Great to hear from a couple of enthusiasts who are doing their best to do the right thing.The truth about recycling is that it is full of compromises and professionals have to make judgments based on the best compromise to encourage. Tetrapaks are a good example: I looked at a couple of years ago, when I was told there were at least 4 different components in a Tetrapak - cardboard, polythene lining, aluminium (not sure why) and plastic caps etc.It is impossible to strip each element, except in one place in the UK, but using it is wildly uneconomic given that a Local Authority gets a very limited quantity (always decreasing - rarely now for milk, juice, soup). The vast majority is cardboard, and cardboard recyclers are happy to take them, so that's what we do - put it with the other cardboard.Haven't been to a cardboard recycler (they are overseas) but I have been to Mitcham https://www.biocollectors.com/ to look at food recycling. Most of the stuff is either 'loose' or in biodegradable bags. But some people use ordinary bags and the recyclers have to sort them using a hideous conveyor belt. This happens after a first session of decaying in a tank. They fish out the real plastic and dispose of it, but they get the biodegradable bags and send them back to the tank. It takes up to 4 dips before they are sufficiently degraded to go into their anaerobic digester (where the stuff is turned into gas for the network and fertiliser for farmers) It is true of other things you mentioned - windows or staples in cardboard or paper don't discourage recyclers - they love our stuff because it's relatively pure. If paper ends up in cardboard - no biggie but the price it earns is less. Too much cardboard in the paper could lead to a whole consignment being rejected. Very rare for us. As to education etc, we often put it into Hounslow Matters about once a year and often via messages on bins themselves or through doors. Latest campaign is https://www.hounslow.gov.uk/news/article/2826/no_time_to_waste_new_campaign_launches_in_hounslow_to_encourage_recyclingAs to government, you're right and there has been a lot of effort put in by DEFRA, councils, the industry etc and this resulted to the Environment Act 2021. A lot of it has not actually been finalised and Sunak putting his poorly thought through oar in will only delay it further and make it worse.
Guy Lambert ● 1081d