recycling.....

Tips on saving the planet.

1) Don't flush the toilet in the middle of the night
(unless you have to) no cost and saves you money.
Please don't scream "Ugh"
2)When you visit the fish and chip shop,demand every thing is wrapped in paper(news papers are not used any more)
preventing polystyrene and those card board box's entering OUR environment.
The card board containers should not be recycled as they could/have food contamination.
3) Contact milk and more to have your milk delivered in glass bottles,IF you can afford it.
When you put those plastic milk containers in the recycling box only ONE in ten are recycled,the rest go to land fill
4)Use your bus more often if you have one and are able to move around without to many mobility issues.

Synonymous

DH recalls how as young boys he and his best friend had a regular round collecting empties and returning them to shops for the deposit. As a financial venture they did quite well at it and were not even aware what recycling meant!

Currently we are horrified at the amount of plastic packaging we have to throw away each week as there is no recycling collections in our area. We also experience great difficulty getting at the item we have purchased becàuse of arthritis!

That reminds me of my brother and a friend (aged maybe about 13 at the time).
They used to take glass pop bottles to the supermarket for the deposit too.

The staff then put the bottles outside at the back ready to be taken away. It took several weeks for them to twig that the lads were going round the back too and had been 'returning' the same bottles time and time again.

Fortunately, their later enterprises were both more honest and more profitable.

This thread is 6 years old.. It would be better to start a new thread.

Let's maybe try to buy less. Yes - pay more - glass bottled water and drinks - veg and fruit etc from the winderful Riverford company - Eventually we won't have a choice.

Message deleted by Gransnet. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

Back to plastic bottles. This water-bottle refill scheme now has over 1600 points acr4oss the country.

Elegran these are cotton and there are others, too. www.amazon.co.uk/Reusable-mesh-produce-bags-drawstring/dp/B01M5BFFTM/ref=sr_1_12?s=kitchen&keywords=produce+bags&tag=gransnetforum-21&ie=UTF8&qid=1519247998&sr=1-12

I don't worry too much that the bags I use are polyester. I've had them for well over ten years and so that's a good multiple use rate. Cotton bags may have worn thin in that time plus they're heavier so you'll have paid more for your goods.

I think it's the single use plastic that is truly concerning, really. I've got plastic items in my house that I've had for over 40 years and that still have years of wear in them such as spatulas, Tupperware boxes (better than plastic bags!), a general purpose bowl for small cleaning jobs and so on. By the time I'm done with them, they might end up as collectors items!

I wrote to my council asking when the food waste buckets which were supposedly being 'rolled out' across our district, would reach us. The reply was that there wouldn't be any more due to government cutbacks. I rather think it's an excuse.

I’ve been thinking long and hard about what I can do here. So I’ve made a plan
1.Write to my MP. Not hopeful there though. She writes a great fob off letter.
2.Write to the big supermarkets and ask them what their policy is on recycling, do they specify that products are delivered in recyclable materials-the meat tray for example, what their plans are for improving the situation, what about the shop floor and the amount of plastic waste there.
3.Write to my local council and try and find out what guidelines and legislation they work under and how much flexibility they have in interpreting the rules
4.When writing to the council, I will ask how much of the recycled waste is rejected and why. And how much the rejected waste costs to dispose of. Also, apart from issuing constantly updated lists of does and don’ts of recycling, what steps are they taking to reduce rejection of waste
I’m sure I will think of more steps as the day goes on but I must get off the laptop and get on with something useful

that is exactly the point elegran. when companies produce an item that they know cant be recycled-the black plastic tray, why should we, the consumer have to deal with it. we are at the bottom of the chain here, washing, sorting, organising, worrying about each piece of plastic that ends up in our shopping. i said before i think that the ones that really drive me insane are the bottles where the bottom can be recycled but the top cant be. this is madness. the choice is throw the whole lot into the general rubbish or risk injury as you attempt to prize off the lid. this sort of poor design and manufacture stuff needs stopping at the source, not be left to each one of us, in our kitchens

Apparently the only thing that stops black plastic trays being recycled is that being black makes them invisible to the scanner eye on the sorting machines. So why do food firms use black plastic anyway? Do they use recycled plastic in mixed colours and dye it black because it comes out a weird blotchy colour? Or is it because it doesn't show the dirt?

While each council makes make its own arrangements with the firms who re-use the recycled stuff, there will always be differences in what they decide is worth the expense of collecting and selling on. There needs to be co-operation over larger geographic areas to get the best prices and services.

Reading all these responses it is clear that we all feel strongly about recycling and our environment. Some of us go to tremendous trouble to make sure we recycle responsibly.
I would still like to see some consistency across the country for councils to collect and recycle the same things, including plastics. I would also like to see the makers of packaging taking more responsibility for producing plastic that can be recycled easily. I would like to see supermarkets making huge efforts to reduce packaging by insisting their suppliers comply with this. I would like to see non recyclable plastic banned-an example is the dark meat trays that meat is sold in.
I despair when I read the list of items that are not allowed in the recycling bins. How have we come to this? Plastic is unavoidable in our lives. We can use paper bags and our hessian shopping bags for many things but what can we use for bleach or shampoo or washing up liquid. Maybe we should start the gransnetters recycling movement to get things changed

Don’t all councils give you the possibility of bags instead of gigantic wheelie bins?
I insisted on bags and I only put out one household rubbish bag and one blue recycling bag each two or four weeks. It’s ridiculous that old people living alone are supplied with hideous great bins which must take a couple of months to fill.

