Well i recycle glass, plastic bottles, cans, bike bits, paper,foil, batteries and plastic bags.All to stop them falling into landfill, and destroying the environmnet.

But with plastic bags what are they recycled into, and is it better to put them into one bag and tie it up, or just to leave them lose.

also why do some councils only recycle certain items, and not others.

Recycle or reuse is the way forward for society.

Recycle or reuse is the way forward for society.

you forgot reduce at no.1

We (nottingham) had a leaflet about recycling collections in january. We have no recycling boxes and I have never seen a recycling lorry, we started off making an effort and collecting bottles, tins etc but now it just goes in the bin…

recycle what we can at home (northampton) though.

Some councils don’t have the facilities. It all needs to be handled differently.

Dunno abotu the plastic bags. I’d assume they end up more plastic bags. If they were just all melted down then you could ball them all up into one bag.. however if some poor schmuck has to go through them all first looking for foreign objects that might mess up the melting process, then leave them loose.

stick em in the placcy bag recycling bin at your supermarket?

Why not reuse plastic bags? Oh, and try not to get a new bag every time you buy something.

I take all my old Tesco carrier bags down to Brighton Pier and throw them in the sea.
Apparently leatherback turtles love to eat them…..which seems a little weird to me 😕

Still, if turtles find them delicious and it stops them ending up in landfill sites then that’s fine by me…….
every little helps 8)

Some councils don’t have the facilities. It all needs to be handled differently.

Surely the council nextdoor does though? I can’t see that as a valid excuse….

Recycling things like plastic bags is part of the entertainment industry, rather than anything more substantial. It’s just something to do to put a smile on your face. You’re not really meant to think about what happens to the bag – It’s not relevant to the joy of recycling.

I have all but given up – our council ‘collects’ from ‘the edge of your property’ but the edge of OUR property isn’t close enough to the kerb so they ignore it. Having tried to carry stuff out to where they will collect it, a neighbour started throwing away everyone’s collection boxes because they were in front of his property (although on a public pavement).

And our council will collect newspaper but not card (have to take that to a recycling centre). Will collect glass and tins but not plastic.

By 2014 they say they will have a selection of wheelie bins for all householders so that will make things a bit easier.

It gets recycled out of the bin lorries at the waste transfer point anyway doesn’t it?? We have 2 shitty minging open top boxes, one for cans one for bottles. Little bag for cardboard. I resent doing (but do) it cos they attract flies, wasps and as the wheely bin is only emptied every two weeks its a pleasure to use in summer months when its had its 3rd dose of maggot infestation!!!

plastic bags are made of polythene as is most of the plastic packaging you carry home in them (anything with a 1 or 2 in the middle of the little recycling logo) so if you are recycling those plastics then chuck the carrier bags in with them.

Polythene bags get recycled into more polythene bags – those blue ones you get from your cornershop are those recycled bags. For all the fuss thats been made over carrier bags they are pretty inconsequential, the bag is a tiny fraction of the plastic you carry in them, and they are just about the most economical way you can carry anything about.

Weighty – you would think so but Harrogate council is (was?) classed as the worst council in the UK for recycling. And as for the tip recycling centre… Well it’s a recycling centre tip.

I’m fortunate enough to live in the best council district in the UK for recycling.. so I probably can’t offer much help as all ours gets done very efficiently as we have the best facilities for it..

I’m almost certain that you can take carrier bags back to your supermarket..

All supermarkets* have carrier bag recycling facilities. So why not take a couple out of there on your way in to the shop and reuse them forever. Double win.

Or throw them into the bushes and let a community group clean them up thus spreading the do-good feeling. Triple win.

I always take the old bags back to the supermarket for recycling, just wondered how they get recycled.and into what.

I’ve got a pen in front of me which proudly states it is made from recycled car parts if that helps.

Car parts to pens is as plastic bags to …………

I wish these Councils would get together and sort out a code of “best practice”. We have a collection every week, kitchen waste, glass, paper , card, cans and plastic are collected weekly, general waste and garden waste wheely bins are emptied on alternate weeks. It works pretty well.

plastic bags, tend to recycled into……more plastic bags!

the problem with plastics recycling is that you need to ensure that the various grades and types of plastic can be separated. (easily enough done in a modern MBT or MRF plant)

the thing that does annoy me is that the council get you to spilt everything into many little piles so they can meet their recycling targets for various waste streams (effectively turning the tax payer into a MRF sorting station) when modern plants can treat and segregate co-mingled waste therefore saving the materials for the manufacture and distribution for the 9 different waste bins/bags that I have to use (thanks N-U-L council) the increased vehicle usage for the various collection wagons and the bloomin hassle of storing bins all round the house.

