Removing staples from recycled mags

Wings_of_Ambition

I imagine the way it works is that everything is shredded, and then the magnets are used to pick up the loose staples. If tiny chunks of paper are picked up, then that's a lot less of an issue than the staples remaining with the stuff to be 'pulped'(?)

geordie_joe

Wings_of_Ambition wrote: »

I imagine the way it works is that everything is shredded, and then the magnets are used to pick up the loose staples. If tiny chunks of paper are picked up, then that's a lot less of an issue than the staples remaining with the stuff to be 'pulped'(?)

That's possible, but I still don't understand why the council fines/prosecutes people for putting the wrong type of material in the recycling box.

The reason is this. Until two months ago I lived in a 1st floor flat where I could look down on the binmen collecting the recycling from the house over the road. The people are issued with different plastic boxes for paper, plastic, cans and bottles. I saw week after week that when the binmen collected these all the contents were thrown in the back of the wagon and mixed together.

yet the council threaten to fine people who put cans in the paper box, even though the binmen mix them together in the wagon anyway.

Then a couple of months ago I moved and had to get into recycling myself. So I visit the council web site and find it has two sorts of recycling. "Co-mingled" where everything is put in one box and taken to be mechanically sorted. Which tells me they can mechanically separate cans from paper. And separate boxes for different materials, where you separate the materials for them. But I have seen with my own eyes that stuff in separate boxes gets mixed together in the wagon, so why bother getting people to separate it in the first place.

More to the point, why fine people for mixing materials in their boxes when the materials are going to get mixed up anyway!

Wings_of_Ambition

You know how councils operate - they go from group to group working out who they can screw over next. If they fine you for mixing recyclables that are clearly shoved all in the same container, I'd film it and fight the fine. After all, they have no right to demand you do something like that when it makes no difference at all. And any judge with an ounce of common sense would agree.

Nile

PasturesNew wrote: »

I've never saved the staples, but simply opened a magazine out, tore down the bend, thus making the staples close to the edges. Then grab the staples and with a quick twist tear off the staple and the bit of the pages it is attached to and chucked those in the normal bin.

I think by extracting the staples individually and placing them with tins to be recycled ... you're probably going a bit too far.

...........or you could use a Staple Remover.;)

http://www.staples.co.uk/eng/Catalog/cat_sku.asp?CatIds=%2C&webid=4m054&affixedcode=WW

geordie_joe

Wings_of_Ambition wrote: »

You know how councils operate - they go from group to group working out who they can screw over next. If they fine you for mixing recyclables that are clearly shoved all in the same container, I'd film it and fight the fine. After all, they have no right to demand you do something like that when it makes no difference at all. And any judge with an ounce of common sense would agree.

Unfortunately I had moved out of the flat before I thought I might need to take photos. But I could easily get them just by being in the right street at the right time.

I also think it is just the council trying to get money out of us.

Then again, our council ordered a woman to paint her house with yogurt because the bricks it was built with didn't look old enough.

She hired a painter to do the work, and he did it, but they still took her to court because they said the bricks didn't look any older.

Their case was they had heard that painting your house with yogurt would make it look older, and as her house did not look older she could not have painted it with yogurt.

Don't know if the case has come to court yet, but she has quotations, an invoice and a receipt from the company who did the painting.

Savvy_Sue

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

It's a tip I think I've heard mentioned on Gardener's Question Time - if you have an old kitchen sink that you're wanting to use as a planter, you paint it with yoghourt and that encourages the growth of lichen etc to age it.

Although I'm sure another suggestion was yoghourt mixed with cow manure ...

chriserenity

I do take the staples out of the stuff I get sent but then I have a rather evil looking stapler remover so it doesn't take long.

Doncaster council was in the news recently for just dumping tons of recycling on landfill and shipping the stuff they do recycle to Chinese facilities on their mainland. I don't think they've grasped the idea properly yet, you think? Its so annoying.

Theres no plastic collection at our house but 2 miles down the road in the catchment area of a different scheme you can recycle plastic. Likewise their scheme doesn't accept metal but ours does. So we do a swapsy every week with my sister who lives in the other area. Crazy eh?

Primrose

How much greener this country would be if supermarkets were forbidden to sell milk in plastic bottles and were forced to have it delivered in barrels with taps so that customers simply deliver a supply of milk into their existing washed-out plastic bottle. I don't suppose the Milk Marketing Board exists any more, but just think of the amount of plastic bottles which would be taken permanently out of use (and out of landfill) if such a scheme could be implemented.

jetskidia

Recycling

Why bother

chriserenity

I agree, but the packaging generally is the big problem - after I've finished recycling all the things I can recycle in the various bins at home I'm left with a bin full of milk bottle lids, cellophane and the other debris on the 'we don't take it' list on the side of the bin.

Tougher regs imposed on the retailers or pay as you throw schemes influencing consumer demand for less packaging would sort it out. Anyone know the story with the pay as you throw trials they were talking about introducing in a few pilot schemes around the country?