Recycling

I am a recycling fanatic, which makes me wonder why my home is a hoarder's paradise of junk that I just won't dispose of because I might, one day find a use for it!

We have 3 lidded wheelie bins, black emptied every week for rubbish, blue for re-cyclable & green for garden waste emptied every 2 weeks. We have 2 compost bins for plant & kitchen stuff(peelings, teabags etc) I take egg boxes & glass jars to WI market. Think we do our bit

We live in Sweden, and here the rubbish is collected, but re cycling we have to drive quite a way to the recycling place, they are placed in a lot of places but then it defeats the purpose as for the environement, everyone is driving cars to these place, also the bins are weighed every time, so we are charged by weight, we are encouraged to compost our other things, no green bins here.
Now in Cumbria, where we have a second home, it is fabulous there is a grey bin, a green bin, blue boxes for papers cardboard etc, and NOW we have blue bags for re cycling, thats fine, but when they are emptied and left out on the roadside, and its windy, then the fun begins, there are blue bags blowing all over the place, not a smart idea, they could put these bags in the blue boxes at the same time they empty them, BUT there are two different lorries coming to do these jobs, you cant win, but at least we dont have to pay by weight!

We had a lovely holiday last year in California involving a week on a boat. (California is very hot on recycling and saving energy). On our return we asked about recycling the accumulated rubbish and were told not to worry, just bung it all in the one bin - the happy little Mexicans sort it all! . How will they manage if Mr Trump gets his way!?!

My brother lives in Australia and has just 2 bins, one for general rubbish and one for recycling. While I was visiting I had some rubbish which could be recycled and he was puzzled when I asked where the rest of the recycling bins were! They also have a system whereby every now and then people can put large items at the curb (including furniture etc), anyone can come and take what they want and whatever is left is picked up by the local authority and disposed of.

My DDs just have one recycling bin, sunseeker, but it does mean someone having to sort it all out at the other end and apparently it isn't as efficient. Or so we're told - we live in the adjacent authority to our DDs and have separate boxes/bags for glass, thicker cardboard and small electrical items / food waste / paper, thin card and cartons / plastics / cans / textiles, and an optional paid bin for garden waste. So 6 or 7, collected weekly, plus the general waste wheelie bin, fortnightly. I've had a moan many times about them all blocking the pavements on collection day, but really I'm pleased that so much is recycled, and for free.

The kerbside freecycle sounds great - we had a similar scheme in Germany when we lived there years ago, but apparently it is no more. It was really useful for us at the time, furnishing our little house!

We have a £35 pa charge for garden waste collection. There is no recycling of food waste which seems a sad omission.
UK should standardise refuse and recycling collection with a national policy. Why not?

We have three wheelie bins, green for non-recyclable, grey for recyclable and brown for garden rubbish, but that's charged at £30-00 per year.
Non recyclable and recyclable are collected fortnightly, alternate weeks, whilst the garden rubbish is collected fortnightly, but only from April to November!
There's no arrangement for recycling kitchen scraps, and if the collection team open the garden bin and find veg leaves inside they refuse to take it because the food 'may have been in your kitchen, and therefore contaminated'.
We have a 'state of the art' recycling facility, where waste is automatically sorted, so not many people are employed there, just a few to keep an eye on the machines in case they get confused!
I loathe the non recyclable bin only being emptied fortnightly, especially during hot weather, so spend a fortune on disinfectant and bin powder!

All our veg. remains go in the compost, or to the hens. The hens also get a lot of the food remains. I don't think that's allowed in the UK (Defra ban.)

To be honest, I'm not keen on the food waste bin. It sits on the cellar steps and DH (our recycling supremo) makes sure everything cooked, processed or otherwise not fit for the compost heap is scraped into it. We don't waste much, but sometimes, especially after high days and holidays, it can be something that's been lurking in the fridge so long it's a health hazard - well out of date pate, all that surplus cream, etc - and I'd really rather it just went straight in the bin with its lid firmly on!

Still, it goes to produce "green energy and nutrient-rich fertiliser", which I'm sure is very laudable.

What do they do with the kitchen waste?
I am old enough to remember my Mother keeping ours for the Pig man. But that doesn't happen now.
Anyone enlighten me?

According to our local authority:

Once we have collected your food waste, it is taken to a special processing plant where it is treated in an enclosed vessel. As the food breaks down, it produces green energy using a process called Anaerobic Digestion. This generates renewable energy and a nutrient-rich fertiliser that can be used to grow more food.

I'm not a lot wiser, but it sounds impressive!

www.letsrecycle.com/news/latest-news/storm-in-a-coffee-cup/

This is an interesting view of HughFear's programme.
Apparentl if any company overpackages like Amazon, they can be reported to Trading Standards.

www.ecotricity.co.uk/our-green-energy/green-gas/how-green-gas-works

Anaerobic digestion.

Good. I'm glad my rubbish gets digested once more.

We can take used chip pan oil to our waste disposal place.
The person in charge there is a very charming, friendly and ladylike woman, so I asked her what they do with it - she said they make it into some kind of fuel.