I do agree with standardising recycling across the country. We could benefit from economies of scale and better use of recycling facilities. Not to mention making it less confusing for people – more people would likely recycle if they knew *what* they could recycle. Our recycling was changed last year to include everything from chocolate bar wrappers to crisp packets. But even the local environmental group didn’t realise this had happened, the comms were so bad, and it’s hard to get the message out to residents. Whereas if it was standardised we could have a national TV campaign for example.
But the idea that the best recycling option is to force residents to separate out different types of plastic is absurd. People can barely tell you what’s recyclable, let alone tell different types of plastics. It’s fine if you learn that the type of plastic is marked on the packaging, but not when you realise it’s hard to read a lot of the time. And many people don’t even have the space for all these recycling containers. My mum lives in a tiny bungalow with limited mobility and she recycles very little because she doesn’t have the space for the wacky containers the council have introduced. Also she has no chance of being able to lift a glass recycling container with her arthritis. But if she could carry a small mixed recycling container to a single recycling bin outdoors, she would.
If the government wants us to recycle then it has to make it simple. Asking people to sort into 7 different containers isn’t that. I’ve only known this to work in Switzerland, where they charge you per bag of rubbish you produce.
This might work if there’s a very comprehensive guide as to what goes in each bin. But knowing this government they’ll half arse it and then complain that no one follows it.
> Local authorities would have to show it was either “not technically or economically practicable” to collect the different types of recycling separately – or that “there is no significant environmental benefit in doing so”.
> The get-out clause would allow councils to collect the recycled waste – such as glass, paper and metal – from one bin and then separate the waste at a central depot
No change then.
And they still somehow won’t actually be big enough for the amount of waste a family produces. The sneaky rubbish fire has become a fact of life in our village and nobody says anything because we’re all in the same boat. They upped the amount of stuff they recycle but cut the actual waste collection to a completely unrealistic amount. I really feel for families with, babies and toddlers, special needs kids or older and disabled relatives who use nappies and incontinence supplies.
Stupid article. Our council currently collects card, glass, plastic and metal for recycling all in one bin. There is nothing in these plans that would make them change that or cause other councils not to follow their example.
I already have to deal with this nonsense in York. I have a black bin (general waste), green bin (garden waste) then 3 smaller bins for recycling (paper & cardboard, glass, plastic & metal).
I recall on the news a few months back in Liverpool they fitted new bins that stored the rubbish beneath them but they were a communal bin for a street, that’s probably the best way to go. It meant investing in new bins and new bin lorries that could lift the communal bin but cut down on every house having X number of bins.
Where I come from every neighbourhood has a recycling station. You can only use official bin bags, which are very expensive. So people recycle a lot to save costs. Some people don’t recycle at all, but that will get very expensive, very quick.
Getting sorted post collection is the practical way of doing this. Guaranteed there will be some grey areas on what can go in where and some people who dont fully understand the rules so post processing will be required to make sure they are not mixed at the depot.
I cant see this getting off the ground, especially with the current government.
Honestly if they do this it’s all going in general waste unless it’s incredibly obvious. There’s not enough time in the day to spend ages trying to work out which bin to put it in, and then having 6 fucking kitchen bins to boot.
It was already annoying enough when our council switched to cardboard and paper being in a little bag rather than the main bin. Now I need 3 kitchen bins instead of two, and our recycling bin is barely full because like the majority of people we produce more cardboard waste than any other recyclable waste. I end up taking the majority of our cardboard to the office to chuck now because of that, as I’d have a constant backlog otherwise. Our monthly Subscribe & Save boxes are enough to fill the bag on their own.
Id be all for this IF recycling was actually done.
How many stories have there been of recycling sending stuff elsewhere to be burned or ‘ah unfortunately this batch was contaminated so HAD to be burned’.
Also when corporations are pssing waste into the water and burning everything they can and conning people into thinking every family buying a brand new electric car is the answer instead of massive overhaul and upgrade of the public transport system… its hard to see how separating your household recycling achieves much.
So just the one hundred eighty-two million bins then? This feels like a roundabout way to get the public to fail, and then blame us, and then tax us.
People in Wales like, so what? (We have one of the highest home waste recycling rates in the world).
Let’s be blunt. Recycle your waste or it’s going to landfill, or it’s going for incineration (or pyrolysis). Which facility would you rather live next to?
