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Default OT - effectiveness of recycling?

Just something that has been knocking about in my mind for a while.

With the current domestic recycling there are some plastics which can be
recycled and some which can't.

For example, moulded plastic food trays are marked as recyclable, but the
label often says that the plastic covering film is not.
For meats, bacon, and many other foods the covering film is sealed to the
rim of the plastic tray, so that it is virtually impossible to remove all
the film.
So the tray is recyclable but with a small amount of non-recyclable
plastic fused to the rim.

Does this render the whole thing non-recyclable, and thus destined for
land fill? Or is a small percentage of contamination acceptable? Or is
most of the stuff we put in blue bins just for show and goes to land fill
anyway?

Cheers

Dave R


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In article ,
David writes:
Just something that has been knocking about in my mind for a while.

With the current domestic recycling there are some plastics which can be
recycled and some which can't.

For example, moulded plastic food trays are marked as recyclable, but the
label often says that the plastic covering film is not.
For meats, bacon, and many other foods the covering film is sealed to the
rim of the plastic tray, so that it is virtually impossible to remove all
the film.
So the tray is recyclable but with a small amount of non-recyclable
plastic fused to the rim.

Does this render the whole thing non-recyclable, and thus destined for
land fill? Or is a small percentage of contamination acceptable? Or is
most of the stuff we put in blue bins just for show and goes to land fill
anyway?


In most cases, small amounts of contamination reduce the value of
the reclaimed plastic - it means there are some things it can't be
used for, but less critical things it still can.

Same with paper. Some councils required all plastic removed including
plastic envelope windows, etc. When there is a glut of recycled paper,
theirs is the only type which can be sold.

In both cases, incineration is still an option when there's no
market for reuse.

OTOH, the more effort you require people to put in to recycling
separation, the percentage of recycled waste drops dramatically.
Automated separation at recycling plant is now quite advanced,
and uses things like electric fields to separate different types
of plastic bottles.

My recycle bin probably fills at least twice as fast as my non-
recycle bin.

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"Andrew Gabriel" wrote in message
...
In article ,
David writes:
Just something that has been knocking about in my mind for a while.

With the current domestic recycling there are some plastics which can be
recycled and some which can't.

For example, moulded plastic food trays are marked as recyclable, but the
label often says that the plastic covering film is not.
For meats, bacon, and many other foods the covering film is sealed to the
rim of the plastic tray, so that it is virtually impossible to remove all
the film.
So the tray is recyclable but with a small amount of non-recyclable
plastic fused to the rim.

Does this render the whole thing non-recyclable, and thus destined for
land fill? Or is a small percentage of contamination acceptable? Or is
most of the stuff we put in blue bins just for show and goes to land fill
anyway?


In most cases, small amounts of contamination reduce the value of
the reclaimed plastic - it means there are some things it can't be
used for, but less critical things it still can.


so employee "professional" to sort it properly, relying on amateurs to guess
is just dumb

tim



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In article ,
"tim....." writes:

"Andrew Gabriel" wrote in message
...
In article ,
David writes:
Just something that has been knocking about in my mind for a while.

With the current domestic recycling there are some plastics which can be
recycled and some which can't.

For example, moulded plastic food trays are marked as recyclable, but the
label often says that the plastic covering film is not.
For meats, bacon, and many other foods the covering film is sealed to the
rim of the plastic tray, so that it is virtually impossible to remove all
the film.
So the tray is recyclable but with a small amount of non-recyclable
plastic fused to the rim.

Does this render the whole thing non-recyclable, and thus destined for
land fill? Or is a small percentage of contamination acceptable? Or is
most of the stuff we put in blue bins just for show and goes to land fill
anyway?


In most cases, small amounts of contamination reduce the value of
the reclaimed plastic - it means there are some things it can't be
used for, but less critical things it still can.


so employee "professional" to sort it properly, relying on amateurs to guess
is just dumb


Some councils did kerbside sorting by trained staff.
I think that's all gone now - the quality of the sorted results were
good, but the labour cost was prohibitive and almost certainly outweighed
any additional value of the separated recyclables.

Like I said, automated sorting can separate out most of the plastic
types nowadays, although that may not yet be operating in all areas.

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From recent news I've read most plastic is in small thin fibres and buried
in the ocean sediment, where it causes problems for life which filters
though the detritus for food, clogging up their filters.

However, I understand that the film stuff is only bonded at the outside and
this is cropped off. Still there are lots of things that have multiple
materials in them, cassette tapes for example, and some drinks containers
which are cardboard with a silver substance glued inside.
Brian

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"David" wrote in message
...
Just something that has been knocking about in my mind for a while.

With the current domestic recycling there are some plastics which can be
recycled and some which can't.

