Why did you start recycling

[Country lover]

Having been in the waste industry for more years than I care to remember I am passionate about recycling and would love to hear people's stories about what got them recycling in the first place. Where you forced to by your council, was it for charity, did your children start to nag you, was it environmental issues, etc?

I think if we can work out what motivates different people to recycle we can then use that information to get other involved.

[feathered-friend]

In the UK we just recycled paper and garden waste which was collected by the council, and glass at the bottle bank.

Here In france the council collects paper, plastic, tin cans and other aluminium items like tin foil packaging, foil lined drinks cartons.

I guess we recycle more cause we have the convenience of the council collecting.

Oh and we still take our glass to the bottle banks, there does seem to be alot more glass waste here, mainly wine bottles

[BarbaraEmma]

When our children were young ,probably 30 years ago,the street that we lived in wanted to take part in our local carnival,so to raise money we collected newspaper and we got paid per ton.That was the start for me of everything that we do today.Cardboard ,paper, plastic ,tins and waste food cooked or raw gets picked up by the Council.I have a full compost bin and old reused black bags full of leaves from the park opposite.We recycle all the water off the garage roof into water buts to use in the greenhouse and garden.Keep thinking and everybody comes up with new ,small things that make a big difference.

[ron1863]

What motivated me was the council changing from weekly to fortnightly uplifts. We had to remove empty bottles, paper etc to the recycling plant to reduce the rubbish lying beside our bins.
I wouldn't have minded that if they had reduced the council tax

[foxy mars]

I've been recycling my bottles, cans and papers for a few years now. Although it is good thing and a lot of things can be recycled such as bikes. However, I use to have my recycle bin collected from the local council each fortnight. But, one day there left one glass jar with a bit of peanut butter inside. Not happy with this, so I thought I'll take my own bottles and cans to the local recycling centre a mile up the road, also good excerise too.

I had two panniers full, one of cans and other of glass bottles. When I got there, I started to pop in the cans and bottles, when a young lady with 2 young sons came over. That would be it be ok if her sons could pop in the can's and bottles, this I said yes. She even had a pair of mini step ladders for them to reach to. I just handed the cans and bottles to the young lads and their faces were full of delight, I think it must of been the sound of breaking glass that their liked. Still it made my day to see a pair of happy young faces

[epops]

I used to recycle then gave it up when i saw loads of the stuff people had taken time to wash sort and put into seperate bins being dumped in a land fill when i questioned why it was happening i was told cause theres to much recycling going on ?

[tameblackbirds]

I have been recycling more years than I care to remember. I started when a bottle returned to the off-licence gave you money and it has carried on from there. I recycle all kitchen waste, Two compost bins, glass, cardboard, tins, aluminium clothes plastic. My concern now is that most of it isn't being recycled but piling up some where coursing yet another problem to be sort manufactures really need to be made responsible and stop the packaging. When I was little there were no plastic bags mum had a bag for veg and a bag for non food stuff and all bags where paper. she managed okay. We are really spoilt shoppers I think. okay I feel better now

[BarbaraEmma]

Just remembered this. The road I grew up in had a pub on the corner,you could collect the empty pop bottles and return them for a small refund.Don't know why I'm admitting this , but we used to climb over their back fence and return the same ones quite a few times . I've got a vague memory of my mother finding out , and me being in BIG trouble.

[foxy mars]

A certain well known supermarket have been asking customers to go green and re-use the carrier bags or green bags etc, in return you get a point on your card. I thought this is a good idea and started to use my green bag or bike pannier bags. The day I did my shopping, about 4 carrier bags and lo and behold, no green points. I asked the checkout assistant for them and was told to go to customer services. Mmm, I thought.

What annoys me, is some couples or familes with a trolley load of groceries, just never think of using the green bags and use at least 8 bags of carriers. I think the supermarkets should charge a 1p a bag and reduce the prices, that way I will be happy.

[Country lover]

Thank you everyone, it's really interesting to hear how different people started recylcing and also what puts people off. My apologies for the long post, it really is my soap box issue.

Originally Posted by ron1863

What motivated me was the council changing from weekly to fortnightly uplifts. We had to remove empty bottles, paper etc to the recycling plant to reduce the rubbish lying beside our bins.
I wouldn't have minded that if they had reduced the council tax

So are you saying they reduced waste collections but didn't start picking up the recyclable goods?

Originally Posted by foxy mars

I just handed the cans and bottles to the young lads and their faces were full of delight, I think it must of been the sound of breaking glass that their liked. Still it made my day to see a pair of happy young faces

That is brilliant and where we have to start, by teaching young people about caring for their environment.

Originally Posted by epops

I used to recycle then gave it up when i saw loads of the stuff people had taken time to wash sort and put into seperate bins being dumped in a land fill when i questioned why it was happening i was told cause theres to much recycling going on ?

That is outrageous but does happen. I lived in Bavaria for a few years and there was a total stink when it was found out recyclable goods were being dumped. We need the government to give tax incentives to recycling projects and then heavily tax non-recycled packaging.

Originally Posted by foxy mars

What annoys me, is some couples or familes with a trolley load of groceries, just never think of using the green bags and use at least 8 bags of carriers. I think the supermarkets should charge a 1p a bag and reduce the prices, that way I will be happy.

I honestly believe that every supermarket should be forced by law to charge 10p per plastic bag and all that money be used to fund new recycling initiatives. Think how many people would remember to bring old bags if they had to pay for new ones!! The government is doing a lot to get people to recycle but it is doing virtually nothing to get industry to follow the trend.