Recycling Waste

[Rychard the Lionheart]

Waste recycling is expensive, especially to manually sort the waste out for recycling, but now a local council in the United Kingdom have devised a system where the public will now do the work for them for free.

The nine-bin recycling system is introduced.

Families are being forced to separate their rubbish into nine different bins in order to meet tough recycling targets.

Households have been told to separate cardboard from paper, and plastic bottles from glass, tins and aerosols.

The new bin system by Newcastle-under-Lyme Council, north Staffordshire, includes a silver slop bucket for food waste, which is then emptied into a larger, green outdoor bin.

There is a pink bag for plastic bottles, a blue box for glass, foil, tins and aerosols, a green bag for cardboard and blue bags for paper and magazines.

Clothing and textiles go in a white bag, garden waste in a wheelie bin with a brown lid and non-recyclable waste in a separate grey wheelie bin.

If successful, the scheme – which is more rigorous than any previous recycling standards expected of households – is likely to be adopted by councils up and down the country.

The recycling system, introduced last month, means that only food waste is now collected weekly, with all the other bins emptied on a fortnightly basis.

It replaced the old system of five different bins, which is commonly used across the country, with the aim of boosting the rate of recycling from 26 per cent in 2008 to 50 per cent by 2015.

Councils have been coming under increasing demands to reduce levels of domestic waste, with growing taxes on landfill space and the possibility of fines if they do not meet European Union targets from 2013.

An Environment Department report last week reported that the burning of waste by people attempting to dodge recycling regulations was the biggest contributor to poisonous, cancer-causing dioxins in the air.

Bin police are used across Britain to ensure recycling regulations are met, with the threat of £100 spot fines for those who over fill the bins, leave extra rubbish bags out or put bins out on the wrong day.

Non-payment of the fines can result in the culprit being taken to court, where they could be given a £1,000 fine.

A spokesman for Newcastle-under-Lyme council, a Lib Dem – Tory coalition, said: “If residents report litter problems to us our crews will pick it up that day.” (do they have a crew on standby waiting for the call?)

I will agree that we are not doing enough recyling but what extra costs are involved to achieve this, more trucks on the roads to pick up the extra bins. Also more staff to handling the bins, don't forget the increase of the bin police to made use we do not over fill the bins and bags.

We need good and sensible recycling regulations, most household in the UK do not have the space for the three bins we already have, we don't want more.

How do we compare to other countries, is your's better?

Sorry but just another rant folks !!

[marshlander]

I'm left wondering how many people have the space for all those recycling bins?

Here in West Norfolk we have two bins, one for refuse and one for recyclables. I imagine they have a squad of people somewhere who sort through the recyclable materials, but it seems a bit of wasted effort when we could do more ourselves. The local dump is now a sophisticated centre for recycling and has even opened up a shop for stuff that is too good to throw away and can be sold on.

In France PA and I live in an apartment block and there is a bin room on the ground floor. All household waste is bagged up and deposited in the big bins downstairs. Collections are on Tuesdays and Fridays. A short walk away from the apartment is a recycling point, each neighbourhood has at least one, but usually more. My weekly outing is usually to the recycling point where there are bins for paper, glass and plastics. They used to have a battery box there too, but that has gone. Everything else has to be taken to one of the local déchetteries, where the options for recycling are more complex. What I do like about the French centres is that I don't have to lug stuff up stairways to hurl something into a skip. Vehicles can drive up on to a ramp so the top of the skips are actually at "ground level".

[eastofeden]

I can't speak for the US or any other State but in the San Francisco Bay Area...specifically San Jose/Silicon Valley as each city has different specific regulations though I think SF is similar if not the same...we have the normal refuse bin and the recycling bin as well as a paper/cardboard bin and another bin for natural tree/plant/grass cuttings...so there are four. They won't take the recycling bin if you put paper/cardboard in there....it has to go in the paper/cardboard bin. Also...there are two different trucks. One takes the general refuse and the other takes the other three and puts them in different compartments of the truck.

[joseph]

i done recicing in my house it was glass and that in the diffrint bin.

[HankyPanky]

Rather than giving food waste to the binmen, just start a compost heap in the back yard. Would be good soil nutrients for a veggie plot

[Vikta]

Composting is a great alternative! I'm currently in Fiji trying to educate villages about the importance of proper waste/rubbish management. The infrastructure doesn't exist for a top down policy, as is the case for most developing countries, so we're trying to work from the bottom up. It's not always easy... it's sometimes difficult for villagers to grasp somewhat abstract issues.

Although systems for recycling may be less than perfect in many developed countries, be thankful that they exist... and perhaps do what you can to improve upon them.

[Mercury]

i wish we had more recycling options in my town. we have a regular garbage bin and then we have pick ups for news paper, certain plastics (1 and 2 only), and glass. we dont do cardboard or alot of plastics...

[Rychard the Lionheart]

Here is a table showing how the countries in the EU were doing on waste management in 2004, have we improved in 2010?




Which is better?
1. Landfill - Large holes in the ground filled with rubbish, large costs in transportion of rubbish. Methane gas produced which can be used.
2. Recycling - Re-using the rubbish is good but costs of recycling can be high. Help stops using new materials.
3. Burning the rubbish - Large costs of transportion of rubbish, also risk of greenhouse affect. Energy produced can be used.

Can we do more? For a better, cleaner environment on Earth. Yes we must.

[fredv3b]

Trouble with Methane and landfill is collecting it and not letting it leak into the atmosphere. Methane is a very potent greenhouse gas.

Recycling can often be quite energy intensive. Also the transport costs can be higher than recycling or landfill as all the different sorts of waste have to be separately transported to the different recycling plants.

You also miss two other options, reduce and reuse. A large proportion of household waste is packaging much of which is attractive but unnecessary. Why can't my beer bottles be cleaned and refilled instead of being melted down and reformed? We used to do it with milk bottles?

Just my tuppence worth...

[Vikta]

We clean & reuse our beer bottles here in Fiji . Small islands are a microcosm of extenuating factors, necessitating resourceful waste mgmt practices...

Until it becomes prohibitively expensive to waste, any 'rational' society will continue to do so... It's simply the path of least resistance.


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