we dump waste worldwide and call it recycling
next time you sort the waste out just remember you are not saving the world …

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8157745.stm

Erm no.

A Brazillian opens two companies here in the UK and charges a lot of money to dispose of waste, only to transport it back to his home country to dump it.

the contract they have is for 'recyclable' plastic from the UK to Brazil
90% of our so called 'recyclable' plastic is dumped overseas (Asia, China, Africa, India, South America)

as stated next time you sort your waste out you are not saving the world
you are just sorting it out to save costs for these 'recycling' companies who will in turn dump it overseas …

And the recycling rules in the UK are confusing as hell!

When I visitied my mother, I was throwing stuff in the bin and getting shouted at, because the paper I was throwing away wasn't paper, well, it was but it was the wrong sort of paper, so it had to go into the general rubbish pile. The same for plastic bottles, instead of returning them to the shop to get a deposit back, I had to put them in the recycle bin - but the plastic bottle cap isn't plastic, well, it is plastic, but it is the wrong sort of plastic for recycling, so it had to go into general rubbish!

We don't have that sort of abiguity over here. All drinking bottles and cans have a deposit (except wine) and have to be returned to the shop, even one-way PET bottles. Plastic and metal are plastic and metal and go in the yellow bin, paper is paper and goes in the green bin (apart from sanitary paper waste, which has to go in the black bin), non-deposit glass (jam jars, wine bottles etc.) you take to the recycling point, vegetable waste (and egg shells) goes in the brown bin (or the garden compost) and the rest of general rubbish goes in the black bin.

Electrical waste and large items are collected by a special, free service by arrangement...

I just have a bloody big fire every week.

Not really - but when I am feeling subversive, I pop the plastic tops from the milk bottle into the bottle itself. I find this a particularly idiotic rule.

I've never heard of not including bottle caps in the recycling.

We have two bins. One for recyclables, and one for non-recyclables. It gets sorted on a lorry that comes round. When a bin is collected, the workers sort out the glass/plastic/metal/paper and we never get any bottle caps or anything returned. The only stuff we get returned is stuff that has been put in there by mistake.

I put electrical waste in my recycling bin and they have taken that in the past too.

I've stopped bothering with recycling.

Unless I have a huge pile of magazines/bottles etc that need dumping, I'll just chuck everything into the general bin.

Why don't you think recycling is worth-wile?

In this part of East Belfast, we get a tiny black box to throw all our recyclable rubbish into, that also comes with confusing rules. Needless to say, I don't bother - I could fill the thing myself just with the packaging from stuff I've ordered online

I think more people would bother if they were told specifically where the recycled waste goes to... That seems to be a bit of a secret for some reason. For instance, am I keeping the Coca-Cola company in cheap plastic when their prices only seem to go up rapidly anyway*?

* Mum and dad do the sorting

Yes we need a much better system over here. I agree that all bottles should have deposits and be returnable. If you could not buy goods with un-recyclable packaging then it would reduce waste overall. My general waste is very low. I barely fill a bin every two weeks.

I'm single so obviously I produce less waste than a family would, but my bin is still empty and hasn't been collected for 4 weeks. There will be one Tesco bag full in there on Monday.

It contains a couple of plastic trays and yoghurt pots, tetra packs and some fag ash. Everything else is recycled curb side.

It really bugs me they don't collect the tetra packs. I could easily go a whole year otherwise.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/e ... 725481.ece

were there is muck there is money, recycling to save the planet is a load of bollocks …

I should have been clearer. I meant pedal bin. It takes me two weeks to fill up a pedal bin. It is not that difficult to do, and should be made much easier by banning packaging that cannot be recycled.

I agree about banning non-recyclable packaging.

My mum buys all organic foods, and I notice that the plastics they use feel different (softer and nicer to the touch) but also have little logos saying they are both recyclable and degradable.

Quite why they can't be used for all packaging is beyond me. I don't know how much more they cost to produce, but if everyone was using them then I'm sure economies of scale would mean the price difference isn't too bad.

I still cannot recycle cardboard and plastic at home. We have bins for other things like coloured glass, paper, and tins.