For example, moulded plastic food trays are marked as recyclable, but the
label often says that the plastic covering film is not.
For meats, bacon, and many other foods the covering film is sealed to the
rim of the plastic tray, so that it is virtually impossible to remove all
the film.
So the tray is recyclable but with a small amount of non-recyclable
plastic fused to the rim.

Does this render the whole thing non-recyclable, and thus destined for
land fill? Or is a small percentage of contamination acceptable? Or is
most of the stuff we put in blue bins just for show and goes to land fill
anyway?

Cheers

Dave R


--
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"Andrew Gabriel" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"tim....." writes:

"Andrew Gabriel" wrote in message
...
In article ,
David writes:
Just something that has been knocking about in my mind for a while.

With the current domestic recycling there are some plastics which can
be
recycled and some which can't.

For example, moulded plastic food trays are marked as recyclable, but
the
label often says that the plastic covering film is not.
For meats, bacon, and many other foods the covering film is sealed to
the
rim of the plastic tray, so that it is virtually impossible to remove
all
the film.
So the tray is recyclable but with a small amount of non-recyclable
plastic fused to the rim.

Does this render the whole thing non-recyclable, and thus destined for
land fill? Or is a small percentage of contamination acceptable? Or is
most of the stuff we put in blue bins just for show and goes to land
fill
anyway?

In most cases, small amounts of contamination reduce the value of
the reclaimed plastic - it means there are some things it can't be
used for, but less critical things it still can.


so employee "professional" to sort it properly, relying on amateurs to
guess
is just dumb


Some councils did kerbside sorting by trained staff.
I think that's all gone now - the quality of the sorted results were
good, but the labour cost was prohibitive and almost certainly outweighed
any additional value of the separated recyclables.


of course it's not cost effective

for every 5 minutes of sorting they are doing 5 minutes of collecting and 5
minutes of travelling. It needs to be arranged so that trained sorters sort
and the other task are done by other staff

Like I said, automated sorting can separate out most of the plastic
types nowadays, although that may not yet be operating in all areas.


I must have missed that bit. My initial comment wasn't referring to the use
of manual labour over technology, I was referring to the practice of LAs to
expect residents to be qualified sorters and then having the gall to try and
fine you if you turn out to be useless at it

tim



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On 20 Dec 2014, Tim Streater grunted:

In article , David
wrote:

For example, moulded plastic food trays are marked as recyclable, but
the label often says that the plastic covering film is not.
For meats, bacon, and many other foods the covering film is sealed to
the rim of the plastic tray, so that it is virtually impossible to
remove all the film.
So the tray is recyclable but with a small amount of non-recyclable
plastic fused to the rim.


And what about those bloody boxes for stuff like quiche that have windows,
and it says 'cardboard carton recyclable; window not recyclable', so you're
expected to grovel about, picking off the plastic.

It's the wide available products like these which to my mind demonstrate
the lack of will to seriously address recycling


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On 20/12/14 18:29, Lobster wrote:
On 20 Dec 2014, Tim Streater grunted:

In article , David
wrote:

For example, moulded plastic food trays are marked as recyclable, but
the label often says that the plastic covering film is not.
For meats, bacon, and many other foods the covering film is sealed to
the rim of the plastic tray, so that it is virtually impossible to
remove all the film.
So the tray is recyclable but with a small amount of non-recyclable
plastic fused to the rim.


And what about those bloody boxes for stuff like quiche that have windows,
and it says 'cardboard carton recyclable; window not recyclable', so you're
expected to grovel about, picking off the plastic.

It's the wide available products like these which to my mind demonstrate
the lack of will to seriously address recycling


Its all a green con anyway.

no one uses council compost because its likely contaminated. nearly all
waste ends up as landfill anyway despite what you do to it


--
Everything you read in newspapers is absolutely true, except for the
rare story of which you happen to have first-hand knowledge. €“ Erwin Knoll
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The Natural Philosopher wrote




Its all a green con anyway.

no one uses council compost because its likely contaminated. nearly all
waste ends up as landfill anyway despite what you do to it


Really

http://www.cowbridgecompost.com/news.htm

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On 20/12/2014 19:35, rbel wrote:
Householders sort into 4
bins -


They have got it up to five round here.

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In article ,
rbel writes:
On Sat, 20 Dec 2014 13:31:32 +0000 (UTC),
(Andrew Gabriel) wrote:


Some councils did kerbside sorting by trained staff.
I think that's all gone now - the quality of the sorted results were
good, but the labour cost was prohibitive and almost certainly outweighed
any additional value of the separated recyclables.

Like I said, automated sorting can separate out most of the plastic
types nowadays, although that may not yet be operating in all areas.


