Why do they make it so hard?

I dislike the recycle horror stories 'No they chuck it in with the other refuse.' We have been hearing that for 10 yrs now, and still don't believe it.
I dislike even more that shredded paper is not recyclable. Please someone explain why, almost all recycled paper has ink on it; and surely it's easier to pulp shredded than not

Some interesting info here, thank you. though frustrating councils don't make it easier. And good to hear so many of you are already doing so much. Must play catch up!
Can I ask, what compost bins do you use in your kitchen? We've been using old big yoghurt buckets but they don't look very nice and also fill up too quickly. Apparently some of the compost bins come with charcoal in the lids etc to banish any smells. Is this worth it do you think?

What makes recycling difficult is that different councils have different contracts so moving from one area to another for a holiday say, makes it hard to get it right. In my town we're not not allowed to put food waste in the brown bin - only garden waste and there's still a fair bit of stuff that can't be put in the blue recycling bin. If councils want us to recycle more why make it difficult - and then not collect the bin if we make a mistake?

I've given up with it. We do not have wheelie bins, we have large green and red crates with no lids one for tins and plastic, no glass, and the other for paper and cardboard on alternate weeks. They are quite heavy already and when carrying them out they obscure your feet. When it rains the contents are sodden, when it's windy they blow all over the road. I am terrified of falling, especially in ice. My husband is disabled and I can't afford a broken hip. If they're overfilled they won't be taken. Glass has to be taken 3 miles down the road to a supermarket bin. How is that green given the petrol used? What do they do with all that food? There's only so much compost the country needs. I suspect it's made into pellets and fed to poor farm animals. I'm afraid I have gone back to black sacks.

I do recycle but TBH if it is raining it goes in bin in kitchen & I move it the next day of I remember. My dustman told me too that it isn't all recycled anyway. It is a pain sometimes- 2 bins for food waste, bags for ordinary waste & huge bin for recycling. I wish they could empty all bins same week as I always have the recycling overflowing by end of fortnight & usually have 2 bags of ordinary waste every fortnight too! (OK - I 'd have 6 grandchildren around a lot! I expect their bins at home are half empty )It all has to sit around the garden taking up space.

I think it is the duty of everyone to recycle to preserve the planet's resources but it is also the council's to make it simple! Down in the New Forest, we still have a weekly plastic black waste bag and clear recycling bag collection. Glass is collected monthly and you can sign up for a text reminder to enter to win prizes. Garden waste is also collected monthly but you have to pay for that.

I have two garden compost bins so I put grass and veggie/egg shells/tea bags etc. food waste in there so I never have to buy compost. I take bottle tops to my local Mencap charity shop and someone collects from there but they won't take juice/pop bottle tops- wrong kind of plastic, apparently. I work in Dorset so they will accept plastic cartons like tomato punnets containers so I take those to recycle at work. The only things that really go in my black sack is left over cat food and litter and dirty kitten roll. I can't find anywhere that recycles margarine type cartons and there must be millions of those discarded every week!

This city doesn't have food waste recycling. Most of the waste produced that is not recyclable is incinerated. The system is very impressive. We are told that less than 17% of the city's waste goes to landfill, 62% is incinerated, 21% is composted or recovered in some other manner. As the population of the city grows (apart from the general population, we have a very large student population) and produces more waste, these figures are going to become harder to maintain. The council has said that funding cuts, are forcing them to consider bringing in four weekly bin collections next year, instead of the two weekly we have now, in which case I should think there will be many who will find less environmentally friendly ways of taking the pressure off their dustbins.

My husband family lives just outside Bridgend to the poster who spoke of that area. The council do far more there for recycling. We live in Yorkshire.

Collections fortnightly here: we have a green bin for garden waste only. We also have be a glass bin, plaatic, cardboard and tin collection box

We are often asked to fill in fir2ms 're recycling as to what we want but it never materialised. We have asked for kitchen waste, foil, abberies and so on.

Usually have an average of half of a smaller bin of black recycling to go to the normal refuge

The collection of garden waste is not free, that is another charge on top of council tax, at least in our area.

Blue box for paper, small appliances, defunct kettles etc.
batteries, textiles (bagged separately)

Red box...metal including clean tin foil and specific plastic.

Green box....cardboard (ripped up nicely) and glass.

Brown lidded wheelie bin.....garden waste.

Green bucket bin...food waste, plus a kitchen caddy, free biodegradable lining bags are available

Small wheelie bin for anything that won't go in any of the aforementioned boxes.

Recycling collected weekly, wheelie bins on alternate weeks.

Our council has stopped collecting green waste unless we buy a roll of plastic bags for £50 and then it's a fortnightly collection between April and October . They split the moment any sharp twigs go in and are only the size of a large bin liner . Totally useless. Most of our street have not bought the bags and choose to compost what we can and take trips to the local tip which is now packed out every weekend causing congestion on a very busy road !

