Plastic Fantastic (Bins, Waste Management & Recycling)

Member Name: NinjaBaz

Product:	Bins, Waste Management & Recycling
Date:	31/03/09 (123 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Reduces landfill, Feel good factor, Save our raw materials

Disadvantages: Not enough resources, Refuse collections could be better

I must admit that until the local council started to provide a recycling collection service, we were very lazy and just shoved everything in the bin. Naughty, I know, but looking back I just didn't feel we had enough education about what can be recycled, where it can be recycled and just how much stuff could be re-used around the home and garden.

The issue I still have is that the fortnightly collection in my area will only collect a small proportion of all items that 'could' be recycled. They take paper and magazines but won't take cardboard (from cereal boxes etc.) They take glass, tins and certain plastics bottles, but won't take opaque milk bottles or plastic wrappers/containers. We quite often see other recycle boxes in the street still half full after a collection has been made, as they're putting out items they just won't take.

To get around this, we've bought some recycling 'dumper bags' to keep in the kitchen. These are in the form of three 30cmx30cmx43cm dumper bags, each coloured differently and marked up for glass, plastic and paper. They have press studs to hold them together at the top and as long as you have the room to store them, are very handy indeed. Being brightly coloured (Blue/Yellow/Green) they always catch your eye and are a constant reminder to recycle instead of binning. These bags tend to take around a month to fill up and then I simply take them to the local tip and dispose of the items safely.

It amazes me when I think of all the items we used to throw away, which now end up in the recycle bags! Below are a few examples of what's currently in my dumpy bags:

**Plastics**
Yoghurt pots, plastic sleeves from mailed magazines, washing liquid bottles, milk bottles, plastic containers from fresh raspberries, grapes, cheese slices, salmon fillets, sandwiches, sports drinks and parmesan cheese, plastic postage materials and the plastic covering from toilet rolls.

**Paper/Cardboard**
Cereal boxes, Weight Watchers desert/yoghurt boxes, gravy granules tub, toilet roll tubes, junk mail, medical tablet boxes, cereal bar boxes, pizza box, tea bag box, filo pastry box, newspapers, envelopes (minus clear window!) and magazines.

**Glass**
This isn't as full as the others as most of this stuff will be taken during the fortnightly collections, but still have two wine bottles, two food tins, three glass food jars and a beer can.

90% of the above items would have previously been put in with the regular rubbish....

We even try to re-use things like yoghurt pots for planting salad and herbs to grow on the kitchen window sill, and plastic containers to store and freeze food in.

We could do so much better though if we had a compost bin in the garden, then we could use up a lot of our leftover food and peelings in a more constructive way. Saying that, we've seen our weekly refuse collection cut from 2 bin-bags to just 1 bin-bag, so it's obvious that our actions are having a positive impact. That's roughly 53 bin bags of recycling per year! The major problem now is that the country doesn't seem to have enough storage or resources to deal with the surge in recycling materials!

Summary: Make a difference....it's not hard