If it’s looked at as a full environmental impact LCA for the whole collection and sorting of MSW there are much more efficient and less environmentally damaging ways to do it, but they are less obvious to “joe public” and perception of being green seems to be more important than final outcome

Some councils don’t recycle certain materials (normally plastics) because the cost of transporting them to the processing facility is too high. Others have re-processing facilities nearer and can do so. Recycling will generally be driven by the authority rather than the waste management company and will only improve as contracts are opened up for tender.

I have been trying to commercialize a recycling technology for MDF (aiming at commercial and industrial waste streams) for a few years and although there is a great deal of interest from users, nobody will invest until regulatory pressure forces them to. Unfortunately the good old UK Government prefers to burn things these days…

I went to a lecture yesterday from an academic who studies resource use. She basically said that very little food packaging actually gets recycled and the CO2e impact of the plastic is minimal compared with the impact of the food inside so the only issue is landfill of which plastic packaging as a whole makes up ~ 10%

Essentially, the best thing to do with non-chlorinated plastics at the moment it to burn them for heat and power.

BTW cardboard is probably worse for the enviroment once you facter in additional weight, energy intensive manufacture, additional wastage of food

What do people put in their bins if they regularly get maggot infestations?

What do people put in their bins if they regularly get maggot infestations?

2 weeks in a warm bin in summer should provide an ideal environment for the larvae of insects to thrive on small scraps of organic matter. I suspect it also provides an ideal environment for a whole multitude of bacteria too.

Ap – you SERIOUSLY don’t know the answer to that? 😮

Just general food waste!! In goes mr fly as I open the lid joined by a few cousins over the next week, not quite a full shake out into the bin lorry, another two weeks passes, by now there’s an inch of maggots in the bottom of the bin!! Im not squeamish, I’ll clean drains out at work no bother, but an inch of maggots really had me gipping!!!

Wrightyson drill a few holes in the base of the bin or in the lid and they then escape.

Strangely i quite like maggots, theyre underestimated in the scope of things and get a bad press.

Strangely i quite like maggots, theyre underestimated in the scope of things and get a bad press.

Don’t let Chewwwy catch you saying that………he’ll step on you 😐

btw, why would the maggots “escape” if you drill some holes……..I thought they liked being in there ? 😕

theyd fall through the holes,but then the local jobsworths would equire you to have a number of holes the correct size and number, and also something soft for the maggots to fall onto to save then being hurt.

I still don’t understand. Why are you putting food waste in the bin?
m_f – I’m not an idiot 🙄

If the food waste is collected weekly there’s not a problem with maggots and the general waste can easily last a fortnight. Some councils don’t seem to have got the hang of this very complicated idea 🙄 but also you’ll always get the muppets that insist on putting all the waste in one bin and then complain when its full maggots.

I still don’t understand. Why are you putting food waste in the bin?

Go on then – humour me. Where shall I put my food waste if not in the bin?

Compost heap!

the various grades and types of plastic can be separated. (easily enough done in a modern MBT or MRF plant)

Genuinely interested to know how they do this. Cardiff have one bag for garden and food waste and one for all other recyclables (except polystyrene and tin foil for some reason) so it clearly must be sorted at their end. I assumed it was done by hand.

Where shall I put my food waste if not in the bin?

I am having to suspend belief that in the 2nd decade of the 21st century there’s still apparently educated people who
a) throw food away, and
b) don’t compost that waste which they do create

a) throw food away

Chicken carcass, potato peelings, left-over baby food etc – is this food or waste?

b) don’t compost that waste which they do create

If I did compost food waste, where do you think I should put the resultant compost?

We were taking everything that could be recycled to the tip to be recycled until they introduced kerbside collection.

We can put food waste (inc meat) into a green bin which is collected every other week (we have a black bin that is collected on alternative weeks), we wrap the carcasses in newspaper to stop crap ending up at the bottom of the bin and therefore attracting maggots. You could do the same even if you don’t have a green bin, will save the bin getting filthy.

I wouldn’t put meat, bread, egg shells, pasta etc into a garden composter unless you want rats.

If I did compost food waste, where do you think I should put the resultant compost?

In the bin?

8)

We also reuse plastic bags as kitchen bin liners for non biodgradable/compostable waste, this is probably a bad thing really, might get some of these instead and recycle the placy bags.

http://www.greeneast.co.uk/natural-kitchen-products/biodegradable-bags.html

You could do the same even if you don’t have a green bin, will save the bin getting filthy.

Or you could use these:-
http://www.recyclesomerset.info/pages/Food%20bin%20liners%20updated%20Feb%2009.asp

We also reuse plastic bags as kitchen bin liners for non biodgradable/compostable waste.

We do the same, at least the bags are being reused.