I’m shocked that food waste is still not standard in many areas, or that people choose not to do it. Firstly it means your black bags are much less of a liability, and secondly it’s got huge potential. In South Wales food waste goes to anaerobic digesters and so gas (which can be put back into homes or burned for electricity), heat and compost are the outputs.
We even have nappy collection if you find you’re using disposable nappies. And so that can even seperate the absorbent material from the plastic from the poo.
And yes, I have put out 7 bags on occasion (we can recycle single use batteries and textiles with our kerbside collection).
We organise do the recycling plant doesn’t have to. Plus they make the billions.
Is it ‘crazy’ we have to do a little work to cut down on waste? Stupid headline for stupid people.
UK has never really had a streamlined system for recycling… I moved to Taiwan a few years ago and there’s a set system here, we have a truck that comes twice a week for plastics/glass etc and twice a week for paper/card etc. They come at 7pm and then again at 8pm, you give the guy your bag of recycling and he just sorts it out inside the truck and you’re done. Everyone here does it and it’s not a hassle.
[deleted]
And how is this going to work in blocks of flats with communal bins?
I live in a block with only 8 other units, and we have more bins than our “bin area” can accommodate, with all the recycling bins spilling out into the car park, and they’re still not enough as they are frequently overflowing. Adding even more bins to this mess is going to be chaos!
We need to recycle, don’t get me wrong, but the recycling centres need to be more efficient and effective at processing mixed household waste, we shouldn’t have to file our waste into different categories.
Currently the only way to recycle glass and tetrapack here is by driving to the dump or a big supermarket.
Council decided sorting tetrapack from cardboard was too expensive.
Doesn’t work that well for people who can’t drive, and they used to accept tetrapack in the blue bin for ages, so I doubt most people took notice of the single leaflet I think they used to advertise the change…
My previous council was completely different in terms of waste so I had to re-learn what goes where 3 times so far.
As much as I didn’t like not having bins before (foxes kept getting to the bags unless I kept them out front), I do miss having unlimited recycling bags collection, kerb-side glass and textile, and a food bin…
***
Given we happen to have the space, I wouldn’t mind some extra bins if it meant I don’t have to book a dump trip every few months just for the tetrapack because our usual supermarket decided they’d have textiles and cardboard bins only…
Not only are these types of schemes unworkable for people in small properties, but another reason they don’t work is that if your bins get stolen or blown away, the council expect you to pay for the replacement.
I believe that in court, for the council to be able to enforce this expectation they would have to provide secure kerbside storage for everyones bins. By telling people to put their bins out kerbside and on public land, they are responsible for those bins until you return and take them in; the council will never pay for replacement bins out of their own pocket, or secure storage, and so the whole scheme falls over.
In Cornwall we have a black bin bag for general waste, an orange bag for cans and plastic, a red one for card, a blue one for paper and a box for glass. It’s not that hard to sort yourself.
I’m in Wakefield council’s area and they have some sort of plant that processes all the waste so we only have two household bins and a bin for garden waste. The household bins are basically clean waste and dirty waste, they all go through the same plant though. The recycling is the clean waste- clean paper and card, tin cans, bottle shaped plastic and aluminium kitchen waste. Everyhting else goes in the dirty waste. They were recently fighting a new law that says everywhere must recycle food separately which they don’t do as their wste recycling place deals with all that when they process the dirty waste. They would just have to collect the food waste separately then chuck it back in with the dirty waste at their end so it would be a waste of money. Same with all this new stuff, unneccesary resources, time etc.
Recycling is a total scamming greenwash industry anyway. Most shit isn’t recycled and is shipped off to be dumped on a third worlds shores.
Contamination at a recycling plant is so easy too and causes entire batches to be dumped.
If we want recycling to work we need investment into it and for centres to clean their own cans and bottles and start incnetivizing people (with money) to recycle carefully.
I was visiting another country, and they have recycling stations for every road or block. Sorted into glass, plastic, paper, metal, or refuse. I think that worked really well, and it makes the collection so much easier.
Mm, as a town planner I look forward to arguments with developers about why I’m refusing their planning permission because they haven’t allowed space for seven wheelie bins per property.
We need to stop the single use items, recycling is a HUGE energy and resource sink and it is still incredibly bad for the environment and increases global warming.
If you make recycling this complicated people just won’t do it
Great, but we’re still waiting for larger recycling bins for our 16 fucking flats that we’ve been begging for for the 15 years we’ve lived here. Instead we have the little black bins and the cardboard one is constantly overflowing by the time pick up rolls round. We have these shitty little bags for cans, plastic bottles and tins that we have to keep in our homes, but they’re often sopping wet or smell of cat piss because the local toms come and spray.
