This is how it works in Germany:
Haven't you heard - we;ve taken back control!!! None of those forrin ways for us plucky members of the island race!!
Once again it's a scheme that will affect the people who already ensure they recycle.
The supermarkets need to be made to address packaging as a whole - it's cheaper to buy 2 plastic packaged avocado's (other hipster products are available) than 2 single unpackaged ones. In Asda you can buy individual limes for 30p each, or a packaged packet of 4 for £1. How has this been allowed to happen?
I tweeted ASDA about this, but they've not responded...
Who actually buys bottled water? I don’t get it.
We do, but only because my eldest has a sensitive stomach, and even bottles that have been thoroughly washed make him vomit in his sleep, since we switched to single use bottles it has pretty much solved the problem. The youngest has a refilled water bottle and is fine.
I think it's a good idea in theory, especially for places with no recycling facilities, but all of our bottles are recycled with the rubbish collection, and unless it's a big deposit people will still chuck bottles out of car windows, they've spent the money they don't care.
As kids we used to re-cycle the already recycled glass bottles by going into the rear yards of shops & pubs and helping ourselves to what was in the empty crates 😉...but if plod is looking in ..I just made this up !
I agree that the consumer needs encouragement to change, but the manufacturers also need encouragement to use better more reusable, biodegradable and recyclable materials. Most consumers couldn't give a shit what stuff is packaged in, they just follow the crowd. Marketing makes us want fancy packaging, so marketing could also get the consumer to change their opinions. The government should force change onto manufacturers there by forcing the consumer to change and then marketing makes us all believe this is all good. Everybody's happy, apart from the manufactures who need to spend a bit of their profits changing their production lines, but will be happy when they start pulling in the £££'s again.
Like I said earlier, it's a good idea and it should work.....
But heres my take. I run a small village shop, if the recycling drop of points for the bottles are all in supermarkets it's going to drive more trade there way. Or I'll have to match the scheme like for like in cost and recycle any bottles myself at the drop-off point to recoup the money which will make my accounts screwy if it's a voucher system.
The media hasn't gone into any specifics or details (even the retail media don't know how it'll work for shop owners). Im all for additional recycling / planet saving though so will support the scheme or try to surpass it if I can.
people will still chuck bottles out of car windows
Where they will be gathered up by homeless people and Boy Scouts.
How can anyone think this is a bad idea?
The Oceans are full of plastic and if this helps reduce that, then that has to be a good thing.
As for a trip to the supermarket being stressful. FFS. Get a grip.
if it's that bad, pay £3 for delivery or MTFU.
Yep, still be throwing them in the bin, just like I do with carrier bags.
A populist policy to try to take attention away from a government failing us.
It reminds me of the tale of the baby boomer talking to the millennial,
We trashed a planet, used all the resources, polluted the hell out of it, inflated the price of basic needs and took all the profits, whats your generation ever done?
Anything that reduces waste is a good idea.
We've recently bought a Bean to cup coffee machine because of the amount of pod waste we produced.
My wife also bought a SodaStream because she didn't like the number of bottles we went through (I drink filtered tap water. This also goes in the coffee machine). SodaStream have a gas canister replacement scheme so these are recycled (but still require a courier to drive it to/from your house).
Now, my 2 cents... We holiday in Turkey, and nobody drinks the tap water and everything comes in bottles. The amount of waste is horrific. Don't know what the answer is (apart from the government spending less on the military and more on their infrastructure.
So something is to be done about bottles,excellent. Now the world needs a solution for disposable coffee cups.
Julie
Agreed, coffee cups are probably one of the worst disposable units.. they claim to be recyclable yet are coated in a thin plastic film on the inside..and don’t get me started on the sodding lids.
Get a recyclable cup, Morons.
Long overdue, works very well in Germany & Norway.
Agreed missed opportunity with coffee cups.
Reusable not recycled for the win
Again abroad you get a discount for bringing your own cup. Simple solution.
It amazes me, Harrogate Spring produce Bn’s of 1/2ltr and 1ltr bottles a day.. you see them everywhere from corner shops to high end restaurants..
I’m inclined when I’m up there soon to post one of these through thier letterbox.
Why once again hammer the consumer
The consumer isn't going to lose out if they can be bothered to do their bit for recycling. Don't forget, it's YOU (and me and all of us) that are driving this consumption and waste, because you're the one buying it. So you should be doing something about it.
This is great. Finally the government having the balls to do something that might annoy people for the sake of the environment. If we're to survive with anything like a nice world in which to live, we're going to have to take a lot more hits with much greater impact than this.
Bring it on.
It a step towards reducing plastic packaging and increasing recycling rates and hopefully reducing litter which when compared to other western Europe countries we are terrible.
