Re-Cycling

I recently did some research about recycling and it shocked me. Some LAs don't recycle plastics at all, some incinerate or send overseas. Malaysia seems to be the main country to dump our plastic as China has put a block on it. It is very expensive to put rubbish in landfill so most LAs send to incinerators which are not very Eco. If you think biodegradable is the way to go - most centres haven't got the digesters yet to cope with it and it is incinerated. Needs industrial digesters because if you put a "biodegradable" coffee cup on your compost heap for example it would take years to bio degrade. Likewise bio doggie poo bags are incinerated, so you may as well use plastic, unless you plan to leave out in the countryside! I had a great deal of trouble finding out exactly what my LA does with recycling, it's not very transparent, but none of our plastic is sent overseas thankfully, but is sorted & sent for recycling into plastic chips. Still big carbon footprint.

We have separate receptacles for:
Glass, cardboard, small electrical goods
Tins, foil, plastics, aerosols
Paper and thin card, tetra paks
Food waste (only in the liners provided, free)
Rags, worn shoes
Garden waste bins are chargeable, but we have our own compost bin.
General waste.
So 6 or 7 here.

It seems to work well (says she, who lets DH get on with it ]. I shove any plastic bags into the recycling point at the supermarket.

My DDs in the next local authority have just a general waste bin and another for all recyclables, so their LA must get it all sorted. Food waste isn’t collected there.

Different local authorities have different rules. Plastic punnets which contained strawberries and the like can't be recycled where I live even though they have the symbol which states otherwise. I can put cardboard in my bin here but couldn't at my last house. I'm a meticulous fuss-pot anyway but even I get confused. I consult the list provided on a regular basis but it should be easier than this, shouldn't it?

I thought that this thread was about cycling, not recycling. (Regarding Cycling?)

Not being a pedant, BTW.

We have five bins. One for garden, one for recycling, one for food, one for inside the house to put food on before you put it in the food one outside and one for 'other'. When I asked the council what constitutes 'other' the chap said 'you know, video tapes n that' We have to buy biodegradable bin bags for the food one, which are not cheap.

Can I say that H&M pay £5 for every carrier bag of material items you take in to any shop. They can have been bought anywhere including bedlinen, kids clothes, anything worn or with holes or just outgrown.
It gets cleaned and sorted. Some goes to impoverished areas abroad, some to charities and some of the poorer quality stuff gets recycled into material to make more clothes.

In my area ( Waverley Borough Council) they state that plastic bread bags or compostable bags can be used in food waste caddies but not ordinary thin 5p or long life 10p plastic bags.
I have seen one refuse collector get covered with liquid food waste when he tossed the caddy above the lorry bin and the contents sprayed over his uniform. The caddy owner obvs didn't put a liner in it.
It has been said that some food waste from collections goes into landfill, despite what we are led to believe.

We don't have food waste caddies so no idea what happens to that. We don't waste food unless you include veg peelings and they go in the compost bin.

Yes, I do find it all very confusing and DH will often disagree with me about which bin to put things in.

I think we can all help in a bigger way by giving things to charity shops and offering them on Freegle. Our charity shops even take rags. I've made bunting out of odd bits of material and it keeps being borrowed by people who know someone I know. Our landfill bin is always nearly empty.

I'm not sure why 'more Swedish' - I'm currently staying with a Swedish friend in Stockholm, and she certainly doesn't sort hers into 7 bags, It's 3 max. And unlike my council in SW London, there's no recycling of food waste - it just goes in with the general - presumably landfill - rubbish.

On this subject I was very surprised to see this morning a refuse truck with a big announcement on the side - apparently food caddies can now be lined with any plastic bag!!!??? are they tipping the waste out then disposing of the bag? or not recycling the food waste at all?

It depends where you live Baggs. My authority leaflet says they will accept “Plastic bags and Film wrapping”. Maybe one day it will be the same everywhere, we can but hope!

I live in an apartment and we have four different recycling bins. However, I’m often confused- perhaps we need to be more Swedish:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/business-47880558/would-you-sort-your-rubbish-into-seven-different-bags

fact that

I don't think any plastic bags should go in recycling bins, nor cling film. Bin bags that are made from recycled plastic are usually for landfill bins only. I find it helpful to think of plastic bags as polythene (what we used to call them). It's not the same stuff as hard plastics which mostly can be recycled.

The fact a lot of people put plastic/polythene bags in their recycling bins is probably why so much that could be recycled is put in landfill instead.

Doesn't your council give you a list of items that can be recycled by them? I think councils differ in how many different types of plastic they are equipped to deal with. We have to look at the list.

or even check- as I should my posts!