What're your recycling habits?

we have a recycling bin and a few normal bins in the bin store...

I rinse cans and bottles, try to remove labels and also chuck in paper/cardboard packaging

plastic I'm a bit skeptical about, throw it in the regular trash along with food waste etc.. which the recycling bin doesn't cater for
 
Malevolence said:
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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Yes, it doesn't take long and I don't like the idea of it festering in the bin. It takes me a while to completely fill the box or bin, so I don't want it smelling in the meantime.

Rgds
 
Captain Planet said:
I don't recycle, I just have no children. My carbon footprint is tiny compared to anyone who has them :p
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Another person who conflates recycling with CO2 emissions/climate change :rolleyes:

Recycling has very little to do with climate change, in fact some products create more CO2 to recycle than creating it from scratch. It's about preserving resources.

Let's say I have 100 toothbrushes. If I use a new one everyday, I will no longer have a toothbrush in 3 months' time.

If I use one, clean it after use, use it again the next day and so on until the bristles start to wear and only then use a new one, I'll have a toothbrush all my life.

In short, recycling is just basic common sense. A tree takes years to grow and yet the paper it produces lasts a fraction of that time. So clearly if we can't grow trees as fast as we use them eventually we'll run out, unless we re-use the material they produce a few times before we cut another one down.
 
estebanrey said:
Recycling has very little to do with climate change, in fact some products create more CO2 to recycle than creating it from scratch. It's about preserving resources.
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dunno about that in all cases - we recycle glass for example and sand isn't exactly a scarce resource...

In short, recycling is just basic common sense. A tree takes years to grow and yet the paper it produces lasts a fraction of that time. So clearly if we can't grow trees as fast as we use them eventually we'll run out, unless we re-use the material they produce a few times before we cut another one down.
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just to play devils advocate - tis perfectly possible to grow trees as fast or indeed faster than we require them, just plant new ones at a greater rate than the existing ones you've cut down... IIRC the US currently does plant a greater acreage than it cuts down each year
 
dowie said:
dunno about that in all cases - we recycle glass for example and sand isn't exactly a scarce resource...
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Hence why I never said "in all cases". Glass is one of the items that causes less pollution to recycle than it does to create from new.

Besides, whilst sand isn't a scarce resource (oil, wasn't either at one point) landfill space is. We can't just keep burying everything forever, especially with a growing population that needs more land for humans to live on leaving less to dump other people's used resources in.

dowie said:
just to play devils advocate - tis perfectly possible to grow trees as fast or indeed faster than we require them, just plant new ones at a greater rate than the existing ones you've cut down... IIRC the US currently does plant a greater acreage than it cuts down each year
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Do you know how they do that? The US recycles 70% of paper which meets the shortfall in need which would otherwise exist if every piece was produced from scratch.

Planting trees faster than you cut them down does not prevent this problem because you seem to be forgetting that trees need a long time to grow before they are able to be turned into paper. If trees went from seed to full tree overnight you'd have a point, but they don't.

It takes 10-20 years to grow a tree ready to harvest for paper. Since trees are different sizes, it would be difficult to say how much paper comes from one tree but according to one paper manufacturer, however, a cord of wood measuring 4 feet by 4 feet by 8 feet—or 128 cubic feet—produces nearly 90,000 sheets of bond-quality paper or 2,700 copies of a 35-page newspaper [source].

So it takes roughly 15 years to 'grow' enough paper to fulfil a small village of newspaper buyers for one day. That is clearly not sustainable no matter how fast you plant new trees unless you re-use the stuff you've already got in the meantime.
 
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Why does a 15 year lag matter? You don't chop down your entire forestry resources in one year to meet demand, you chop down a small portion of them.. and if you're planting more than you chop down then of course it is sustainable.
 
My council here in Edinburgh thought what a great idea to issue very large red and blue plastic boxes to put various types of recyclable materials in for collection on alternate weeks. I have like many people a small flat and there is absolutely no space to store these monstrosities which one day a week are left outside in the elements attracting the attention of any passing dog so they are kept in the communal stair with the result very few of the 6 flats use them much.

I do tend to dump paper in one box as does one other neighbour. I also use another box for plastic as I have a 120 Fortisip bottles each month to recycle. But recycling plastic is fraught with problems as it seems that many types of plastic like food trays are not acceptable and are left in the box by the collectors.
We then have the issue of cleaning these bloody things as they are to big for the sink so have to go into the shower and cleaned there.
We have now been issued with small food waste boxes and with all the complaints about the space needed to keep the first two boxes why the council decided to ask us to find room for yet another box. No one uses this box and as far as I can see no one uses this box in the whole street. Even the large blue and red bixes are for the most part conspicuous by there absence on collection day.
Another example of poor decision making by our local leadership which here in Edinburgh is pretty usual, one only has to look at the tram fiasco here.
 
estebanrey said:
Another person who conflates recycling with CO2 emissions/climate change :rolleyes:

Recycling has very little to do with climate change, in fact some products create more CO2 to recycle than creating it from scratch. It's about preserving resources.

