My land fill rubbish challenge

se999

I think England is just a bit behind on the bag idea, currently we're in Finland, and the supermarkets sell cloth bags at 50 to 90 cents, when you go shopping you just roll one up to fit in your pocket or handbag. When the shops see them, you not only don't get the carriers, but small articles they assume you don't want a bag either, so you just get passed the item and the receipt. Unfortunately lots of people do just go for the heap of free carriers though.

OH thought I was silly for a start buying the cloth bags, but now I get told off if we forget them. They do get strange looks in some countries, but hopefully it will catch on more. Unfortunately not managed to get our sons to use them yet, but they do tend to just put things into rucksacks, so don't get so many carriers that way.

Ticklemouse

MATH wrote:

My family have dissowned me and refuse to walk on the same side of the street when I've got my 'Roy Cropper Shopper' but hey! you can't have everything.:p

You'll have to come shopping with me when I find a decent wally trolley (I'm scouring the charity shops etc) Mr TM has said he'll disown me if I get one.....there again, it may tempt me to just go and buy a new one

We chuck out far too much - but I do now recycle glass, tins, plastic, batteries and clothing at the tip, and don't have to make a special trip to get there as I pass it 6 times a week. Garden waste and paper get collected from the house every 1 or 2 weeks. Decent items will be car booted, ebayed or charity shopped.

Pooky

We're only allowed to put paper(non glossy) or card (non waxed), bottles (no lids) jars (no lids) and tin cans (washed and preferably lable off)into our recycling boxes here. We don't have wheelie bins and I still seem to be putting out around 3 sacks a week.

We have 3 dustbins, one I use for plastics which we take to the dump when it's full, 1 gets used for all the cardboard and glossy paper which again has to go to the dump and the other one gets used for black sacks.....I do have a lot of nappies to get rid of each week and unfortunately as they're not my children I can't convert them all to cloth nappies. Everyone else in the street seems to get away with a bag full and we look like we've turfed out the entire house each week.....quite embarrasing really.

We throw all veggi waste onto the pile in the corner of the garden, loads of wild flowers growing there now. All clothes get recycled either into the fabric box or to the recycling box again at the tip.......

Our nearest dump is 5 miles away and always so busy, would be so much easier if they had a mobile recycling unit come to the village once a month for everyone to use, I'm sure more people would use it.

MATH

Ticklemouse wrote:

You'll have to come shopping with me when I find a decent wally trolley (I'm scouring the charity shops etc) Mr TM has said he'll disown me if I get one.....there again, it may tempt me to just go and buy a new one

What a sight we shall be. Primark won't know what's hit it:rotfl:

Suzie_Q_2

We have a recycling box which is collected one a fortnight. We can put clean glass jars and bottles and also tin cans in and also any papers/magazines. This is great but we have no way of recycling plastic :mad: . When I enquired at the Council they said there was no where in the Merseyside area that recycles plastic anymore :eek: . So Squeaky is right it does help if your Council is recycle friendly.

MATH

Pooky wrote:

Our nearest dump is 5 miles away and always so busy, would be so much easier if they had a mobile recycling unit come to the village once a month for everyone to use, I'm sure more people would use it.

I hear you Pooky. Local councils should make it easy to recycle even those with an enviromental concience don't want to make a back breaking job of it.

Where we live in the Mids tha council is brill. Four different bins (mixture of wheelie and regular) and everything that can be recycled is and collected from your home.

Where we live on the East coast you get a black bin and that's it. I don't recycle when I'm there. I know I should but I don't. Unless you count returning my egg boxes to the local farm for re-filling.

Rebob

I save all plastic bottles, trays etc and save them in the garage until there is enough to fill the cars boot and back seat then take to the dump/recycling center. There are clothing bins there and any clothing that cannot be reworn is sold as rags to different companies after washing. Any old bedding or towels are often welcome at pet sancturies.

tom_and_barbara_good

squeaky wrote:

I honestly don't think I'm tough. Maybe it's because I just don't like wasting stuff and it all comes naturally and, as with most things, once they become habit they're never hard to do.

And you do need a council that encourages recycling.

Having a composter helps too.

I'm going to mess up next time I'm sure. I've got a pair of jeans with a hole in one knee (so they can't go for clothing recycling) and they weigh 822 grams!!

So... the bottom half of the legs cut off could be made into bags for something, I know you can make shorts or even a carry bag out of the seat bit - though I have enough shorts and I don't need a carry bag... so I might just unpick all the pockets and the zip and put them by for future repairs.

Then again, my proper shopping bag is quite big, so a smaller one could be handy...

In our towns recycling scheme fabric can be put in with the paper, is it worth checking to see if yours does too?
Also a charity shop manager told me that clothes that are unsuitable for sale get put to one side to be collected by rag merchants, so could they go in a charity bag? maybe even with a note pinned saying they they are for rags.

Well done by the way!

kiwichick

Where can I find out if there is the facility avaliblke for recycling plastic, especially milk containers? We get through about 50 pints a month and thats a LOT of plastic to be chucking.

squeaky

My local council has pages of info on recycling - perhaps your does. I'm going to be checking mine about how they recycle clothing because after I've worn stuff for best, then out and about in public, then "at home only" and then "in the garden" they really are good for nowt but rags.

As it is, this time I have enough ideas to allow me to recycle every part of those jeans in my house so they'll not reach the bin.

What you could try if your own council site is of no help is a google on something like:-

MyTownName+recycle or MyTownName+recycling or... other good words