What're your recycling habits?

Kermit said:
The problem I have with recycling is we (the UK) are just a small drop in the ocean so while its right we try do our bit, it doesn't make much difference if the US, China and other much larger nations don't do their bit.
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Ahh the Sean Lock defence ;) but I think you may be confusing recycling with CO2 emissions. China's rate (around 30%) isn't that great but the US do recycle well...

65 – percentage of total waste that is recycled in the United States

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recycling_in_the_United_States
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That's much better than ours (44% in England 2014).
 
I work in the industry too, long term planning does happen, but trends change and when you have spent years planning, building and investing in a facility you cant just pull the plug, we are waiting for a new super all singing all dancing plant to come online, put into concept 10 years ago, using stats, predictions and trends, it will take black bag waste, sort it and pull out food, and other items. The issue is the waste has changed as it has over the whole country, we throw away less food and that was coming out to make fuel, because of that the whole thing is out of sync and in its current form wont work and its going to cost millions to put right.

As for normal recycling the death of the free local newspapers is having a large impact, by far the biggest item was paper, but people use tablets now and the weight has gone right down so with that the value. To me each household is worth £11 a year for recycling or 0.42p per collection.
 
I live in an apartment. We dump cans, bottles, cardboard, plastic containers downstairs in our storage room. Every few months or so (when it starts getting full), some guy comes to our storage room, collects it all, and pays us money for it! I have no idea what happens to it after that.
 
Here we have two bins. One green for general refuse, one blue for recycling (paper/cardboard/tins/plastic bottles - no other plastics). I rinse everything out properly so as not to have a stinky recylcing bin, don't remove labels as they don't request this is done. We have crates in a communal area in the flats where we put glass and then take turns taking it to one of the supermarkets to recycle it there.

In Germany about 15 years ago:
3 x Green crates - for glass (one each for clear/green/other)
1 Grey sack - for aluminium/recyclable pastics (any plastics as long as they were labelled - all plastics were clearly labelled)
1 Yellow sack - Waxed paper/Paper & foil/cartons
1 Green bin - Paper/Cardboard
1 Brown bin - Organic waste (vegetable peelings/garden waste/compostable material) - not cooked foods
1 Black bin - Everything else

I'd be happier if companies were given tax breaks if the products they produced met some kind of packaging standard (less packaging and you get tax deductions). That way you are sorting the problem at source rather then expecting me to sort the issue when I didn't even want the excessive packaging inthe first place.

Edit: Oh and they had guys who checked your bins out there too. Repeat offend by not sticking to the rules and you got fined.
 
I do:
Glass
Paper
General

There are other bins, but I only have so much space in my flat to store everything before taking it outside.
 
3 bins here:

Black - general waste.
Brown - Tins, plastic wrappings, paper, cardboard etc.
Green - Food waste and garden waste (I think).

We never use the Green bin since we don't have food waste generally speaking and we have no garden. We are supposed to have a Green Box too for glass jars but we are lucky if we use one a week so we just dump that in the main bin.

Stoner81.
 
Bobcat said:
We do the usual green/pink bags with the odd week when your allowed a black bag, but we always try to stick to no black bag unless necessary.

The one part I hate, the food recycling, I don't understand it and hate just the thought of rotting smelling food tucked away under the sink, so try to keep it all outside, but its still meh....what's the alternative though (genuinely interested), waste disposal hooked into the sink to grind up to go into the drains, as that can't be good for the environment?
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Get a worm farm....
http://www.wormcity.co.uk/wormfaq.htm
 
I undo the work bins when people have been lazy and not recycle.

I also tidy my mini train home from work and recycle the rubbish on it and around the station because it's somewhere I go every day...
 
The council gives me a wheely bin for cardboard and plastics. I rinse out the plastic milk bottles before I put them in there. I also take the caps off like you're supposed to.

I have a plastic box for metal and glass. I rinse out baked bean cans, clean foil dishes, e.g. quiche foil dishes, I rinse out bear bottles, rinse out glass jars of Italian pasta sauce.

I have a green wheely bin for garden waste. I just stick the grass cuttings and weeds in there.

I hope that helps.
 
Try and recycle as much as I can, what I wont do though is clean bottles / tins / cans. We have bags for plastic/glass/paper ect, then another for food, though the garden usually gets it. Everything else goes in the main bin, but that only gets put out every few months.

When you Eliminate things that can be recycled and food waste, there's bugger all left!
 
radderfire said:
The council gives me a wheely bin for cardboard and plastics. I rinse out the plastic milk bottles before I put them in there. I also take the caps off like you're supposed to.

I have a plastic box for metal and glass. I rinse out baked bean cans, clean foil dishes, e.g. quiche foil dishes, I rinse out bear bottles, rinse out glass jars of Italian pasta sauce.

I have a green wheely bin for garden waste. I just stick the grass cuttings and weeds in there.

I hope that helps.
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You seriously wash/rinse your rubbish before chucking it in the bin? What in the name of all that is holy is this country coming to?
 
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