Recycling – Do you actually, genuinely care?

Yes, I recycle all I can and try to be as 'green' as possible (without being a hippie). However, I can't help but feel it isn't going to do much as long as we have careless countries such as India and China absolutely ruining the planet.
 
I wouldn't say I get excited about it (I am far away from being a green hippie) but try to recycle some things.

We have a council bin that takes paper, card, aerosols and tins. We also keep glass bottles and jars in a plastic crate by the back door that we empty at the bottle back from time to time and a second crate that we put juice cartons in - our local bottle bank also recycles them.

Mrs Tango likes her gardening, so we compost quite a lot of food waste as well - for some reason the compost bin is full of loads of used tea bags? :D
 
I really don't get the mentality of those that say it's too much effort.

We have 4 bins/containers that are for normal recycling, food waste, general rubbish and garden waste respectively and it takes very little time or effort to put things in the correct container.

Food waste goes in a small bin under the sink that has a biodegradable bag in it and is emptied into a bigger outside container when full.

Normal recycling is put by the front door until someone is going out and they put it in the outside bin as they go out.

Normal rubbish goes in a bin bag in a small bin in the kitchen that needs emptying a couple of times a week.

Garden waste goes straight in the garden bin.

All in all really not a big deal and once you get used to doing it you don't even notice.
 
I care. To the point I was disappointed when taking some stuff (roofing material) to the dump a few weeks ago and forced to dump it in the landfill, rather than the recycling centre, where I believe it should have been. It's eye opening here. with bigger loads you don't just dump it in the big containers, you get sent directly to the landfill to dump it with all the household rubbish collected by the rubbish trucks. Huge spikey wheeled bulldozers and everything.

The only thing we don't properly recycle at the moment is food waste as I haven't set up a compost bin since we moved in. It's on the to do list though.

Over here it's all dumped in one recycling wheely bin and there is a nice card stuck up in the kitchen showing just what can be recycled (pretty much everything).

They also have the deposit system here. So we save our drinks cans, glasses and tetra packs and plastic bottles and take them to a recycling centre where we get cash back for recycling them. I think the UK is missing a trick there, it's pretty common in much of Europe as well and would probably make a difference for those that currently just dump everything in the normal bin.
 
G-MAN2004 said:
Yes, I recycle all I can and try to be as 'green' as possible (without being a hippie). However, I can't help but feel it isn't going to do much as long as we have careless countries such as India and China absolutely ruining the planet.
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Bet you'd be surprised how much they actually recycle (especially in poorer areas). I bet there is a lot less packaging and one use items used in many locations as well.

But yes, there must be huge amount of rubbish pumped out, but every little helps, and we can't preach to them if we aren't doing it ourselves.
 
Amp34 said:
They also have the deposit system here. So we save our drinks cans, glasses and tetra packs and plastic bottles and take them to a recycling centre where we get cash back for recycling them. I think the UK is missing a trick there, it's pretty common in much of Europe as well and would probably make a difference for those that currently just dump everything in the normal bin.
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I'd like this here.
 
Amp34 said:
Bet you'd be surprised how much they actually recycle (especially in poorer areas). I bet there is a lot less packaging and one use items used in many locations as well.

But yes, there must be huge amount of rubbish pumped out, but every little helps, and we can't preach to them if we aren't doing it ourselves.
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When my folks lived in Calgary they used to do that. Ultimately you're just getting the recycling 'tax' back that's added on at the time of purchase but it's certainly some motivation for doing it.
 
Feek said:
I’m of the age group where when I was young, we had one rubbish bin. Everything went in it, everything went in the dustbin and once a week, the dustmen came and emptied it. Over the years, recycling has become a big thing and although I understand it, I really don’t particularly care about it! Mrs. Feek is always banging on and trying to make sure I put the right things in the right boxes so she can sort all the recycling out but I just have no interest in doing it. As a result, I’m not allowed near the weekly/fortnightly rubbish collecting boxes we have and she puts the correct ones out so they can be collected on the appropriate day.