Just because it doesn't solve the entire plastic use and recycling problem doesn't mean that it is not worthy.
Just because it requires a change in behaviour doesn't mean it's not worthy. Infact that is the point. If you are worried about loosing money via curbside pickup then save even more money and don't buy bottled drinks.
The UK is such a small c conversative don't want any change country it's a embarrassing.
Remember leaded petrol, smoking in pubs, ring pulls on cans that came off, free plastic bags etc.
People just got on with it (well except the mail/express readers)
The biggest problem I had with bottle return systems when I went on holiday to Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Norway last summer was that bottle I had on the train/boat that I'd bought in a shop in the previous country.
Also the stupid German multi-use bottle scheme being different from the single use scheme, single use bottles go back to any shop with a pfand machine, multi-use have to go back to the shop you bought it at, at the counter... or something.
Remember collecting Bru bottles way back... would stash enough of them to pay for a bottle before returning.
Great idea. But it needs to be introduced on drinks cans as well.
Works well abroad. Seen it in action in norway (urban and rural areas) and used it there for years. Take your bottles back and do your shopping - if you can carry the heavy shopping home you can carry the EMPTY bottles to the shop, easy
Let’s do it.
What is people’s problem here?
I live in Germany, it is barely any effort at all to take battles back on my next supermarket visit, and they are surprisingly light when emptied of their contents, if you can carry them out of a supermarket full, you can carry them back empty.
The UK is ****ing filthy, it is the first thing I notice when back visiting, frankly the population needs a kick up its lazy arse.
I live in Germany, it is barely any effort at all to take battles back on my next supermarket visit, and they are surprisingly light when emptied of their contents, if you can carry them out of a supermarket full, you can carry them back empty.
The UK is **** filthy, it is the first thing I notice when back visiting, frankly the population needs a kick up its lazy arse.
This, very much this. It's not hard and we really shouldn't be moaning about this.
The only struggle I have is convincing the GF to move off of bottled fizzy water as soda stream costs more than buying carbonated water.
What’s the obsession with bottled water? Water isn’t the only drink that comes in plastic bottles you know!
It's the only liquid that comes out of a tap in a perfectly drinkable state though.
I think in principle this has to be a good thing but I think there is a few aspects to this, no one can disagree we need to stop doing stupid stuff to destroy the planet (and if you think your little 'bit' doesn't make a difference you've obviously never slept near a mosquito!)
Aside from that:-
* If you go to the supermarket and shop it is a little bit of faff but not a lot and if you don't then yes it will cost you, what price a little inconvenience? Oh yes the planet ... then give / get / pay someone else to do it for you maybe? Or JFDI
* Assume if you get delivery groceries they will also collect them too? Probably.
* I have to wonder if that means that councils will reduce (cough splutter) the council tax as we all won't recycle so much (thinks snowball in hells chance) but an interesting argument.
* What I struggle to understand, beneath the politics, is why the focus on drinks bottles and cans as opposed to all that plastic and cans.
Sadly I think this is just a politically driven thing as opposed to a doing the right thing :/ Politicians ...
James
* What I struggle to understand, beneath the politics, is why the focus on drinks bottles and cans as opposed to all that plastic and cans.
Because this will take a huge effort to get over the line and will have lots of "Angry People in Local Newspapers" to get through to. If they get it going it's a small win but an important first step.
I think there's an element of bottles and cans are really easy to recycle, people just need to return them. Bottles are almost exclusively PET which recycles well, and if you make them more solid you can even reuse them easily, like many bottles on the continent.
Plastic packaging in general is a mess of different plastics that are hard to sort, with varying degrees of recyclability. Which doesn't mean that shouldn't be addressed as well, just that bottles you can make a massive improvement with just a small change in behaviour, so it's an ideal first target.
We do benefit from a Water Supply that is perfectly attributed to humans drinking the stuff.
Since the Victorians first placed healthy sanitary drinking water at the top of their daily requirements the UK has invested £bn's into a system that provides perfectly adequately drinkable product.
One main reason for the influx and profligacy of bottled drinking water originates back in the 70's-80's when the UK was thought of as a shit destination to holiday in. It took the middle classes to gather their offspring to climates warmer, where the water systems were either effluent based or non existent. Bottled Water there is a necessity, not a marketing "luxury".
The sheer amount of money poured into the marketing of Bottled Water as a "premium" product is frankly outrageous. The middles classes took to it like boars at a watering hole, with images of sleek French Women gazing alluringly at their counter body across a swish Mediterranean outdoor cafè then waltzing down Leatherhead High St with a Buxtons Water Bottle cocooned like a new born child. All stunningly ignorant of the production and disposal methods of the image they covet.