Where I live there’s limited off street parking so you end up with cars all over the place. When it’s bin day it’s even worse. The footpaths are 1 person wide, there’s no room on the road to put the bins so they end up on the path. This then means you have to step onto the road to get by.
Then when the bins are collected they just dump them where ever, either over driveways, half way up the street.
Parking is limited as it is, let alone you can’t walk down the path. Seems pointless to me. It’s still going to be sorted out when it arrives at the recycling centre anyway. So why bother changing it from 4 bins (garden, cardboard/paper, glass and plastics, general waste)?
We currently have 9 where we live:
* Cardboard
* Paper
* Cans & Plastic
* Nappies
* Glass
* Food Waste
* Batteries
* Green Waste (Fortnightly)
* Plus Black Bags (Fortnightly)
We manage fine. They also do combined waste ones (1 bag, 4 sections) for smaller households
Except this will never go forward as its only intended to makes us mad about this and forget about the issues we should truly focus on
Streets of Newham is already fucked with having just 2.
Good luck with even 3.
Just imagine the cost and environmental damage of replacing all the current bins / boxes etc with a new Govt standardised set of recycling receptacles. Maybe we need to check which Tory donor / crony owns a wheelie bin supply company- as odds on that’s the real reason/ scam behind the proposal
I realised on reading that my council already does this. Well, nearly anyway. We have 6 different things which are collected but I didn’t really notice because it’s 2 recycle boxes, one bag, one small bucket like thing with a lid and 2 actual bins.
I never really noticed and it doesn’t bother us at all. We just keep a recycle bin and split it into 3 of them when it gets full. The rest are garden, food and rubbish which are easy and naturally separate.
So not as mad as it sounds.
Nothing in this article supports what the headline claims other than an MP throwing a tantrum for votes.
Yes places will need to offer more recycling options. 4 out of the 5 councils I’ve lived in have 3 bins: food and garden waste, recyclable waste and general waste. They have centres to separate the waste further.
If you end up with 7 bins that’s a failing of your council not the idea of recycling.
35 comments
Yeah this is daft.
I do agree with standardising recycling across the country. We could benefit from economies of scale and better use of recycling facilities. Not to mention making it less confusing for people – more people would likely recycle if they knew *what* they could recycle. Our recycling was changed last year to include everything from chocolate bar wrappers to crisp packets. But even the local environmental group didn’t realise this had happened, the comms were so bad, and it’s hard to get the message out to residents. Whereas if it was standardised we could have a national TV campaign for example.
But the idea that the best recycling option is to force residents to separate out different types of plastic is absurd. People can barely tell you what’s recyclable, let alone tell different types of plastics. It’s fine if you learn that the type of plastic is marked on the packaging, but not when you realise it’s hard to read a lot of the time. And many people don’t even have the space for all these recycling containers. My mum lives in a tiny bungalow with limited mobility and she recycles very little because she doesn’t have the space for the wacky containers the council have introduced. Also she has no chance of being able to lift a glass recycling container with her arthritis. But if she could carry a small mixed recycling container to a single recycling bin outdoors, she would.
If the government wants us to recycle then it has to make it simple. Asking people to sort into 7 different containers isn’t that. I’ve only known this to work in Switzerland, where they charge you per bag of rubbish you produce.
This might work if there’s a very comprehensive guide as to what goes in each bin. But knowing this government they’ll half arse it and then complain that no one follows it.
> Local authorities would have to show it was either “not technically or economically practicable” to collect the different types of recycling separately – or that “there is no significant environmental benefit in doing so”.
> The get-out clause would allow councils to collect the recycled waste – such as glass, paper and metal – from one bin and then separate the waste at a central depot
No change then.
And they still somehow won’t actually be big enough for the amount of waste a family produces. The sneaky rubbish fire has become a fact of life in our village and nobody says anything because we’re all in the same boat. They upped the amount of stuff they recycle but cut the actual waste collection to a completely unrealistic amount. I really feel for families with, babies and toddlers, special needs kids or older and disabled relatives who use nappies and incontinence supplies.
Stupid article. Our council currently collects card, glass, plastic and metal for recycling all in one bin. There is nothing in these plans that would make them change that or cause other councils not to follow their example.
