). I just drop it off into the big cage at Tesco when I'm passing. I'd not read about the labels being an issue before. I suspect a lot of it is burnt but I'm hopeful some of it does end up being recycled. I wonder if a nappy compactor would help with squishing?

I want the truth as to how much & what I'm recycling is actually used & how much/ what is treated the same as general waste. I have a small kitchen & all the various 'recycling' is a pain in the snares storage/space wise , but I'm willing to do it IF it's recycled, if it's not I'll go back to having just the general waste & cardboard/tins/plastic bottles & glass.

im also taking to recycling pill/tablet packaging which, since my stroke, mounts up... but is that a waste of time too?