PackagingSorry for the lack of posts recently, I have been veeery busy with the church video system. We are nearly there now.
Anyway, there was an item of note on the news this morning about supermarkets doing more to reduce packaging and marking those items which can be recycled. For once I have some sympathy with the mega-chains. How can they sensibly label packages for recycling when the local authorities who organise the recycling are all at odds with each other. Here they don’t recycle plastic at all unless you take it to one of the two depots or a few isolated collection points. The council just to the north, in the area where I work, the system is totally different. If you stand on the border you can see both systems in operation with different categories, timing and collection policies.
Returning the sympathetic view, the collectors and consumers do also have a problem distinguishing the different sorts of plastic so perhaps if they all worked together to create a standard then we would all be better off.
Webmaster
Don’t all solid plastics have a recycling symbol on them (or have I not understood your last paragraph?)? If you look under a milk container, for example, you get a triangle formed by three arrows chasing each other with a number (normally “2” for semi-opaque plastics) and occasionally a code (“HDPE”) which indicates the type of plastic.
However, I have to agree with you on the lack of standards imposed by the authorities. Our local council will only take plastic types 1, 2 and 3, but won’t collect (they need to be delivered to the local refuse tip). Worse, they refuse to take anything that isn’t bottle-shaped. Surely a correctly identified plastic lid or box can be recycled as well as a bottle?
Hi Mike,
Yes, you have identified the problem exactly. There is the triangle code, but I can’t find it in a hurry and I know what I am looking for and take the trouble to find out what the numbers mean—how many others have done the same do you think? It needs a much clearer indication on the package; much clearer indication of what can be recycled and how; and councils needs to stop inventing reasons for not collecting and just get down and do it in a consistent manner.
Hello folks
Do you remember the days when an attendant filled your petrol tank for you? Now the job has been offloaded on to the customers – and we don’t get paid.
We pay for our rubbish to be taken away. Sorting it out and recycling should be a task for someone else. Either that, or the authorities should pay us for our rubbish!
Be a good idea for community service “volunteers” and the people with dogs on bits of string.
Rgds
Michael