Recycling??? ITS NOT OUR FAULT!!!

nelly_2

Im sick of it!!!!!!!
We're constantly being told we dont recycle enough, and were all bad people for that fact.

Well I have grown a different opinion thanks very much.

Recycling should be happening at their end not ours!

The other day I bought some cordless phones for the house there were 4 in the pack.

Right 4 phones ok.

22 plastic bags yes TWENTY TWO.
16 items of cardboard
and a million of the daft plastic tie things..... JESUS CHRIST.

I also bought a dvd souround sound thing, with 5 speakers each speaker came in a seperate plastic bag + plastic tie BUT the cable attached was coiled up in another plastic back complete with 2 plastic ties one for the bag and one the keep the cablecoiled up.

Mobile phone
1 bag for main body of phone + tie
1 bag for back of phone + tie
1 for the battery too
1 for charger +VAT (value added tie)
1 for instruction book
bits of cardboard all in a box all in cellophane sold in a bag.

Its an absolute joke and not a funny one neither!

Manufactureres need to look at this problem at thier end, not us I'm sick to death of unpacking all this needless crap, and then being told to recycle it.

So apart from the obvious "I WANNA RANT" theme to this thread, lets see what we can get as our most stupidly packed item we can find..

Although my 5 and a half bags per phone will be in the medals I suspect

IvanOpinion

Not even close Nelly (although having replaced our phone system recently as well I sympathise with you - you seem to be unwrapping phones, batteries, chargers and cables for ever.

The most stupid packaging is for Aspirin, Paracetamol etc. Remember you used to be able to go into a wee cheapie shop and buy a little plastic tub containing a hundred for a few pence ... not any more. because some mollie-coddling toss pot bureaucrat decided that there was a risk of suicide we all have to pay a fortune for 16 tablets. The tablets come with an outer cellophane around a nice higly printed cardboard box. In the box one finds a piece of paper, that is generally at the threshold of pain to read, telling all the reasons why you should not take the tablets. There is then a little plastic strip with bubbles containg the tablets with a piece of aluminium foil stuck to it ensuring the aforementioned tablets remain in place. And often when we purchase our little box of tablets we get them presented to us in a paper or plastic bag along with our paper receipt.

Not only that have you ever read the side effects of these tablets - if you are anything like DW you will start suffering from all of them within 5 minutes of reading the piece of paper (which is just before you start taking the tablets). The funniest one though is that one of the brand name headache tablets (can't remember which one) has a side-effect of 'headaches' - somewhat counter productive.

It really is time that we stop using 'shrink wrap' and went back to recyclable cardboard boxes. It is time to cut out all the plastic bottles and go back to recyclable glass bottles (surely we can make a safety glass these days) that require a refundable deposit.

Ivan

Toothsmith

Could it not be argued, Nelly, that you really don't NEED 4 phones for one house, a DVD player with speakers all around the room, or indeed a new mobile if the old one still works (I mean works, not 'Looks trendy')


The 'consumption' of Western states is more the problem, not what it all comes wrapped in.

Just a thought

(P.S. I don't live in a mud hut, but we do try to think about what we buy and why we need it.)

Becles

Packaging on food is my annoyance. Why do things like cabbages, swedes and cucumbers need to be shrink wrapped? Sometimes it's so tight you damage the food taking it off!

bridiej

Shepway council have just started a recycling initiative - thing is they will only accept paper, cardboard, plastic bottles (coke variety), tins and jars.

They wont accept plastic milk or juice cartons or any other type of plastic (including carrier bags).

We dont eat much tinned or jarred food, and we certainly dont have a lot of fizzy drinks so our enormous black box has gone out today complete with one little water bottle and one baked beans tin!

Seems crazy to me, why bother if you cant recycle the things people use on a regular basis?!

robnye

my local council are still increasing the number of roads/streets that have door to door recycling collection.

when they started in my area, we could put plastic bags out........ now months later, we are told they have too much recycling to be able to handle plastic bags........ so where do we put the bags now......?
they take all plastic bottles, but not plastic containers.......

also read in the councils local freebie paper, that the plastic is recycled as ......... park bench seats.........

Bendybops19

That is such a good point nelly! I hadnt even thought about that end of the scale doing things to help recycling.

Its so true, the waste involved with the packaging is crazy!!

Toothsmith, i dont really think that whether or not nelly needed the phones or surround sound comes into it. This particular vent isnt about money and if nelly hadnt purchased them, someone else would have, therefore the result being that the same amount of packaging would have been used/wasted.

Bendybops19

oops...quoted instead of edited ignore this one...!

BFG_2

It's society that 'wants' all the fancy packaging, coz it makes the consumer feel they are buying something 'special'. If it was just loose in a bag it wouldn't sell.

Otherwise the 'scoop shops' (Weighhouse?) would be everywhere, but unfortunately society is too lazy(?) to care (in most cases).

We have probably reached the stage where a lot of people wouldn't be bothered to pick up a penny if they saw it lying on street coz it wasn't economically worth it. Mmmmhhh, cam feel an experiment coming on....

lush_walrus

I can see your point and agree that manufacturing companies should take some responsibility for wastage. But unfortunately, even with the best will in the world the majority of things we buy and use are not produced in the UK, so how can we impliment it?

Ignoring packaging, which I agree is a problem, most UK companies do recycle in some form or other. In the building I work in, we recycle all paper and have milk bottles delivered as apose to cartons. As we aren't manufacturing there isnt much else we can do.

On a personal level, I collect everything I can to recycle and if one recycling point doesnt recycle what I have then I take it to another when I am passing.

From my perspective, I think we all have to do our bit, including individuals, companies and through government incentives.

lush_walrus

robnye wrote:

when they started in my area, we could put plastic bags out........ now months later, we are told they have too much recycling to be able to handle plastic bags........ so where do we put the bags now......?.

Tesco nearly always have a place to leave bags for recycling.