My generation has ruined this planet, we should be down well ashamed of the way we treat it and our fellow human beings.
Your kids are better off without us.
Edit :
Just deleted my rant ..apologies if you read it !
Scaled
I’m a bit irked by this, the machines will invariably be in the bloody car park and with 3 kids, 2 of them under 3 I need both hands to stop them getting flattened by some prick doing 30mph in tescos, that’s before the 3 year old has told me that he needs a pee Right Now and the new born does a shit that goes from neck to ankle
In a fortnight we generate an entire wheelie bin of mixed glass, metals and plastics, all rinsed and sorted. A trip to the supermarket is already pretty stressful :/
Aw snowflake. It may come as a shock to you but people in civilised countries that already have recycling under control also breed and have kids. They manage just fine. Why can't you?
I’ve had a post removed by some high brow bloody goody two shoes for saying that as a kid I used to pinch a bottle or two from the back of a pub and claim a refund on it ..laughable isn’t the word !
I still see it...
Just search for the word pub on this page...
You must have been posting that as I was deleting and apologising ..
I also spotted that it hadn't been deleted ..so Again my apologies.
For me personally it seems more effort than the current kerbside recycling scheme but if the weight of evidence suggests that it'll cut plastic waste then I'm very happy to give it a go.
The UK is **** filthy, it is the first thing I notice when back visiting, frankly the population needs a kick up its lazy arse.
Sadly this is true so anything that helps can only be a good thing.
If we get some of those marvellous machines they have in Germany, I'm all for it.
While visiting a mate to help him with his house there, I volunteered to take all the cans and bottles down to the supermarket just so I could watch the machine work - you could see through this one to the various waste bins behind. Watching it spin & scan, and then shoot the bottles out into the appropriate bin at the back was awesome! 😀
(water) "It’s the only liquid that comes out of a tap in a perfectly drinkable state though."
"and is delivered full of limescale (calcium carbonate) and potentially also including sodium, aluminium, chlorine, copper, iron, lead, magnesium, manganese and nitrogen, and compounds made from them."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/z99d7p3
"Even if the water leaves the source in a relatively clean state, don't forget that your water travels through pipes, which may have been underground since Victorian times. It is almost impossible for the water not to become contaminated by something undesirable.
Another very important health hazard is fluoride, which is added by some water authorities in the UK. Around 10% of the UK’s water supply is fluoridated, despite a huge and ever-growing body of evidence that the science behind this mass medication programme is questionable to say the least. Fluoridation of water is banned in all other European countries. fluoridation of the public water system is a case of mass medication without consent."
http://freshlysqueezedwater.org.uk/waterarticle_watercontent.php
Now how much of this is true is perhaps questionable but there is no conspiracy pages dedicated to Ashbeck spring water from Tesco which is like 30p a bottle.
Great idea. But it needs to be introduced on drinks cans as well.
Pure aluminium - recycling firms love them, you can get money for them if collected & weighed in 🙂
Buxton® Natural Mineral Water filters naturally underground and travels through a lot of rock before arriving at the surface. To ensure that no large mineral deposits make it into a bottle, we just filter the water when bottling it to remove the potential deposits. This does not remove any of the dissolved minerals in the water that make it so unique. You can see the standard composition here or directly have a look on your bottled water:
Bottled water also has dissolved minerals etc in it, worried filter it at home.
**** me. This thread is a perfect example of the stupidity of the average British citizen and why we really really need to stay in the EU so that some of their civilising influence rubs off on us and prevents our inexorable slide into decreptitude.
I would love to see a machine such as the one Deadly Darcy describes above ..but as that would mean significant investment by some / body / council..thats probably a non starter...
..I was wondering how long it would take for someone to turn it into Euro debate ..ffs there is a whole thread for that !
Stay on topic ...please!
“and is delivered full of limescale (calcium carbonate) and potentially also including sodium, aluminium, chlorine, copper, iron, lead, magnesium, manganese and nitrogen, and compounds made from them.”
Err, you know the word "mineral" in mineral water...
Edit: far too slow.
It's long overdue but......it's only a start. MSP on pg2 and the generalist ^^^ are both 100% correct.
I don't see much evidence of manufacturers and brand owners working collaboratively for the greater good; major retailers and manufacturers should be leading this but they haven't shown any serious interest - they're very good with bland statements but that's about it.
Gove is making all the right noises about environmental pollution and pushing policies which I'm fully behind; never thought I would be able to say that based on his previous.
**** me. This thread is a perfect example of the stupidity of the average British citizen and why we really really need to stay in the EU so that some of their civilising influence rubs off on us and prevents our inexorable slide into decreptitude.
This.