is recycling recycled???

[pelog12332]

argh!!! i have just found out that some areas of london do not rycycle what people put into the rycycling and its actuly put into land fills and sent across the world, this may be a romour but if any one knows the truth please say, thanks

[Dan Salter]

If it is a rumour its pretty widespread...councils have been criticised for this in many different places....

[Connor7]

I was suspicious when they were putting the recycling and normal garbage into the same bin/container thing

[pelog12332]

yeah, and they dont seperate glass, paper etc were i am

they better rycycle it

[captain nodge]

Thats what puts us off separating the trash when we clean up the river banks,
all that work separating cleaning when all they maydo is chuck it in landfill,dohh

[pelog12332]

yeah, i dont recycle for nothing i acspect it ot go were it should go not were its easy for them

[pressld2]

I know there were problems a few years ago when mass recycling was just getting off the ground. The problem is that you need pretty extensive processing facilities to recycle what's collected. In a lot of areas the councils started pushing their residents to recycle before these facilities were available and they ended up with more than they could store, so some of the carefully sorted waste did end up in landfill. But in fairness to the councils they were simply trying to meet targets imposed by the government who, in my opinion, should have put more effort into providing the recycling infrastructure before setting those targets.

As I understand it, the situation is much better now although all it needs is a mechanical breakdown at a recycling plant and some collections may end up getting diverted to landfill again. No process ever runs 100% smoothly.

Also, sometimes the recycled materials don't go where you think they'll go. For example I always thought that glass was recycled back into bottles and jars but there was a thread here a while back which said that much of it ends up in materials used to resurface roads! But if that means less quarrying for stone chippings and less glass bottles and jars going to landfill then does it matter?

Dave P.

[pelog12332]

i see, i dont really mind how its recycled(what its put to eg-glass to roads) but it deffenetly should be,

alsotargets,, well thats all everyone worrys about now days i meen look at the nhs its not about saving peoples lifes for the big boses now its targets this targets that argh!!

but thanks

[AMckie]

In live in an area of Leeds where there are are no household recycling collections at all! I collect all my recyclable waste and take it to the local tip once a month. At least then I know it is ending up where it should

[tom00_uk]

contaminate curbside collections (from the wrong plastic type to soiled paper etc) are worthless as a resource and will not be sent to be recycled. a bath like this could be just a small amount or up to a tonne or more depending on the way its contaminated.

it is not in the sorting sights interest to waste time and money sorting by hand and the cost of landfill will be cheaper than the time spent on the batch. though with the introduction of more mechanical sorters this is being reduced.

the real pain is when you live in an area where you have to sort it into separate boxes but the collection team then bung it all together as they have a mechanical sort at their depot and the council they are contractors for have not updated their household advise