I already have to deal with this nonsense in York. I have a black bin (general waste), green bin (garden waste) then 3 smaller bins for recycling (paper & cardboard, glass, plastic & metal).
I recall on the news a few months back in Liverpool they fitted new bins that stored the rubbish beneath them but they were a communal bin for a street, that’s probably the best way to go. It meant investing in new bins and new bin lorries that could lift the communal bin but cut down on every house having X number of bins.
[Link to story](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-63118027)
Where I come from every neighbourhood has a recycling station. You can only use official bin bags, which are very expensive. So people recycle a lot to save costs. Some people don’t recycle at all, but that will get very expensive, very quick.
Getting sorted post collection is the practical way of doing this. Guaranteed there will be some grey areas on what can go in where and some people who dont fully understand the rules so post processing will be required to make sure they are not mixed at the depot.
I cant see this getting off the ground, especially with the current government.
Honestly if they do this it’s all going in general waste unless it’s incredibly obvious. There’s not enough time in the day to spend ages trying to work out which bin to put it in, and then having 6 fucking kitchen bins to boot.
It was already annoying enough when our council switched to cardboard and paper being in a little bag rather than the main bin. Now I need 3 kitchen bins instead of two, and our recycling bin is barely full because like the majority of people we produce more cardboard waste than any other recyclable waste. I end up taking the majority of our cardboard to the office to chuck now because of that, as I’d have a constant backlog otherwise. Our monthly Subscribe & Save boxes are enough to fill the bag on their own.
Id be all for this IF recycling was actually done.
How many stories have there been of recycling sending stuff elsewhere to be burned or ‘ah unfortunately this batch was contaminated so HAD to be burned’.
Also when corporations are pssing waste into the water and burning everything they can and conning people into thinking every family buying a brand new electric car is the answer instead of massive overhaul and upgrade of the public transport system… its hard to see how separating your household recycling achieves much.
So just the one hundred eighty-two million bins then? This feels like a roundabout way to get the public to fail, and then blame us, and then tax us.
People in Wales like, so what? (We have one of the highest home waste recycling rates in the world).
Let’s be blunt. Recycle your waste or it’s going to landfill, or it’s going for incineration (or pyrolysis). Which facility would you rather live next to?
I’m shocked that food waste is still not standard in many areas, or that people choose not to do it. Firstly it means your black bags are much less of a liability, and secondly it’s got huge potential. In South Wales food waste goes to anaerobic digesters and so gas (which can be put back into homes or burned for electricity), heat and compost are the outputs.
We even have nappy collection if you find you’re using disposable nappies. And so that can even seperate the absorbent material from the plastic from the poo.
And yes, I have put out 7 bags on occasion (we can recycle single use batteries and textiles with our kerbside collection).
We organise do the recycling plant doesn’t have to. Plus they make the billions.
Is it ‘crazy’ we have to do a little work to cut down on waste? Stupid headline for stupid people.
UK has never really had a streamlined system for recycling… I moved to Taiwan a few years ago and there’s a set system here, we have a truck that comes twice a week for plastics/glass etc and twice a week for paper/card etc. They come at 7pm and then again at 8pm, you give the guy your bag of recycling and he just sorts it out inside the truck and you’re done. Everyone here does it and it’s not a hassle.
[deleted]
And how is this going to work in blocks of flats with communal bins?
I live in a block with only 8 other units, and we have more bins than our “bin area” can accommodate, with all the recycling bins spilling out into the car park, and they’re still not enough as they are frequently overflowing. Adding even more bins to this mess is going to be chaos!
We need to recycle, don’t get me wrong, but the recycling centres need to be more efficient and effective at processing mixed household waste, we shouldn’t have to file our waste into different categories.
Currently the only way to recycle glass and tetrapack here is by driving to the dump or a big supermarket.
Council decided sorting tetrapack from cardboard was too expensive.
Doesn’t work that well for people who can’t drive, and they used to accept tetrapack in the blue bin for ages, so I doubt most people took notice of the single leaflet I think they used to advertise the change…
My previous council was completely different in terms of waste so I had to re-learn what goes where 3 times so far.
As much as I didn’t like not having bins before (foxes kept getting to the bags unless I kept them out front), I do miss having unlimited recycling bags collection, kerb-side glass and textile, and a food bin…
***
Given we happen to have the space, I wouldn’t mind some extra bins if it meant I don’t have to book a dump trip every few months just for the tetrapack because our usual supermarket decided they’d have textiles and cardboard bins only…
Not only are these types of schemes unworkable for people in small properties, but another reason they don’t work is that if your bins get stolen or blown away, the council expect you to pay for the replacement.
