Forum Topic

Recycling

Thank you all for your useful links and comments. I think my point is nothing much has changed since Hounslow started road side collecting, many years ago, yet the packaging industry has. What is the point in on line suppliers going to trouble of supplying their goods in recyclable material if it has to go into landfill. Has anyone told them of the bad news? The garden centres have changing from black to green pots so that the recycling facilities can now take them why can't they take new times of material apart from all the old stuff that we have had for years. The world has moved on. Am afraid complacency springs to mind. The local authorities need to push it forward.

Nicholas Brooks ● 2342d2 Comments

Nothing from Hounslow (except things like asbestos) goes to landfill. If it is not recycled it is incinerated for electricity generation.Councils have to work with 'offtakers' ie the people who take our recycling 'product' and actually use it, plus we have to balance what we can realistically sort and people's willingness to sort themselves. I believe in Japan residents are expected to separate 9 different types of plastic and take them to street recycling centres. Here, many people complain about the mild sorting that Hounslow asks of them.By a mile the biggest change we can make in Hounslow is to increase food recycling. More than 40% of what ends up in black wheelie bins (collected every fortnight) is food waste which could be collected every week, reducing the attraction for rats, cats and foxes and saving about £100 per tonne in gate fees in addition to the ecological benefits.

Guy Lambert ● 2342d

I remember when hard plastic food pots were not collected kerbside.  Or tetrapaks.  Or brown cardboard. It is only most recently that there has been such an increase in cardboard and associated packaging from online deliveries.  It is a great shame that the UK Govt hasn't taken the same position as the French Govt over Amazon.  (You can give feedback to Amazon on the amount of packaging from them on their website.  If they have overpackaged tell them.) In France they still have bookshops. Govt here is heavily lobbied by interest groups eg the plastics lobby and oil industry.Rishi Sunak announced in the budget that plastic packaging should have a 30% recycled content which is a big step forward for recycling if it happens. Scotland has just passed their Deposit Return Scheme law for plastic and glass bottles and cans. Yet to come into force.It all takes time.  Any changes to collections cost money in communicating to residents and there are a lot of people who seem to find any change very difficult.The place for the info on what can be recycled by your council is your own Council's website.  If you want to recycle more then you can do so.  However the basic waste hierarchy starts at the top with Refusing and Reducing - in particular packaging.  So it all starts with what you choose to buy. Then there is Repairing and Reusing. Recycling is right at the end and is basically an end of life solution.You can Reuse those plant pots yourself or find an outlet, just as you would with furniture and other items you no longer want but which are serviceable. Freecycle or Freegle or www.trashnothing.com are suggestions of where you could offer them.  Charity shops aren't open at the moment - even if they would take them - but you can arrange a no contact collection from you with the above if anybody wants them. It's all about reducing the amount of waste made and making the most of it as a resource.          https://www.letsrecycle.com/news/latest-news/plastics-tax-set-at-200-a-tonne-in-budget-2020/There are a lot of smelly wheelie bins around at the moment because people are not separating out their food waste which then has to sit in a wheelie for two weeks when if it was placed and 'recycled' in the food waste bins and sent for anaerobic digestion would be collected weekly and turned into gas and electricity.  Remember that when the lights go out!

Philippa Bond ● 2342d