Reuse refuse.

Albie

Albie

Keeping an open eye on the Weeping Angels.
Inspired by the efforts our local council have made to encourage its residents to recycle, we (my wife and I) decided to try our uppermost to oblige. Already, they (the council) offer kerbside collection of glass and paper, but on-top of that they also have placed quite a few recycling sites in and around our town (personally, I have no objection of walking down to these sites to deposit stuff for recycling).

Our main aim is to reduce the amount of refuse to be taken to land fill sites and in doing so we have halved (or even less) the amount of rubbish we actually throw out. The biggest culprit, we found, is plastic. We use a lot of water and a fair amount of milk that is purchased in plastic bottles and a lot of food we buy is sold in plastic packaging (and we don not buy any ready-made dinners). In a space of less than a week, one 80 litre bin has been filled with this plastic - and this is just two people.

But we have bettered our target of one bin liner full of rubbish, instead it is almost half of that. So this has reduced our rubbish to one quarter of what it used to be.

Could you imagine if every household up and down this country did the same? I read a report a while back that stated that the UK throws out the most rubbish of any country in the EU - 24 million tonnes (I believe) in a year. Compared with Germany, for example, the report claimed that even with a population of over 10 million more than is in the UK, they throw out only 10 million tonnes. More often than not in the UK, this rubbish is sent to land-fill sites and space is going to run out, should us Brits keep going as we are.
 
First, Albie congratulations on a worthy 1,000st post.  :ok:

It looks like the garbage problem is certainly bigger in U.K. than here is Canada for the obvious reason of space.  I'm surprized that the government has not forced compliance on alternatives to plastics. 

I buy most of my milk in plastic bags, which takes up less space than bottles. 

It is a shame that companies do not produce more packaging that is biodegradable.

Good for you and your wife in your new recycling efforts.
 
I'm not sure, but I think one of the most important reasons why there is so comparatively little waste in Germany is because there is a deposit on most bottles (and beverage cans, by now). This was increased in 2004, but before, there has also been a deposit on most bottles holding beer or soft drinks. When I visited France and the UK this year, I was actually quite surprised that this wasn't even remotely as widespread in those countries.
 
A long time ago, we in the UK used to have returnable bottles (a good source of income of a ten year old ;)), that stopped many years ago. You're right Perun, it should be a lot more widespread than it is. A few years back, I used to work in a bar and we had a few returnable bottles, but a lot was binned. Such a waste; yes I know we are unlikely to run out of sand to make new glass, but the space taken up by these bottles in land-fill sites is a bigger problem.

Genghis, we do have a supermarket in the UK that packages some of its product range in compostable packaging. That should be used on more products than just one range in one supermarket.

I do appreciate that I'm saying nothing new here, but it would be nice to see a lot more make a greater effort. It's not that difficult.
 
In Nova Scotia we have among the most draconian rules regarding waste management.

Every home is equiped with a large green container on wheels. All waste food products and organic matter is collected in these biweekly. This is taken to municipal composting facilities where it is turned into useful fertilizers and sold to farms.
Beverage containers have a $0.10 fee on each one when you buy them; if you return them to the recyling depot you get $0.05 back - like in the UK, it's a good source of income ad busy work for kiddies.
Recyclable plastics, metals, cardboard, and newsprint are collected in seperate bags biweekly. Major items such as old furniture, discarded refridgerators, car tires, etc., are collected quarterly at no extra cost.

The fine for not complying with the waste management rules can be extremely heavy, given the infraction ($10,000 fines are not unheard of)

All this means that there is very little going into landfills - most gets reused in some way.
 
This is true for Ontario, as well.

Green containers on wheels are mandatory for houses and duplexes, but not for apartment buildings and condos. 

Outside of apartment buildings, various blue boxes for recycling different materials are available.
 
In Sweden we've had deposit on beverage cans and bottles for a long time and 95 % of all soda/beer cans that are sold are returned and recycled. In most apartment buildings we have to sort our refuse in to 6-9 different fractions - plastic, newspapers, regular paper, plastic containers, metal, coloured glass, white glass, batteries and food refuse (potato peels and stuff like that). It differs to some extent, but all tenant buildings have this "environment stations". House owners have more central stations where they can sort and throw their refuse. There aren't really any fines if you don't comply with the rules, but if you live in a block of flats the rent is partly based on the collection of refuse and the more we, the tenants, sort and recycle, the less we have to pay for the garbage collection. It works pretty well here, although some could do better of course, like me ;)
 
Vienna is a pretty clean city from what I can tell. We have garbage cans for virtually everything, although the ones for plastics are sometimes scarce. They are all labeled very nicely with different colored lids, although I pity the color blind. Last time I was in the UK I remember looking everywhere for a trash can, but it was really hard to find one of any type. I remember that in the subway it was especially dire, so I just ended up storing plastic chocolate wrappers in my jacket pocket. Speaking of the subway, those places are dumps for all kinds of trash.  :(
 
Natalie said:
Last time I was in the UK I remember looking everywhere for a trash can, but it was really hard to find one of any type. I remember that in the subway it was especially dire, so I just ended up storing plastic chocolate wrappers in my jacket pocket.
Click to expand...
I believe that the reason for no litter bins in the Underground is to do with the fear of a suspect device (or whatever) been dumped in there - it's a security issue. I too have this problem every time I use the Underground and it is a little annoying, but they are coming back.

One thing I have noticed (from comments here and reports in this country) is that the UK lags behind the rest of Europe when it come to recycling. I do think people are starting to do so here, so hopefully we will be up there with the rest of you guys soon.

However, we have a case of some local councils putting a micro-chip in household wheelie bins so they get weighed as they are emptied by the binmen. Overweight bins are charged to the household. The problem this entails is that it creates a lot of fly-tipping.

There is also a restaurant in London (The Acorn House) that disposes so little rubbish, it is barely worth mentioning. It even has told its suppliers to dispose of its packaging and deliver their produce in reusable containers.
 
Natalie said:
Vienna is a pretty clean city from what I can tell. We have garbage cans for virtually everything, although the ones for plastics are sometimes scarce. They are all labeled very nicely with different colored lids, although I pity the color blind. Last time I was in the UK I remember looking everywhere for a trash can, but it was really hard to find one of any type. I remember that in the subway it was especially dire, so I just ended up storing plastic chocolate wrappers in my jacket pocket. Speaking of the subway, those places are dumps for all kinds of trash.  :(
Click to expand...

Ohm my God!  I was wondering when I'll be able to use my experience in Austria as a semi-intelligent post.  :D

During the 1980s, my family and I made many trips across to the Austrian border for cheaper shopping.  I could not believe how pristine the whole road system and country side looked.  It was one of the most beautiful and impressive sights I remember as a child.  Whatever you Austrians (well not you Natalie since you're Swedish and Mexican :P) are doing, keep it up.  :ok:

EDIT: Has anyone checked the ads.  They're surely doing their job.
 
We are 5.5 at home (2 adults, 3 kids and a stupid cat) and we do recycle plastic, glass, papers etc.
In addition I set up my own personal organic wastes recycling unit :D
It's great, at the begining I put earthworms inside and let's go, the boys eat all our organic rubishes including dead leaves, lamn mowings...
We also use firewood eating. It's not that easy since I've got to light the fire in the morning and make sure there is enough wood at night when we go to bed but we use a renewable energy resource.  :halo:
Life is grand :)
 
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