I believe that in court, for the council to be able to enforce this expectation they would have to provide secure kerbside storage for everyones bins. By telling people to put their bins out kerbside and on public land, they are responsible for those bins until you return and take them in; the council will never pay for replacement bins out of their own pocket, or secure storage, and so the whole scheme falls over.
In Cornwall we have a black bin bag for general waste, an orange bag for cans and plastic, a red one for card, a blue one for paper and a box for glass. It’s not that hard to sort yourself.
I’m in Wakefield council’s area and they have some sort of plant that processes all the waste so we only have two household bins and a bin for garden waste. The household bins are basically clean waste and dirty waste, they all go through the same plant though. The recycling is the clean waste- clean paper and card, tin cans, bottle shaped plastic and aluminium kitchen waste. Everyhting else goes in the dirty waste. They were recently fighting a new law that says everywhere must recycle food separately which they don’t do as their wste recycling place deals with all that when they process the dirty waste. They would just have to collect the food waste separately then chuck it back in with the dirty waste at their end so it would be a waste of money. Same with all this new stuff, unneccesary resources, time etc.
Recycling is a total scamming greenwash industry anyway. Most shit isn’t recycled and is shipped off to be dumped on a third worlds shores.
Contamination at a recycling plant is so easy too and causes entire batches to be dumped.
If we want recycling to work we need investment into it and for centres to clean their own cans and bottles and start incnetivizing people (with money) to recycle carefully.
I was visiting another country, and they have recycling stations for every road or block. Sorted into glass, plastic, paper, metal, or refuse. I think that worked really well, and it makes the collection so much easier.
Mm, as a town planner I look forward to arguments with developers about why I’m refusing their planning permission because they haven’t allowed space for seven wheelie bins per property.
We need to stop the single use items, recycling is a HUGE energy and resource sink and it is still incredibly bad for the environment and increases global warming.
If you make recycling this complicated people just won’t do it
Great, but we’re still waiting for larger recycling bins for our 16 fucking flats that we’ve been begging for for the 15 years we’ve lived here. Instead we have the little black bins and the cardboard one is constantly overflowing by the time pick up rolls round. We have these shitty little bags for cans, plastic bottles and tins that we have to keep in our homes, but they’re often sopping wet or smell of cat piss because the local toms come and spray.
Where I live there’s limited off street parking so you end up with cars all over the place. When it’s bin day it’s even worse. The footpaths are 1 person wide, there’s no room on the road to put the bins so they end up on the path. This then means you have to step onto the road to get by.
Then when the bins are collected they just dump them where ever, either over driveways, half way up the street.
Parking is limited as it is, let alone you can’t walk down the path. Seems pointless to me. It’s still going to be sorted out when it arrives at the recycling centre anyway. So why bother changing it from 4 bins (garden, cardboard/paper, glass and plastics, general waste)?
We currently have 9 where we live:
* Cardboard
* Paper
* Cans & Plastic
* Nappies
* Glass
* Food Waste
* Batteries
* Green Waste (Fortnightly)
* Plus Black Bags (Fortnightly)
We manage fine. They also do combined waste ones (1 bag, 4 sections) for smaller households
Except this will never go forward as its only intended to makes us mad about this and forget about the issues we should truly focus on
Streets of Newham is already fucked with having just 2.
Good luck with even 3.
Just imagine the cost and environmental damage of replacing all the current bins / boxes etc with a new Govt standardised set of recycling receptacles. Maybe we need to check which Tory donor / crony owns a wheelie bin supply company- as odds on that’s the real reason/ scam behind the proposal
I realised on reading that my council already does this. Well, nearly anyway. We have 6 different things which are collected but I didn’t really notice because it’s 2 recycle boxes, one bag, one small bucket like thing with a lid and 2 actual bins.
I never really noticed and it doesn’t bother us at all. We just keep a recycle bin and split it into 3 of them when it gets full. The rest are garden, food and rubbish which are easy and naturally separate.
So not as mad as it sounds.
Nothing in this article supports what the headline claims other than an MP throwing a tantrum for votes.
Yes places will need to offer more recycling options. 4 out of the 5 councils I’ve lived in have 3 bins: food and garden waste, recyclable waste and general waste. They have centres to separate the waste further.
If you end up with 7 bins that’s a failing of your council not the idea of recycling.