Do you recycle ???

[WSM]

A few months ago our local council started a recycling collection scheme in my area. We are given a 2 batches of plastic bags (one purple one clear) for paper & cardboard, and plastic & cans.

I have to admit to never bothering with it before, I always procrastinated and then DH would end up just putting it out for the bin men. In the end I noticed that every other person in our street was using their bags and so I was sufficiently put to shame. I now have 2 extra bins in my garage (which is where the main kitchen bin is anyway) with 'Plastic & cans', and 'Paper & Cardboard' written on the lids, as well as our normal black bin bag type bin. I've really noticed the difference in the number of black bin bags we put out every week, it has halved. Both the black bin bags and the recycling ones are collected on the same day so it causes no more hassle than putting the rubbish out normally does. My DS2 has appointed himself 'recycling monitor' and checks that we are putting the right thing in the right bags

How many other mumsnetters have this in their area ?

we got blue boxes for bottles and cans,it's made me realise the whole neighbourhood are alcoholics,they're boxes are always full!!but anyway,yes i have started recycling as well

We didn't get anything for glass, but I have a row of about 10 wine bottles waiting to go to the bottle bank.

I recycle paper, but I wish I was better at recycling bottles and other things too. Will start from today

Yes, we have a green plastic crate which we can fill with paper, glass and tins. DS (2) is excited beyond belief every collection morning and stands at the window for hours shouting "re-cycling truck taking daddy's bottles!"

Aww bless

We recycle paper, glass, cardboard, tins, plastic but it is only in the last 2 months that our Council has at last implemented doorstop collection.

However, we do not get supplied with ANYTHING to put the recycled rubbish into - so I am constantly on the look-out for cardboard boxes and carrier bags. Rubbish will only be collected in boxes they can take (I collect the stuff in large plastic boxes) or plastic carrier bags.

They will not collect if in normal refuse sacks or anything where you can't see what's in there!

we must be posh round here because we have a recycling bin and a wheelie bin. Our council collects glass, plastic inc plastic milk bottles, cardboard, tin foil and take-away containers, tins, cans, old envelopes, magazines, catalogues, newspaper um cant think of anything else. The only thing is they only collect once a fortnight so you have loads and loads of stuff in bags that wont fit in the bin -oh well

I have also noticed not everyone bothers up here. I think they should make you do it if the service is provided like they do in some European countries but thats just me being bossy

I compost the vegetable peels, recycle paper, glass and cans. And I mean to recycle batteries (or dispose safely) but as I don't know where my box of dead batteries is getting quite full.
Our council recycles paper at the door but as I go to the recycle centre regularely I don't take part in the scheme itself but recycle more anyway !

Glass, tins, paper/ cardboard.....
Compost heap at bottom of garden (gets dug into soil periodically)
Use re-chargable batteries
textiles to clothing bank
Junk to charity shops

Gosh... beginning to feel quite virtuous..

I agree fio2 - if I ran the world we'd be paying for the volume of stuff we send in black bin bags to landfill! Only where the facilities are provided though. We had to battle with the council for about two years to get doorstep collections in place here, even though most of the landfills in the Westcountry are nearly full, so the councils are paying for our waste to be driven elsewhere in the country.

we also recycle all our plastic milk containers. If you look on the bottom of the plastic you'll see a number , they also have these on yoghurt pots and other plastic items,and these can be taken to recycling centres.Trouble is I suppose the emissions from the car during the journey cancel out any virtue of recycling. But you've gotta try, hey?

This house has our first garden ever, and we have been composting for about six months now... anybody know when we can open the little dooor at the bottom to get the compost out?

Really ought to get around to planting some stuff to put all of this compost on to then

yes donnie, sounds like you are doing yours! At least by showing that people do use the recycling centres/doorstep collection schemes we are helping to make the councils view them as more viable; and hopefully they'll put more mini-centres around - none of the smaller cewntres round here take plastic bottles, just the doorstepo collection service and the main centre.

I never knew that about the numbers on the bottom - top tip!

yes donnie, sounds like you are doing yours! At least by showing that people do use the recycling centres/doorstep collection schemes we are helping to make the councils view them as more viable; and hopefully they'll put more mini-centres around - none of the smaller cewntres round here take plastic bottles, just the doorstepo collection service and the main centre.

