Green!

[ailbhe]

Last night I emailed the guy who stood for the Green party here last local election. I've tried talking to the council refuse collection dept direct but it got me nowhere.

You see, we have a huge grey wheelie bin for landfill waste and a huge burgundy one for recyclable waste (where "recyclable" means "accepted by local council for recycling"). I've asked before if I can get the huge grey bin replaced with a smaller one - no - and whether the recycling bin can be collected more often - no.

The landfill waste, usually less than a quarter of a binfull, is collected weekly. The recycling waste, usually so full the lid doesn't close properly, is collected fortnightly. Our friends N+L (Of Baby Iz and Baby Jo fame) have a similar problem, and their kids are both in disposable nappies, which should be producing plenty landfill to go around.

So I wrote to the Green fella. I asked him if he thought the Greens would be interested in a petition or a poll, since the Council's excuse to me is "there's no demand" for more recycling and less landfill.

I'd like more recycling. I'd like a paper bin and a tins bin and a plastics bin (all in together at the mo) and I'd love a glass recycling collection instead of having to schlep it to the bottlebank. I'd like to be able to recycle waxed cardboard milk cartons, which aren't usually waxed but plastic lined anyway, and plastics other than "bottles". Yes, the council only accepts plastic bottles for recycling, no other kind of plastic. If it's molded into a box instead, no dice. Isn't that... arbitrary?!

I'd also dearly love a compost collection; our own compost bin isn't really up to us, and the wormery isn't either. (Memo to self: start seperating cooked and uncooked kitchen waste again so we can use both composter and wormery again). I'd love a garden waste collection. At the moment, people just put all these things into landfill, which is so wasteful.

And I want my water butt to arrive. We ordered it ages ago, I think.

User	Paper	Card	Waxed paper	Plastic bottles	Other plastic	Food and drink cans	Glass	Garden waste	Uncooked kitchen waste
ailbhe	x	x		x		x
sam_t	x			x		x	x	x
cangetmad	x	x				x	x
artela	x						x	x
ai731	x	x	x	x	x	x	x
mrs_warwick	x	x		x		x	x	~
buzzy_bee	x					x	x

Comments

[helenprev.livejournal.com]

When our recycling bins were delivered, a few months ago, I asked about plastics, and apparently there is nowhere AT ALL in this country that recycles anything plastic other than bottles. It has not been found to be cost effective, apparently. So the fact they have little recycling triangle logos on them means nothing in the UK.

So that is why none of the councils take them. I loathe throwing them away though :-(

[cangetmad.livejournal.com]

While our council only doorstep-collects paper, card, tins and glass (fortnightly, sorted into different boxes and bags), they have on-street big bins every mile or so that take plastic packaging, and that's not restricted to bottles. And here's an FAQ which says there's a plant in Yorkshire which recycles other plastics, including things like yoghurt pots.

[helenprev.livejournal.com]

How very interesting - thank you for that! :-)

[kelvix.livejournal.com]

although we do not get our plastic recycled by Slough council in the kerbside collections, I heard somewhere that Slough had a company that specialised in the subject..