Ah wonderful <ahem>, recyclable things taken away fortnightly, which
means that if you happen to put the garden waste bin out by mistake, or
go on holiday, you end up with a month old heap of paper, cans, bottles
etc in the bin.... or you just dump the whole lot in the ordinary
rubbish.
What is the point in the garden waste bin anyway? why not give away
compost bins and save the expense of having to collect it? anyone who
has enough garden to fill a wheelie bin every two weeks is likely to be
able to manage to fit a compost bin in a corner. This way you would get
free compost instead of buying back the rotted contents of someone's
green bin at the garden centre.
On a wider scale, if a few million people start recycling who weren't
doing so before, it will actually cause problems of its own, for
example. As many recycling centres are run as businesses, economics
dictates that there will not be huge amounts of extra recycling
capacity available in the current system, they just wouldnt have built
it if it wasnt going to be used. This in turn brings on the classic
problem of nimbyism over the location of the ineviatable new recycling
centres.
Any idea where I could find out how they sort the recyclables? I've had
a look on the DEFRA website but its not very clear. I'm not sure that
an effective way of seperating paper, glass, aluminium, plastic and
steel items from mixed up heaps in commercial quantities exists at the
moment, especially if it has been compacted in the collection truck,
otherwise why do they need it in seperate bins from food waste etc?.
Where do they take it? its all very well saying its environmentally
friendly to recycle but if they have to ship it to the other end of the
country, or even overseas, the extra fuel alone would take a big dent
out of any environmental benefit.
Still, its better than doing nothing.
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