Our council is about to send us new black bins, about 30% smaller than the present ones, but sticking to the same two weekly collection. However they still won't collect plastics, saying they remove them from the normal waste. So I collect my plastics separately and take them to the collection point at Asda, but that means finding space to collect them in my little kitchen!

We’ve recently been to Norway which apparently only allows four types of plastic to be used in its bottles and containers so all can be recycled. Where we are everything to be recycled goes into one bin, glass, paper, everything, which is great, but knowing what goes in is more difficult. Food trays can go in except for black ones. Why not black ones?

It's gone beyond hasn't it? Put your own bins out front way (so unsightly), sort it, wash it etc, if in wrong bin, bin not emptied. If in doubt, I put it in a black bin liner, into general waste, (black bin in our case), blue bin for recycled objects, brown bin for garden and food waste, all alternately emptied fortnightly, which is mighty smelly, especially in Summer, but surely this fear of getting it wrong, therefore bin not emptied, is defeating the whole object. Bring back dustmen who just came weekly down our back alley ways and just emptied the rubbish. as Jim Royle, (The Royle Family) would say, progress my A...e!

Sue I have made some produce bags from left-over bits of dress net, they work well but being polyester net will outlive us all. Those on Amazon are polyester too. What is really need is ones made of cotton net, which will eventually rot down. Cotton net appears to be either unobtainable or it is expensive and too thick to scan bar-code labels though. Old-fashioned net curtains would come in useful!

Elegran reusable produce bags are already available and have been for well over a decade, when I first got mine.

Here is a sample of what you can get on Amazon. www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_8?sprefix=Produce+%2Ckitchen%2C232&crid=2BZ0EEZFEEQLT&tag=gransnetforum-21&url=search-alias%3Dkitchen&field-keywords=produce+bags

Manufacturers should be compelled to use recyclable materials and Councils should be compelled to accept all recyclable material. The list that our Council won't accept is larger than the list of what they will.

There was a case a few years ago there was a case where a man was fined £1K for putting his bins out a day early. They had not been able to contact the man but he was fined in his absence. Common sense tells you that the man was moving the day before and put his rubbish out so it wouldn't rot before the new resident came in! We are being made the scapegoats for the Authorities/manufacturers incompetence!

I recently had to order something that my small branch of Boots didn’t stock. It was in a plastic bottle with a plastic label in a plastic bag wrapped in bubble wrap in a plastic delivery envelope!!! Grrrr!
Agree with all of you that we are doing our individual best but the manufacturers need to do the same.

Widgeon are you for real, surely you don’t eat banana skins unwashed?

I have tried to cut down on plastic as much as I can. Buy cans of drink, jars, packets.

The trouble is I shop online. When I order fruit and veg loose it comes in a plastic bag!!! I don't want the plastic bag, just the paper bag the plastic bag is put in!!!

I feel just the same gerry86, I didn't cause plastic to become such a problem nor did anyone I know, including on here!!! and yet it is us who are being finger wagged and made to feel excessively guilty, which up to a point I do, BUT, manufacturers bear the greatest guilt over the years as they, together with governments should have been well aware of the dangers that lay ahead regarding uncontrolled plastics, and not be behaving as if they had no idea of the damage that was being caused in order to shift the blame! - so bl###y dishonest!

My Local Council refuse collection is weekly for;

Small black lidded bin/box for plastics, cans, metal lids, aerosols & batteries (in a clear plastic? bag)

Small green lidded bin/box for glass & cardboard, coloured paper

Blue bag for paper, window envelopes intact, magazines, flyers, catalogues

Alternate weeks for wheelie bins, one week household waste other week garden waste (if you pay for collection £35 pa)

Also local car park has skips for glass, plastic, cardboard, clothes, paper.

Recycing centre in next town also a scheme to recycle unwanted furniture etc.

I have changed my milk delivery back to glass bottles, I only get 2 pints a week & have no problem with it keeping, I can taste milk starting to go off before any one else can, I can't eat yogurt as it tastes off to me

I do agree that the Supermarkets could do more. I rarely buy fruit & veg in a Supermarket preferring to use local shops & local produce, only using paper bags for small fruit & mushrooms. There is also a Fruit & Veg shop in my small town (& a Butchers)

I get deliveries from Riverford, they request that you return the boxes as on average they can be reused 10 times, very little comes wrapped in plastic, tomatoes & mushrooms are in cardboard trays, everything else is loose.

I believe the reason cucumbers are wrapped in a plastic sleeve is that they last longer but I may be wrong.

I do have occasional deliveries from Tesco, no bags but it has to be unloaded at the door into my hessian bags (very small kitchen), delivery drivers are really helpful & will hold trays up to save too much bending