Am I alone in this? Is there anyone else who really doesn’t care about recycling waste? Is this just an age thing where I was dragged up in an era when recycling didn’t exist and I’m a dinosaur.
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If we all had an attitude like you there'd be rubbish everywhere.
 
bayo000 said:
I'd like this here.
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Only negative is you need a reasonable amount of space to store them. There are just two of us in our house and we have a surprisingly large amount.

TheVoice said:
When my folks lived in Calgary they used to do that. Ultimately you're just getting the recycling 'tax' back that's added on at the time of purchase but it's certainly some motivation for doing it.
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Yeah, you don't "make" money doing it, but it would certainly motivate a few more people to recycle stuff that is very easy to recycle. I do wonder how much it costs to administer though, and who pays. I can only assume the city, as the deposit you pay when purchasing is the same as you get back from the independent recycling centre at the end.
 
Glass recycling seems odd to me, why don't they just make standard shaped jars of different sizes and then wash them instead of grinding them up and melting them into new jars? Surely that would be more energy efficient?
 
We only have a green and grey bin. We recycle and I find that doing so, makes more room in the grey bin.

I think recycling is a good thing and we all should be doing it.
 
I have always cared about it, and always been sure to do it as far as possible, though here I have an extra incentive - some government guys follow the garbage trucks around and pick bags at random to tear open, then fine people if they're binning stuff that should be recycled (up to £120 per offence I believe). Sounds like a fun job.

No excuse not to really, it's literally zero effort here - trash goes in one bag, everything recyclable goes in another, we take one bag to the bin and the other to the recycling drop off, then an old lady comes around and sorts our recycling in to card/cans/plastic/batteries/clothes/glass/everything else they recycle, and takes them all back to her little depot place.

Edit/ Found the local government flyer of all the things I can be fined for for throwing in the trash instead of recycling:

Lighting sources, dry/lead batteries, edible oil, paper containers, iron/aluminium containers, CD/DVDs, tablets, portable battery chargers, paper, cardboard, vehicles (not sure how I'd fit those in the bin), clothes, mobile phones, chargers, mercury thermometers, plastics (including styrofoam and bags), glass containers, food waste, electrical appliances (including keyboards, printer cartridges and fans).

Most of that seems reasonable, but I do feel for the recycling lady since the new rules came in, our actual trash now is basically non-existent :p
 
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godinman said:
Glass recycling seems odd to me, why don't they just make standard shaped jars of different sizes and then wash them instead of grinding them up and melting them into new jars? Surely that would be more energy efficient?
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At a guess because companies like Coca Cola like having their own "signature" bottle designs and nobody would be able to agree on a standardised shape. Besides, collecting all of those intact for reuse would be a pain (no more just chucking them into a bin, the rubbish collectors would have to be extremely gentle with them, etc.) and then they'd all have to be inspected for chips and cracks before reuse. Probably easier to just wing them all in a bin and melt down the shards to cast something new. It's meant to be more efficient than making new glass, so even if you're not saving the energy you could it's better than nothing.
 
godinman said:
Glass recycling seems odd to me, why don't they just make standard shaped jars of different sizes and then wash them instead of grinding them up and melting them into new jars? Surely that would be more energy efficient?
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You mean like most developing countries?:p I can only assume there is some kind of health/cost issue. It's a shame though because it seems to work well in other countries. I can only assume they don't think they would get enough returned, whereas in poorer countries the bottles are closely guarded - to the point a cafe/shop won't let you leave with one.
 
Yeah I agree with it. It's a little thing that's easy to do.

I get annoyed with litter. There is no need to be a scutter.

One thing I don't agree with is charging people to get rid of grass... the council leaves their cut grass on the ground.... mess. They'd be better off adding £2 to council tax.
 
I always feel like every bit of plastic is just going to be dumped into a landfill for rest of time unless it's recycled... it might as well be.

It's not hard to recycle - just a little bit of effort to hopefully make a positive difference in the long run.
 
Amp34 said:
You mean like most developing countries?:p I can only assume there is some kind of health/cost issue. It's a shame though because it seems to work well in other countries. I can only assume they don't think they would get enough returned, whereas in poorer countries the bottles are closely guarded - to the point a cafe/shop won't let you leave with one.
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it's an advertising issue.

health isn't an issue you can stick them in an autoclave or irradiate them etc.


but companies want their unique brand recognition bottles.
 
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