Rotten tomatoes and cabbage (Waste disposal)

Member Name: Gwenick

Product:	Waste disposal
Date:	26/09/01 (71 review reads)
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It was bin day today, and once again I forgot to put the bin out. Thankfully our front door and our bin lie on the path which the bin men walk down to collect the bins from the close behind our house, and they very kindly took it and emptied it. When I went out to collect it there was an orange bag, a sticker and a little card with the heading “Your recycling guide”. In our area, I don’t know about others, we are given an orange bag in which to place our rubbish that can be recycled, I’m generally quite good at this, but sadly much of it ends up in with the non-recyclable rubbish.

However, looking through the information on this ‘Guide’ I discovered that many of the things, which I throw away without a second thought, could be placed into the bag! Oops, big guilt trip encroached across me, my mother has always advocated recycling and she’s great at it. All of her rubbish which can be placed on the compost heap (she’s an avid gardener) is taken to her precious compost bin at the end of the garden, come wind, rain or shine. All items that can be placed into the orange bag are carefully placed into it, and other things such as bottles are stored in her cupboard until she has enough to warrant a walk, with her shopping trolley full of glass, to the bottle bank at our local Tesco. I suppose what I’m trying to say is that despite her best efforts I still fail miserably in the recycling department.

So why should we recycle? Here in the UK our recycling rate, as a country, is just 10%!! Compare that to countries such as German, Holland and Scandinavia with 50% and it makes us British look pretty pathetic. However, the fact is that we do not have the space in this country to dispose of all our rubbish. Look at the numbers of new landfill sites that have to be found…eventually they’re going to run out of space and then we’re going to have a major problem on our hands. A major problem wi
th these sites is that there is a serious risk of water being contaminated. Most people know about the detrimental effects, on our environment and our heath, of incinerating rubbish. The smoke and fumes, which are created, don’t do anyone any good. If we recycle products then it means that fewer landfill sites will have to be found (just think of the number of streams that will be cleaner and safer for our children to play in (with our supervision of course). And of course, the more that we recycle the fewer incineration plants there will be, and therefore less damage to our health and the air that we breathe.


What can I recycle though? – I hear you ask. Well you may be surprised to hear about the amount of rubbish we generate that can be re-used. First of all I’ll briefly cover what you can pass over to others, usually your local council to recycle. In our orange bags that we receive we can place:

Cans and Tins – these include drinks cans, food tins and pet food tins. How many of us don’t have pets, drink soft drinks or eat baked beans?

Newspapers and Magazines – don’t throw today’s newspaper in the bin once you’ve finished the crossword, either put it in your orange bag, or take it to a paper bank. Also you can put all that horrible junk mail and flyers from your local newspapers into the bag. And don’t forgot that once you’ve finished planning your holiday you can put the holiday brochures in there too.

Card – all types of card, except corrugated card can be placed into our orange bags. This can be in the form of cereal packets, detergent boxes and other similar material, although its helpful to flatten them before you place them in the bag.

Plastic – you can place you plastic drink & milk bottles, plastic detergent bottles and plastic shampoo bottles in the bag – although make sure that you remove the lids as these are made of
a type of plastic which at present can not be recycled.

Telephone Directories – are you fed up with the last three copies of the Yellow Pages lying around your house, if so put it in the bag!

That’s all of the things that can be placed into the recycling bags, but don’t think that’s all you can recycle, there’s more:

Glass – once you’ve finished that jar of jam, finished you’re Scotch and had a cheese and Wine party you can take all of your empty glass containers to your nearest bottle bank. It might seem like a lot effort, especially when you get there and have to sort into clear, brown, green etc, but think of the good you’re doing. If you don’t know where you’re nearest bottle bank is then call your local council and ask them.

What do they do with my orange bags though? All of the rubbish which you place into the orange bags is sorted by hand at your local MRF (Materials Recycling Factory) and then sent to various places depending on the material.

Newspaper and Magazines are sent to a paper mill where they are made into new newsprint

Plastics – there are three types of plastic which are placed into the orange bags which are:
PET – your fizzy drinks bottles which are turned into fibre to make clothing or fillings for sleeping bags.
HDPE – your milk, fruit juice and detergent bottles which are flaked and made into new products
PVC – your squash bottles which are used to make drainpipes and plant pots.

Glass - This is taken to be ‘melted’ down and turned into new glass – I know that in Zimbabwe a VERY large percentage of fizzy drinks bottles are recycled, some 2nd or 3rd generation!


What about the things that you can recycle on your own? There are plenty of things that you can re-use at home, with very little effort.

Glass – do you make jam, or know someone
that does? If so then once you’ve finished your shop bought jam, peanut butter, marmalade, or baby food keep the jar. To get rid of the label soak the jars in hot soapy water for a while, they’ll peel of very easily afterwards. If you don’t know anyone who makes jam, ask at your local church – they often have fairs and there’s bound to be at least one old dear from the church who makes jams for a stall.

Vegetable waste – this includes potato peelings, apple cores, rotting tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, cabbage onions etc. If you’re a gardener you can use them for making excellent compost – it takes a little while to turn into good compost, but its well worth the wait. Things like banana skins, and stones from fruit don’t decompose very well/quickly and unfortunately will have to be thrown into the bin………unless you’ve got 10yrs to wait.

Cardboard and plastic – if you’ve got children at home save all your cardboard roll from your toilet rolls and kitchen towels, eggs boxes and cereal boxes. They can be combined with empty washing liquid bottles to make trains, spaceships, cars and UFO’s!!! Not only will you be doing your little bit towards the environment, but also it will entertain your children for hours. If you don’t have any children then your local primary school, nursery school or other children’s groups will probably quite happily take them off you’re hands. Another tip for cardboard is to keep all the boxes which you buy things in, TV’s, Computers, Microwaves etc, if you flatten them carefully and store them in your loft/shed then if you, or anyone you know is moving house they’ll be there ready and waiting.

Clothes – if you’ve got clothes that you don’t wear anymore, but are still in good condition take them to a charity shop. Not only will you be ‘doing your bit’ but you’l
l be helping two lots of people – the people who the charity supports and the people who are not fortunate to have enough money to buy brand new clothes. If a trip into town sounds like too much hard work, keep them until your next church jumble sale comes around and donate them. If the clothes are not in a condition to be used again, rip them up and use them as rags. My mother is still using shirts my father stopped wearing years ago to clean around the house.

I’m sure that there are some that I’ve missed but you can see what I’m getting at, so many of the things that we throw into the bin can easily be re-used.

Is there any thing else I can do? Yes there is, next time you go to the supermarket have a look and see how much packaging is used on some products – I’ve noticed that many of the ‘cheaper’ brand tend to have less packaging that the ‘expensive’ ones, this in my opinion is wasteful. I think, personally, that many of the expensive products cost a lot of money because we are paying for packaging. When you do your next shop try and buy goods that have as little packaging as possible. In addition to this try and buy products that are made from recycled materials, they may be a little more expensive but I’ve found that they’re generally of a very high quality. In my opinion, the more people that buy recycled goods, the cheaper they will become. Another thing that my mother does is to use some of her non-toxic rubbish items, i.e. not the packaging that meats comes in, to burn with her garden rubbish!!

It might seem like a lot of hard work, but its not really. If you’ve got everything planned then it should only take a few more seconds that usual to sort the recyclable rubbish out from the rest. And if you don’t really see the point, remember that you’re children, grandchildren and great grandchildren will have to live with the mess that we’r
e making today.

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