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Do you ReCycle

Posted January 6th, 2008 by chrishambly
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I’ve just caught a friend’s tweet, he created a small mobile video clip during his queuing at the local re-cycling centre.

This brought back into my mind one of my “issues”, and I know it is mine: Shitty Councils, or is it top-down misdirected policy?

Ok so firstly, is recycling a good thing?

I’m not sure, I’m not qualified enough to fully understand the life-cycle of a material, neither am I aware of how much impact we may well have on the environment if we do take part in the now soon to be punishable activity (for not being a “goodun”). I mean serious you can’t fart around here anymore without someone saying it’s the wrong pitch.

I don’t think I’m alone in thinking this, and surely there are some quality statistics around which might or might nor prove or disprove this concept but let me put this to you, you know, as a layman that I am.

If everyone in my street gets into their car once a week to drive 5 miles to a recycle centre and then back again, are we not merely adding a shit load of pollution back into the environment? AND is that accumulative quantity of carbon monoxide counter-acting all the “do-gooding” we are engaging in by flocking like new age eco-warriors down to the centre?

Doesn’t it make more sense to have one truck visit our urban areas and collect the bloody stuff they are so keen on re-mashing? Isn’t that far less pollution? It’s not like we have a great service around here for all the various items we are constantly told we should recycle, why not?

I recall living in Milan 3 years ago in a shared complex (typical in many parts of Europe) where we had ample coloured bins a “stone’s throw away”. It was simple for all the 1000 or so inhabitants to walk to waste bins and self-dump into the hungry receivers, and turn our backs safe in the knowledge the world was a better place.

So why do I have to do this in UK, the driving and queuing? Added to that why does my council only provide me with one “wet bin”, and one collection once a week?

It is this type of shitty service, or “employee of the state” I am currently struggling with.

What’s your thoughts?

AND, as I almost hit post, UK is a minute fraction of the world, how is it done in China, Indian, or USA?

Neville's Vid.. p.s. I know it's complex, but you know "pet hate".



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Comments

Recycling in the Netherlands

On January 6th, 2008 Melinda Seckington (not verified) says:

I'm living here now in the UK for almost a year, but I'm still not used to the way of recycling. My room mates and I have one box in the hall, where we put all stuff to be recycled together (paper, plastic, bottles, etc) which we bring downstairs to the big "recycle" bin.

In the Netherlands it goes bit different. Mainly all the different types are separated and each have a different method of collecting.

Normal trash and fruit/veggies/garden stuff
Almost all houses in suburban areas get two government supplied trash cans (with wheels). One for your normal trash and one for your fruit/vegetables/garden stuff. Every street (sometimes a set of streets for the really small streets) has a specific place you have to bring your trash cans to for pickup collection, which happens at a regular time every week. The more central, urban areas have regular containers or (what's now more popular) underground containers. These underground containers are sometimes even equipped with a special card, so that "they" can track how much garbage you produce. If I'm right, you also have to pay more if you produce too much garbage.

Paper
At the student flat I used to live in, there was a huge trash container outside of the flat, specially for paper. This used to be emptied once a week. At my parents place, there was a special collection point and time (every third Thursday for the month at 17:00). You just had to make sure your paper was there and then it was collected.

Glass and Plastic
Most glass and plastic bottles have "statie"-money (no idea how to translate that or if this principle is used in other countries). The idea is that for all beer and fizzy drink bottles,etc you pay an extra "statie"-money fee for the actual bottle. After using it, you can bring the empty bottles back to the supermarket and you get the money back. The bottles are cleaned and reused. For plastic bottles though this is slowly not being used anymore, cause it's cheaper to melt and recycle the whole bottle than to actually clean it.
Next to that most super markets have a bottle and glass collection point outside of their store that's emptied at least once a week. Because most super markets are in walking or cycling distance, you can easily drop your glass off here. Oh yeah, there's also specific bin per color (clear glass, green glass, etc) and a special one for plastic.

That's my experiences with recycling, at least. I'm not really sure if this is how it is in whole of Holland.

For the rest, I know that Germany is very strict with recycling. I was visiting Berlin 2 months ago and you don't even have "normal" trash cans there; everything is in 4: glass, paper, plastic and rest. For instance, even in the waiting area at the underground station, there's this small set of 4 trash cans.

Netherlands

On January 13th, 2008 chrishambly says:

Melinda

Thanks so much for the detailed replay that is brilliant!

Really interesting to see how it is done in Netherlands, never been although I am very soon so will watch out for that.

"statie" sounds like "deposit", we use to have that here on certain types of drinks, you'd take the bottle back and have some money in return. Actually though cheaper to produce plastic I can't help thinking you do not see much broken glass on the streets as a result of "statie".

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