Let's say I have 100 toothbrushes. If I use a new one everyday, I will no longer have a toothbrush in 3 months' time.

If I use one, clean it after use, use it again the next day and so on until the bristles start to wear and only then use a new one, I'll have a toothbrush all my life.

In short, recycling is just basic common sense. A tree takes years to grow and yet the paper it produces lasts a fraction of that time. So clearly if we can't grow trees as fast as we use them eventually we'll run out, unless we re-use the material they produce a few times before we cut another one down.
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It's a big post to get your knickers in such a twist :)

So long as you feel good about yourself, I'm happy also.
 
It is very easy here Blue bin for all plastics paper cans and glass orange bin for food waste black for all rest and green bin for garden waste just need to rinse clean any recyclable items job done
 
Captain Planet said:
It's a big post to get your knickers in such a twist :)

So long as you feel good about yourself, I'm happy also.
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Your username seems rather ironic given your attitude to recycling.

Can you not see how recycling is common sense? Unless you throw everything you own out everyday and replace it with brand new stuff, then at some level you 'recycle'.

You wash your clothes and wear them again, I presume? Why? Just dig a big hole in your garden and throw all your clothes in there everyday after taking them off.

I'll presume though the financial impact and annoyance of having a smelly hole of trash in your backyard makes you wash your clothes and use them several times until you've finished with them and then expect someone else to take them away and bury them a long way away from you.

In short, not recycling is a sign of selfishness. It tells people you are happy to re-use items so long as you personally and immediately benefit from doing so but as soon as that isn't the case, you dump it in landfill so no one can use it again and it becomes someone else's problem.
 
I have 3 bins, General waste, Recycling and Garden Waste (Garden waste I have to pay a seperate £25 a year to have collected :-/ )

I do recycle as much as possible - though damn Tesco with their cheap plastic unrecyclable packaging! :mad:

I don't wash out tins or peel the labels off etc...

Glass isn't eligible in my recycling so I take that down to the bottle banks myself.

Plastic bags also are not acceptable, I guess because they are generally now bio-degradable?
 
We are fairly religious about it - all card, paper, plastic (where acceptable) etc goes in the recycling bin. Glass bottles are not collected so we store them up and take them to the bottle-bank periodically.

Biggest faff is probably tearing the name/address labels etc off junk mail prior to recycling, probably a futile measure in any case.
 
2 wheelie bins here, General Waste and Recycle. Recycle bin takes all paper, card, plastic bottles, cans, aerosols, etc. No glass though. Bottle banks are all over the place in every car park so plenty places to take glass to.

I wouldn't even move to a council area that expect you to have a dozen different boxes to sort your recycling into. What a faf.
 
Our bins are collected by Huntingdonshire District Council and they provide us with three:
Blue - Recycling, pretty much everything apart from polystyrene and batteries
Green - Organic and garden waste, again pretty much everything including kitchen waste, cooked food, raw food, shredded paper etc
Black - Everything else

We separate everything, wash containers out but leave labels on.

There are several smaller recycling points in the town I live in (paper, glass, cans, batteries, electrical etc) and two larger ones within 10-15 minutes drive for larger items.

They gave us a handy leaflet/PDF for what is allowed -> http://www.huntingdonshire.gov.uk/S...nts/Operations/Refuse-and-Recycling-Guide.pdf

It amazes me how different things are just between local councils
 
Malevolence said:
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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I agree 100%.

Washing rubbish? Lol. Absolutely no need to wash it....some people have too much time on their hands.
 
We have 4x wheelie bins and a crate.

Green bin = non recyclable waste
Brown bin = garden and food waste
Purple bin = plastics and tins
Blue bin = paper and cardboard
Orange crate = glass

All tins and plastic containers are washed out before going in the bin as are glass bottles before going in the crate. We only have a fortnightly collection and the council decided to put their recycling centre next to a housing estate so it get's smelly, especially in the summer. Before anybody lol's, it's called thinking about others!! Cardboard boxes has to have all tape removed before going in the bin. We also have a recylcing point in Elgin where you can take white goods, electricals, basically anything including rubble to be recycled.
 
My council does not recycle glass and as i don't have a car i end up throwing glass away in the bin and that annoys me. I have two bins, one for recycling and one for rubbish. I recycle plastic, cardboard and cans. Also have a green bin for garden waste but i don't use it as we have a company that cuts the communal gardens. As its a complex or as you call it here an estate of houses, we have two skips.
 
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Black bin Green lid - Rubbish
Green bin - recycling
Brown bin - Garden Waste
Glass bin - Glass

All plastics,Cardboard, metals get recycled if they can be.

Cans and bottles are washed before hand. All waste food that can be put onto a compost heap is set aside in a container and dumped in our garden compost heap. Our recycling bin tends to be about 50% full each week where as the trash bin has 1 bin bag a week in we are lucky in it and we have a glass bin container thing that we put out perhaps once a month or once every few months.
 
terrible

I came from Cardiff where I bung it in a bag and they sort it.

To Newcastle where they want it all sorted (7 different types all separate) and it takes up too much space for a collection every 2 weeks. So I don't recycle anywhere near as much as I should.
 
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