Recycling....

[Graham Barker]

hello
maybe its me...i do my bit and ive always thought of it as a good bit...recycling, cycling instead of using the car etc....then you hear the stories of councils tipping recycling material in to landfill...or being shipped around the globe....and i think...is this worth the effort....but i carry on....my local council, hastings in east sussex, used to provide plastic bags for recycling, not a good option really, but at least the recycling got seperated by me at my home...now we have a bin....and all the recycling goes in to that bin...and i think...whats going to happen to that...will it really be sorted...is it worth it....but i carry on.....now...the thing with plastic, ie we can recycle 1, 2 or 3 in the area where i live, so i throw other numbers in the normal waste...in other areas they recycle 4, 5 and 6...and presumably throw the others away....i find this outrageous...then i visit gloucester, now im not having a go, cos im sure other areas, including where i live, are a bit of a let down on the recycling front...but they seem to make little effort in gloucester...so again im at the whats the point stage....besides, if we have all the information at our finger tips, about what we are doing to the earth etc, and the people in power, in charge, dont make the right decisions...how can i believe in anything.....sometimes its all a bit frustrating...dont ya think...?

[And]

I was told that all the paper that I spent precious time sorting for the recycling bag was going for landfill anyway due to a massive imbalance in supply and demand. I do sort plastic, glass and cans but am less bothered with paper now. However what I do try to do is buy "Nouvelle" paper products - typically toilet roll - as these are made from 100% recycled paper. By doing this I can at least do a little something about the demand imbalance.

Nouvelle is usually the same price as other premium brands, but if you have a Heron discount food store near you (a Northern chain) toilet rolls are currently on offer at £2.99 for 12. Bargain!

[Dutchess]

I know how you feel And I don't think it's so unusual to have doubts about as to whether individual efforts are making much impact. I heard an analogy on tv the other night which summed it up:

"All this effort we individuals put into our recycling, it's like going out with a dustpan and brush after a volcanic eruption and saying "can I help"?"

Let's hope it isn't true!

D.

[And]

But a million dustpans and brushes would make a difference so I shall do what I can, still. My local authority (Durham County Council) supplies a very sturdy woven plastic bag for recycling plastic/paper and an equally sturdy green plastic box for glass and cans. We have a brown bin scheme for compostable garden waste which is regularly collected and for a while there was a scheme where home compost bins were heavily discounted.

[Jez]

Originally Posted by Dutchess

"All this effort we individuals put into our recycling, it's like going out with a dustpan and brush after a volcanic eruption and saying "can I help"?"

In what kind of context? That the power stations are the volcanoes and the recycling is the dust pan & brush?

[loripo]

I took it to mean that the amount of recycling we can do is almost ineffective against the steady and increasing flow of goods, gadgets, packaging, new technology in all its forms - PC's included that we are now consuming and being consumed by.

[Monkey Orchid]

Originally Posted by And

But a million dustpans and brushes would make a difference so I shall do what I can, still.

The "It's better to light a single candle than to curse than darkness" approach works for me. Recycling as much of our waste as possible is one of the many ways we can live more sustainably - it's not the be-all and end-all, but it's better than doing nothing at all.

As other people have noted here, the efficacy of recycling is strongly affected by whether or not we as consumers buy products made from recycled materials, whether that's loo roll, writing paper or even fleeces made from recycled plastic. For some materials (especially metals and glass) it's far more energy-efficient to recycle than to make products from scratch. Plus it means less mining for raw materials and devastation of natural habitats.

Re-using products is an even better alternative to recycling - glass jars, plastic bottles, cloth shopping bags, secondhand clothes etc. And refusing to buy stuff that's ridiculously overpackaged in the first place.

It's an uphill battle though, I agree - even during these economically tough times, people still seem to be buying huge amounts of stuff. Upgrade your phone, buy the latest computer game, change your clothes as soon as they go out of fashion... It seems like an endless rat race for some people.

Computers aren't all bad, though. The Internet has been an enormous boon for information-sharing, campaigning and education by environmentalists (I cite WAB as an example of this!). The puzzle is that although so many more people now are aware of the issues of over-consumption, the problem has if anything increased.

I would suggest a radical solution: ban advertising of pointless products, make marketing a crime punishable by community service (preferably doing practical conservation work), and give everyone an annual ration of 'consumer points' which have to be exchanged for anything bought. If people had to choose between groceries and the latest Wii fantasy, consumer behaviour might change a little quicker.

Of course I'd like to point out that the previous paragraph is intended as an ironic fantasy, and not something which I've ever envisaged happening under, say, a benign environmentalist dictatorship...

[Dutchess]

Oo-er, please don't shoot the messenger It was something I overheard on tv; I wasn't saying let's all throw the towel in.

Jez, I think the context was something like this...the speaker had recently visited the States and having seen the massive waste output felt his efforts quite miniscule in comparison.

(And for the record, I have no intention of recycling my dustpan and brush either )

D.

[loripo]

NO definately I didnt intend to suggest giving up. Having had a Mum who was an advocate of Make Do & Mend and now a daughter to is a born-again Pagan & advocate of Frugal Living I am well aware of at least trying to reuse and recycle. I had nearly everything home-made & secodhand when my daughter was born, but now people tend to turn up their noses at that. The only thing that defeated the Frugal LIvers was what to do with those sleeve things that umbrellas come in. I can never get one on again and since I lose umbrellas all the time I was left with a small pile, that had to be binned in the end

[And]

Loripo, I do think the tide has turned with regard to second-hand goods. My local Freecycle network is very, very active. The majority of my daughter's and grandchildren's clothes come from charity shops and they are the main source of clothes that I wear for work. A wardrobe full of M&S and 90% of it is second-hand.
My daughter and her partner both work, as do I. I think the demographic of people who buy 'pre-owned' goods has greatly changed.

I also think that the demographic of those buying green goods is changing too. Nouvelle is recycled but a mainstream product and Ecover has made it into Tesco's. For this autumn and winter I've set myself the greener challenge of reducing the number of bottles in the bathroom (conditioner, shampoos, shower gels etc.) I have a Pagan pal who is minimalist in her use of these - let's see how I do. I had a go at using lemon and lime shower gel as shampoo this morning. Worked a treat.