Wednesday January 11, 2006

Recycling - the future is in the past...

Over the years since I have stepped up our recycling efforts I have been looking at what other people I know do with their rubbish. I don't go through their rubbish bins I just observe how they deal with it. The first thing I see is there is no common facilities provided UK wide. So for us we have a big plastic bin where we can put paper and card and another where tins and plastic go. Certain types of plastic are not accepted. We are also provided with a strong canvas bag for garden rubbish. For us this puts the onus on us to sort the glass out - easy for me as on my way to work is a glass recyling area. Kitchen waste I put in my composing bins on the allotment. So if I was to look at our black plastic bag waste you would see things like yoghurt pots, cellophane and clear plastic wrapping and a few other bits but not much. It seems to me that their should be a standard level of recycling mandated for all parts of the country. The next tricky hing is to get people to use it. One way I have thought of is by weight. Charge more for those who put more in the black rubbish bag. I think the wheelie bin is an ecological nightmare they make it to easy to through all sorts of things like glass in them. The other thing is the general wasteful way we all lead our lives nowadays. I don't want to go back to Victorian England but I think a certain amount of thrift would not do us any harm at all. Should this be taught at schools ? Maybe not as the average school is overloaded with subject matter already. Like a lot of bad habits you see children following their parents example. Another idea would be to put recycling places like bottle banks in company car parks. We have lots of spare space in our work car park it would be great to have a tin, paper and bottle bank for those who do not have these facilities at home. I was also thinking about flats. Would it not be great if they had a waste shute for kitchen rubbish. This could be emptied and composed and sent to allotments nearby. The Conservatives seem to be jumping on the green bandwagon. Perhaps they should incorporate serious recycling into their manifesto too... Who knows they might get voted in next time...