![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
"Recycle!" they tell us. They talk about going to a fortnightly rubbish collection, to force people to recycle, rather than throw away. They talk about charging per rubbish bag. School children (at least here) have been sent out with pledge books, to collect "I will recycle" pledges from any adult they can find. Okay. So why, Mr Council, do you make it so hard for us to do it?
We have a fortnightly kerbside recycling collection. Actually remembering which is our "on" week and which is our "off" week usually defeats us. Even when we remember, our problems are far from over. The black box can be used for glass and paper, but not just any old paper, oh no. Newspapers are fine. Stapled magazines are fine. Glued magazines? No way. Junk mail? Old envelopes? Amazon packaging? Cereal packets? Pizza boxes? All the multifarious bits of cardboard that supermarket food gets wrapped in? No to all of these. However, the local recycling place (only open at weekends, and not all day) takes all paper and card and plastic all mixed together. Since this is, one would expect, the ultimate destination of the kerbside collection, why does the kerbside one have more restrictions? We tend to chuck all cardboard and paper into the black box, which means that separating it out on black box day becomes too much of a nuisance, and we drive off to the recycling place at the weekend - thus making an extra, ought-not-to-be-unnecessary journey - where at least they'll take it all, and not get sniffy about a stray envelope.
We can also put out garden rubbish for a fortnightly collection, but only in special bags that we have to buy at £1 each, and don't get back. Where do all these bags go? Cluttering up landfill? In contrast, if we drive to the recycling place (only open at weekends, and not all day), we can tip the garden waste in the skip, and keep the bag. We can also collect food waste, but these, too, need to be in plastic bags. Someone at work says she doesn't have a single plastic bag in the house, since she loads her shopping direct from trolley into crates in the car, yet she's been told that she's got to go out and buy (or otherwise obtain) plastic bags if she wants use this service.
And while we're on the subject of bags... It's amazing how much effort it requires to stop people giving up bags in shops, even when you've come armed with your own re-useable ones... But this suddenly sounds familiar, so I think I must have ranted about this before. I'll be quiet now.
We have a fortnightly kerbside recycling collection. Actually remembering which is our "on" week and which is our "off" week usually defeats us. Even when we remember, our problems are far from over. The black box can be used for glass and paper, but not just any old paper, oh no. Newspapers are fine. Stapled magazines are fine. Glued magazines? No way. Junk mail? Old envelopes? Amazon packaging? Cereal packets? Pizza boxes? All the multifarious bits of cardboard that supermarket food gets wrapped in? No to all of these. However, the local recycling place (only open at weekends, and not all day) takes all paper and card and plastic all mixed together. Since this is, one would expect, the ultimate destination of the kerbside collection, why does the kerbside one have more restrictions? We tend to chuck all cardboard and paper into the black box, which means that separating it out on black box day becomes too much of a nuisance, and we drive off to the recycling place at the weekend - thus making an extra, ought-not-to-be-unnecessary journey - where at least they'll take it all, and not get sniffy about a stray envelope.
We can also put out garden rubbish for a fortnightly collection, but only in special bags that we have to buy at £1 each, and don't get back. Where do all these bags go? Cluttering up landfill? In contrast, if we drive to the recycling place (only open at weekends, and not all day), we can tip the garden waste in the skip, and keep the bag. We can also collect food waste, but these, too, need to be in plastic bags. Someone at work says she doesn't have a single plastic bag in the house, since she loads her shopping direct from trolley into crates in the car, yet she's been told that she's got to go out and buy (or otherwise obtain) plastic bags if she wants use this service.
And while we're on the subject of bags... It's amazing how much effort it requires to stop people giving up bags in shops, even when you've come armed with your own re-useable ones... But this suddenly sounds familiar, so I think I must have ranted about this before. I'll be quiet now.