Sorry, meant also to say that the aforementioned boxes are fine and it all works like clockwork. BUT If like DD you live in a terraced house with nowhere to store anything it all becomes a bit of a bind and it's just easier to chuck it one bin, which defeats the councils grand plan for 100% recycling.

Our borough recently introduced two wheelie bins, one for rubbish and the other for recycling, collected on alternate weeks. Our rubbish bin is usually an eighth filled at most and the recycling bin overflowing. I have read and reread the council advice on what can be recycled and still don't know which containers they expect. I'm told it is all shipped off to some third world country to be sorted which makes me sad. Why isn't a law passed forbidding supermarkets from selling us products in non-recyclable packaging. Or failing that a big red ❌ to warn us, as the "check with your council" line is really difficult to find. A nice big ✅ on recyclable packaging would be helpful too.

I love to recycle but all the symbols or lack of confuse the hell out of me, whats more annoying having taken the trouble to get it right is when on black bin week the bin man has a grey moment and empties my green bin Grr!!

My local council provides us with a general waste bin, recycling box, food waste box and a garden refuse sack. Bio-degradable bags in 2 sizes are available free from local libraries. Collection weekly for everything by 2 separate lorries - one takes the landfill stuff and a larger compartmentalised vehicle takes the rest. The food and garden wastes are composted, with the resulting product used in council parks and gardens or sold to residents at amenity sites. Excellent system.

Check the postcode locator for what you can recycle in your area.

Well, yes indeed. Like many, I use my own bags for supermarket shopping and try to limit plastic bag use BUT it's not made easy is it? A leaflet from our local council said that plastic containers (the type that holds strawberries and the like) is not recyclable and is the biggest offender for 'contaminating the load'. Who knew? Not I and many others, obviously. Plus different local authorities have different rules. Many of us try our best though, don't we?

Well, yes indeed. Like many, I use my own bags for supermarket shopping and try to limit plastic bag use BUT it's not made easy is it? A leaflet from our local council said that plastic containers (the type that holds strawberries and the like) is not recyclable and is the biggest offender for 'contaminating the load'. Who knew? Not I and many others, obviously. Plus different local authorities have different rules. Many of us try our best though, don't we?

In Manchester we have 4 bins. General rubbish collected fortnightly with brown bin for plastics, tins, foil and glass. The blue paper and cardboard bin is collected the alternate week. The green garden waste and food bin (for which we have a kitchen food caddy with the green bags) is collected weekly during the summer and fortnightly during winter. The size of the general rubbish bin has been reduced. That has caused problems for us as my daughter, her partner and 8 week old baby live with me and it's soon full with nappies not to mention my cat's litter. You can request a larger bin for a bigger family but need to have more than one child under 5. We also had a problem with the bin not being emptied properly and two bags were stuck in bin for several weeks.

On the site swanny mentions, there is a competition for the kids to design a poster and win a iPad

HM999 - the reason you can't recycle shredded paper is that you have cut the fibres too small for use. DS2 works for a paper recycling factory. They do remove ink and he says it is disgusting; but he also says that once the fibres have reached a certain [short] length, it is impossible to make paper/card with it - it would disintegrate... So that is why!

We have a blue bin and a brown bin which are emptied fortnightly at the same time and a green bin which is emptied on the alternate weeks. The blue bin is for paper and cardboard, the brown bin is for anything compostible (garden waste, food waste etc) and the council gives us a free bag of compost once or twice a year. The green bin is for all the other things which can't be recycled. It seems to work very well and we never have full green or blue bins, but it would be good it they emptied the brown bin every week, as, if you do a lot of grass cutting, pruning etc, and the bin fills up, either you have to stop gardening for a week or so or put the garden waste in a bin liner and refill the brown bin once it has been emptied. We only have a smallish garden, so it must be a nightmare if you have a big garden.

I have a mountain of books that I need to clear out. Too yellowy and old to give to charity shops etc. But don't want to put them in landfill. Council say they can't recycle in paper waste at local tip because of glue in binding. Any ideas anyone?

Will Oxfam take them Shizam? They have a bookshop which sells old books and our local Oxfam had a 'deal' with an antiquarian bookseller
But beware and check their value online first.

Oh Jalimar, I too found a plastic carrier bag in tiny pieces in a drawer. Shut the drawer and shouted for my DH to put a mousetrap in as I thought (and up to now) it was a mouse!

Old books: if there is a hospice for the terminally ill in your area they may well be glad of books, irrespective of the condition they are in.

Compost bin in kitchen: when we bought a new kitchen bin for household rubbish, we bought one for anything that could go on the compost heap as well. As we are only the two of us, we are able to remember what goes in which bin. In some stores you can get bins with plastic lids in different colours which makes it easier to remember which bin is which.

We use a carrier bag for paper, tins and glass which go in our re-cycling bin.