Help - New to recycling

geordie_joe

OK, after living in a large house converted into 6 flats for ten years. Where all we had was a large yellow skip for the rubbish, all of it. I have now moved into a flat that is laughingly called a town house.

Basically it is a living room on the ground floor, kitchen and bathroom on the 1st floor and bedroom on the second floor. A flat but with the rooms on top of each other.

No garden, or outside space at all, and the neighbour says you keep all your rubish indoors in a black bag and put it outside the front door on Monday morning.

That's fine, except there is no place to keep rubbish inside. If I don't want to continiously be climbing over a black bag full of rubish I will have to get rid of either the washer, fridge or cooker!

Luckily from now on I will have to walk past the recycling point at our local supermarket car park to do my shopping. There appears to be 4 or 5 skips there, but what can I recycle into them?

Having never recycled anything, I now have to recycle as much as possible just to keep down the rubish in my own home. So anyone got any good tips?

If not i'll have to implement plan A.

frivolous_fay

What do the recycling banks say on them?

Most likely you'll be able to take glass, plastics, cardboard, paper. Most stuff really

geordie_joe

frivolous_fay wrote: »

What do the recycling banks say on them?

Most likely you'll be able to take glass, plastics, cardboard, paper. Most stuff really

I had a walk past and on them they said

Clean Glass
Brown Glass
Green Glass
Paper
Plastic.

They don't say what things you can, or can't put in them, so I'll assume anything goes.

ScarletBea

Yes, pretty much.

A tip: on "paper", don't put only newspapers. I recycle anything that doesn't have confidential data, like wrong print outs and envelopes (after removing the gluey bit).

You say you don't have much space, but if you get a couple of plastic boxes that can pile up, you'll be able to keep everything in order. I have 1 box for paper, another for cardboard and another for charity shop stuff.
Glass and plastic bottles, because there's hardly any in my flat, go in bags in a corner.

Horace

I recycle what I can - glass jars and bottles, old clothes go to the charity shop. Newspapers, magazines, junk flyers, envelopes, telephone directories, cardboard and catalogues go to my local recycling bin along with the bottles and jars.

Buy yourself a large swing bin for the kitchen - I have one and I dispose of one bag per week into the communal bin. You could always try asking your local council for a bin - if you live in a flat then the council may provide a communal bin, try asking.

Living in Birmingham our waste is treated differently, all cans and plastic go into normal waste (I wash mine out first) and are fished out when it goes to the incinerator. The energy produced by the incinerator goes back to the National Grid and the ash is made into brieze blocks.

I noticed that you say you have no outside space for a bin - how about the pavement? Where my chap lives in London everybody has a wheelie bin on the pavement outside their front door.

Seakay

geordie_joe wrote: »

I had a walk past and on them they said

Clean Glass
Brown Glass
Green Glass
Paper
Plastic.

They don't say what things you can, or can't put in them, so I'll assume anything goes.

If you contact your local Council Recycling Officer (Phone or look online) then they will be able to give you all the info you need. This is especially necessary for plastic, as most places will only take it if there is a 1, 2 or 3 inside the triangle made of three arrows. Check if you can put in plastc bags, cellophane wrapping etc. Also ask if you can put in thin cardboard (cereal boxes etc) and tetra -paks (milk, fruit juice cartons) and if you can does that include the ones with a foil lining (tomato passata etc)

Here are a couple of links which might be of use:

http://www.dorsetforyou.com/index.jsp?articleid=3164

http://www.north-dorset.gov.uk/index/living/recycling_and_waste/recycling/kerbside_recycling_scheme.htm

geordie_joe

Thanks to those who replied, I'm getting into recycling now.

I do have a question. I can;t find the page now, but I did read after following one of the links below that you can't recycle plastic bottles unless they have a triangle with a 1, 2 or 3 in it. Also you have to remove the tops and labels from the bottles.

This puzzled me as for ten year I lived across the road from houses, in a flat that had no recycling facilities. And I know that the people accross the road put out milk bottles etc with the labels and tops still on then and the bin men took them away.

Today I was walking down a stret where there was recling boxes outside every house and they were all full of bottles. They all had tops and labels on and the binmen were dumping them in their waggon.

I'm sure I read that they can't be recycled if they have tops or labels on as they will contaminate the process. And I remember a documentary on TV that said 70% of waste sent for recycling couldn't be recycled as it was contaminated.

To be honest I'm only recycling because my rbbish has to be ketp in my kitchen until collection day, and I now live 100 yards from a recycling point which I have to walk past to get to the shops. So the more I take there the less there is in my kitchen.

However, I think that if I am doing it then I should be doing it right. But I'm using hot water to get labels off bottles and see that other people aren't bothering. Does this mean that they are doing it wrong and their bottles can't be recycled, or am I just wasting my time and should leave the labels and top on.

Seakay

At our recyling facilities labels are ok (removing yourself is usually only required if you are trying to get cash).
If your tops are a diffierent number to your bottles then it is helpful to put them in seperately. If they are the same then crush the bottle and then put the top back on. (I get milk in containers and usually use in in hot drinks; when I use the last of the mill I put a little hot water from the kettle in the carton, put the lid back on, sluice it around, take the top off, discard the water, crush the container -easy as warm - and replace the cap.)
The only reason to leave tops off is to avoid accidents if a container full of air is crushed at the recycling centre - the tops blow off and can be dangerous. My way ensures that less space is taken up and the containers aren't smelly, plust they cannot be dangerous at the recycling centre.
I use very little water for this, and don't boil a kettle sepecially, containers line up waiting if one is finished when a kettle isn't being boiled any way.

You can use the last of the washing up water to clean out cans and other containers - don't heat water just to do it.

geordie_joe

Seakay wrote: »

At our recyling facilities labels are ok (removing yourself is usually only required if you are trying to get cash).
If your tops are a diffierent number to your bottles then it is helpful to put them in seperately.

Thanks, that a help, but my local council web site says this.

Lids
Many people often enquire why they are advised to remove the lids from their plastic bottles when depositing them for recycling. The reason is, again, the lids are made from a different type of plastic to the bottle and, if mixed with the bottles, causes contamination of the polymer type, reducing both the quality and value of the material. This can have implications on the intended end-use of the recycled material due to the contamination's impact on end-product consistency.

ScoobieGirl

Seakay wrote: »

If they are the same then crush the bottle and then put the top back on.

Our council have just changed thier advice from "always removes the tops" to the above instead. I guess the benefit from the reduced volume offsets any hassle from mixing the plastics. Either that or or the recycling process is advancing. They still dont take plastic food trays - but now I've gone all MS I done have so many of those

Seakay

Most milk cartons and tops are now 2 - previously a lot of milk carton tops were 4 (I know this because I get goats milk from a farm stall and their tops are still 4). I haven't checked pp and water bottles recently.
The ideal would be to have monomers instead of polymers in our plastic packaging, then they would be much easier to seperate and reuse.