Recycling

It's complicated, isn't it, and made worse by the fact that different councils can/can't recycle different things.

I think it is high time there was more standardisation, and more legislation to reduce non-recyclable packaging. Then manufacturers could make it quite clear on their packaging if it was recyclable, knowing that it applied a cross the country.

I wish there were some projects that could make use of things like plastic bottles I know some people knit mats with plastic bags I m just not very clever at thinking things up

It takes patience as well - I usually can't be bothered to clean out things like baked bean tins, empty oil bottles, mayonnaise jars etc so just put them in the non-recyclable bin.
I once asked the man at the local refuse place what happens to non-recyc stuff and he said it gets burnt at a giant incineration place. So that causes air pollution.
Does anyone know what to do with broken china and pottery?

Fleece jackets are made of plastic bottles. This suggests to me that there are projects if not whole industries set up already.

I think it's allright to put broken pottery in landfill. DD1 lives near an old dump that has been transformed into woodland. She has great fun finding old bits of broken pottery.

Similarly, I had an allotment on the edge of Port Meadow in Oxford. It was a municipal tip in Victorian times, I believe. People were always digging up old glass and pottery, some of it quite valuable in historical terms.

I agree about needing patience, fennel. It's difficult for very busy people to have that kind of patience. At least, I get that impression.

www.marmax-products.uk/index.php?route=common/home

www.google.com/url?q=https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/02/ikeas-latest-kitchen-is-made-of-recycled-plastic-bottles/&sa=U&ved=0ahUKEwiOm6_rmaLYAhVsM5oKHSqEA44QFggIMAE&client=internal-uds-cse&cx=005374784487575532108:zwr8u4lxoba&usg=AOvVaw37pSLSZfvrM92T7QOu92ax

The latest Ikea kitchen is made from recycled plastic and wood.

Yes I realise there are things made out of recycled plastic I was thinking more of individual craft ideas like the plastic bag mats I referred to
I would never put dirty jars etc in a recycling bin without washing they are surely useless if dirty you may as well throw into the landfill bin

The confusion comes when local councils all seem to have different rules about what can and can’t be recycled. To my mind you should be able to recycle anything that has a symbol on it, but our council (who I would gladly recycle!), for one, thinks differently.

Baggs, fleece jackets are causing a pollution problem as every time they are washed minute plastic particles are flushed through the system and into the oceans.
I have given up wearing my fleeces because of that.
Even recycling has is problems.
We are tackling the whole thing from the wrong end. We need to produce and use less!

Discarded food is what upsets me the most, with so many people on our planet starving.
We don't leave much food uneaten, but give any leftovers to our chickens.
I don't think that's allowed now in the UK.
Even the foodbanks are restricting the types of food they can accept.

I've bought lots of plastic containers from Wilkos to put food in to stop using so much cling film. What I'm still confused about are water bottles as they say they shouldn't be filled and reused but I do it all the time. I find them easier to carry around than the specific water containers which are too bulky. We read that tea bags don't break down so I'm going to try to use more loose tea but also take the outer bit off the tea bag before I put it in the compost bin, I know they don't break down because I sometimes use them to repair broken finger nails! Mary Creagh is campaigning with regards plastic bottles but she is just getting comments on her facebook page saying she should concentrate on 'important things'; as if the future of the planet isn't our responsibility. Lets hope Blue Planet II has the desired effect.

I also use lots of tissues and find them in every pocket and up every sleeve even though I made a point of putting handkerchiefs in all of my coat pockets. [I only use handkerchiefs for my sniffy nose and when sneezing, though as I've always got a sniffy nose ].

eglantine, yes, I'd come across that information about fleece garments recently. It is a bit depressing, isn't it? I don't have much in the way of fleece garments because I've never found them as warm or as breathable as natural fibres.

One thing that buoys me up in all this depressing news is that plastic is made from oil and oil is organic so I think that in the geologically long term Nature will deal with it. Bacteria have already been found that eat and digest plastic and, presumably, turn it into organic shit. The cycle of animal life is amazing.

Contact your local District Council for a leaflet. Different councils have different policies and resources for recycling.

Our is pretty good and their leaflet is easy to understand.

Re plastics Baggs I think you’ll find that it is over- optimistic to think nature will deal with it.

Plastics

Well, I am an inveterate optimist, om.

Nobody expected to find plastic-digesting bacteria!

Nature has dealt with some pretty awesome stuff already.

My council issued a leaflet saying we couldn't put food waste in the garden waste bin. However on the council website it said we could!!!! This is the sort of thing we're up against. Why councils can't work together and get us to use the same bins wherever we are and have the recycling more centralised I don't know. It's so difficult if you go on a self catering holiday and are faced with different bins and instructions!

I don't think plastic eating bacteria are going to do much to help the poor birds and marine creatures that are ingesting huge quantities of plastic and dying as a result ...

Yes, nature has dealt pretty awesome stuff, like Ebola, famine, tsunami, hurricanes and devastating fires - to name but a few recent events! Happily though not in our country so we can continue to feel complacent.

Nature needs to buck up a bit with those plastic eating bacteria, as China is refusing to take our recycled plastic waste now.

I spent my whole Anglesey cottage holiday this year making sure all the different coloured drawers were perfectly filled with the correct items. Phew!

I wish they’d find a way of recycling ‘disposable’ nappies. After 2 weeks of GC visiting we have 2 big black sacks to get rid of. When ours were babies we used mostly washable ones and I can’t get used to the waste generated by babies nowadays. We live in rural area and have no bin collection so got used to recycling and composting apart from a very small amount of rubbish which has to be brought to council depot (and paid for).