I never knew that about the numbers on the bottom - top tip!

Sorry, appear to be recycling messages now!

Does anyone have any opinions about water conservation / greywater recycling?

Yes I do okay I suppose. We don't have a doorstep collection of recycled stuff, but I make the effort to separate out plastic bottles, tins and glass from my other domestic waste, rinse it and bag it up ready for a monthly visit to a recyling point. Its quite a pain to do, but I think its indefensible not to really. Leaving 5 miles from a landfill site (which I pass on my way into Salisbury every so often) concentrates the mind somewhat.

Still I feel quite guilty about the following..... To my shame I use disposable nappies because frankly cotton nappies (and I did try them) were too much for busy working mum to handle. Why oh why can't manufacturers develop a biodegradable disposable nappy - after all we have nuclear fission!!!

I am the same with the disposables.

Re water recycling. In theory it sounds like a great idea. I assume we are taking about the purifying tank you can get which take your waste water, clean it and pump it back into your house ? I think once I'd had my first glass of the recycled water then I'd be ok, but I feel it'd be a real battle to get me and my glass to the tap

we recycle...
paper
aluminium
all food waste - to compost
glass

we also use re usables nappies 80% of the time...

so i feel very smug in the fact that one black bin bag goes out at the end of the week!!

although i do get fed up now and again and have been known to chuck the odd tin and piece of paper (gasp!! horror!!) into the bin!

You can do it a bit more simply than that WSM! Not sure even I would get to the tap, although you know what they say about most of the water in this country... been through the human body how many times?

No, I was talking about everything from having a hippo bag or similar in your toilet cistern to a water butt in the garden, or the grey-water recycling systems which take 'clean' used water from your bath and then use it to flush the loo ... not aware your meant to drink it

Doorstep collections don't extend to us folks who live in the countryside, but I've recycled glass and tins for years and now, joy of joys, the recycling centre at Sainsbury's has added paper/card, plastic, clothing, book and CD/DVD recycling units! I'll be restarting my wormery, come spring, so I can have compost again.

Our council collects paper once a fortnight - but not cardboard, brown envelopes etc. They have also just started a garden waste scheme with green sacks but only to houses with big gardens, so when we did some major pruning to our little patch the other week we had to put it out in black sacks and got a card ticking us off for not using the green sacks we weren't given!

We recycle glass, cardboard, aluminium and plastic - wish we had a garage to keep it all in though, the kitchen & front porch get very crowded - DH does a recycling run, in the car of course , whenever we can't open the front door for the piles behind it. We also have a compost bin.

There are 6 of us and we have one small dustbin plus occasionally an extra carrier bag or 2 - most of the houses in our row have 1 or 2 people and they have loads more rubbish so I think we do OK!

Oh, and "jumble" all goes to Oxfam. Holey stuff goes in a bag labelled "rags" because they have someone who collects it from them and turns it into dusters etc.

Also I have 2 big shopping bags from Lakeland, plus one of the 75p sturdy ones from Sainsburys, plus a string bag, so I don't get too many plastic carriers either. (Have to get a few though for the excess rubbish and the rags!)

we have greenwheelie bin for tins, platics, paper, cardboard, clothes , shoes (tied up in carrier bag to keep them clean) NO glass. ALl uncooked veggie waste on compost heap. Old clothes go to charity shop (apparnetly they send crates loads of things that aren't good enough to sell here out to Africa) and really grotty stuff goes to be recyled into j cloths(or whatever).

WE collect up all our glass jars/bottles and any newspapers and take them to the recycling bins over the road in our local supermarkets car park. There is also a recycling bin for books and video's I think and there is a clothes bank as well.

Our council doesn't run a door to door service for the street that we live in but they do run one for a housing scheme further along the road from us. And the stupid thing is that they probably pass our street on the way to those houses to pick up their recycling, So they could easily pop into our street and do ours as well but they don't. Another street near my dd's school has a wheelie bin with a blue lid for recycling. And a village 7 miles out of town where my friend lives also has this service, but I don't and I live in town.

The big main recycling area in our city I'd need a car to get to and since we don't drive we can only recycle what we can carry to the nearest recycling point which is the glass and papers, clothes.
I wish we could recycle the cardboard,plastic and aluminium as well but at the moment we can't. shame really, if they offered the facilities I would use them so that I could do my bit for the environment.