Plastic Recycling

CravingSaving

I guess I am one of the lucky ones. My council now recycles ALL plastics; yoghurt pots, fruit punnets, meat packaging, the lot, though you obviously have to wash it all first.

I sometimes work in a kitchen/pub and now take home all their plastics as they cant be bothered! I even bring home coffee grounds from their coffee machines to go in my compost! I thought they would laugh at me when I asked if I could take it all home to recycle it, but actually they now save it all for me and seem really chuffed that I am doing my bit.

Wouldn't it be nice if all councils adopted the same recycling policies.

SKIPPY

CravingSaving wrote: »

I guess I am one of the lucky ones. My council now recycles ALL plastics; yoghurt pots, fruit punnets, meat packaging, the lot, though you obviously have to wash it all first.

Which Council is that maybe we can bring the rest of our plastic recycling to yours! :rotfl: Or maybe they could teach the rest of the local councils a lesson!!!!!!!

A_fiend_for_life

CravingSaving wrote: »

Wouldn't it be nice if all councils adopted the same recycling policies.

Absolutely agree, and collected all waste streams.

vivatifosi

I had the same conversation with my local council (I'm in Hertfordshire). They said that the problem was that they couldn't get people to take on the recyclable plastic that wasn't in the three basic categories. However here they have started a hard plastics recycling scheme in a couple of limited sites to test the water and see how they get on.

It is a shame they don't do more. With recycling I only put out one black sack a fortnight and know I could cut that by half with more plastics recycling. I saw a programme a couple of years back where a company somewhere like Estonia had found a way of mixing different plastics and making roof tiles out of them. We could do with someone finding a similar solution here. Dragon's Den anyone?

A_fiend_for_life

Plastic bottles are used to make fleeces - Patagonia, I think!? So you'd think the waste plastics would be converted into fleece type insulation suitable for lofts. Fire hazard? How is wool treated?

The harder stuff that can't be converted into something more usable you might be able to use for cavity wall insulation. I know plastics when they are recycled become more thermosetting ie harder and less malleable, similar to wall sockets bakelite etc, but pelleted and suspended in another substance they could well be useful for cavity wall insulation.

Reduce landfill, reduce landfill tax and insulate more homes. Maybe mixed plastics should be baled and stored for future use. 1 tonne of plastic costs around £50 to throw into landfill. What's the cost of 1 tonne of plastic in terms of barrels of oil and storage I wonder?

Instead they are probably landfilled or incinerated. Will it become cost effective to quarry landfills for plastics in a few years time when oil has reached a stupid price?

steveR_2

Hi (everyone who has contributed to this discussion),

I didn't realise, but waste plastic has quite a high value:j . It's just a case of keeping it all seperate. There are UK wide waste plastic recyclers who will pay good money for plastics - although they seem to want large volumes, so I don't know what individual households can do exactly. Also there seems to be an endless array of different types of plastic (all a bit confusing for the layman).

I think it should be made law that food packaging is made from compostable materials - I believe the technology is there to do it.

Maybe we do need a charge for the weight of waste households put in the dustbin. Or (thinking like a moneysavingexpert), if the householder puts less than a certain weight in their bin they get a reduction from their council tax.

Steve.

IamJen

Ours does most plastics as well, although they only collect plastic bottles (supposedly) in the bins. Yogurt pots, etc, we have to haul to the nearby recycling centre.

You can check what's available in your area, by entering your postcode here:
http://www.recyclenow.com/what_can_i_do_today/

The results for me though, weren't quite accurate. It said that we couldn't recycle plastics at our local bank, but you can.