Our recycling uses a hybrid arrangement. Householders sort into 4
bins -
paper, plastic packaging and tins;
glass, cardboard, foil and drink cartons;
food waste;
all non-recyclable waste.


That's quite a common arrangement, although food waste and/or garden waste
vary quite a bit. Garden waste is sometimes charged extra, although
councils which offered it when this government came to power are not
allowed to increase the charge (or to start charging if they didn't
do so beforehand).

Some councils tried even more separation, but found it causes recyling
percentages to drop. In one area I visit regularly which has the separate
food waste, I noticed almost no one uses it. It doesn't exist in my area.

Battery collection is sometimes separate, because they are not supposed
to allow that to go into landfill anymore. OTOH, all shops which sell
batteries also have to take back old ones now, and even before that,
many companies provided battery recycling bins for their workers.

Then there is a kerbside check by the collection crew - a driver and 2
operatives.


--
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In article sting.com,
Sailor writes:
The Natural Philosopher wrote




Its all a green con anyway.

no one uses council compost because its likely contaminated. nearly all
waste ends up as landfill anyway despite what you do to it


Really

http://www.cowbridgecompost.com/news.htm


South Beds (back when it existed) got a government grant to buy all the
garden compost wheelie bins (probably 15 years ago?), but they made a
profit from the collection, composting, and sale of garden compost.

Councils which charged for garden waste collection generally got far too
small participation for it to be a profitable business.

--
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On 20/12/14 20:41, Andrew Gabriel wrote:
In article sting.com,
Sailor writes:
The Natural Philosopher wrote




Its all a green con anyway.

no one uses council compost because its likely contaminated. nearly all
waste ends up as landfill anyway despite what you do to it


Really

http://www.cowbridgecompost.com/news.htm


South Beds (back when it existed) got a government grant to buy all the
garden compost wheelie bins (probably 15 years ago?), but they made a
profit from the collection, composting, and sale of garden compost.

Councils which charged for garden waste collection generally got far too
small participation for it to be a profitable business.


Rother has this year switched from free to chargeable garden waste.
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In article ,
Tim Watts writes:
On 20/12/14 20:41, Andrew Gabriel wrote:
South Beds (back when it existed) got a government grant to buy all the
garden compost wheelie bins (probably 15 years ago?), but they made a
profit from the collection, composting, and sale of garden compost.

Councils which charged for garden waste collection generally got far too
small participation for it to be a profitable business.


Rother has this year switched from free to chargeable garden waste.


Interesting. Reading (and other places) tried to do that, and goverment
told them the charge would count against them as a council tax increase,
and so they abandoned the idea and it remains free AFAIK.

Although collection of garden waste in Reading was free from the
beginning, residents had to buy the garden recycling bin, so the
take-up was not universal by any means.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]


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On 20/12/14 22:13, Andrew Gabriel wrote:
In article ,
Tim Watts writes:
On 20/12/14 20:41, Andrew Gabriel wrote:
South Beds (back when it existed) got a government grant to buy all the
garden compost wheelie bins (probably 15 years ago?), but they made a
profit from the collection, composting, and sale of garden compost.

Councils which charged for garden waste collection generally got far too
small participation for it to be a profitable business.


Rother has this year switched from free to chargeable garden waste.


Interesting. Reading (and other places) tried to do that, and goverment
told them the charge would count against them as a council tax increase,
and so they abandoned the idea and it remains free AFAIK.

Although collection of garden waste in Reading was free from the
beginning, residents had to buy the garden recycling bin, so the
take-up was not universal by any means.


Our charge is reasonably nominal £25 per annum and includes the standard
sized wheelie bin.

Uptake has been partial here. For me it was a no brainer as I have a
long hawthorn hedge and clippings are not practical to compost[1], would
rip my car to bits if I shoved it in for the dump and I fill my brown
bin about 75% of the year (fortnightly collections).

[1] I have wondered if a chipper would work - but hawthorn is so wiggly
and stiff I wonder if it would even be possible to feed it into a
domestic shredder at any sane rate - unlike say long thin sticks of ash.

My house is not bonfire friendly - short all round garden - whenever I
have tried to burn materials I have smoked someone out in short order.
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On Saturday, 20 December 2014 18:55:42 UTC, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Its all a green con anyway.

no one uses council compost because its likely contaminated. nearly all
waste ends up as landfill anyway despite what you do to it


I know a farmer who buys it for 50p per tonne. There are lots of bits
of plastic bag in it, but they don't cause him a problem.

John
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The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Its all a green con anyway.

no one uses council compost because its likely contaminated. nearly all
waste ends up as landfill anyway despite what you do to it


The glass gets sent to China for use as hardcore, at a massive cost in
CO2 emissions.

Bill
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"Tim Watts" wrote in message
...
On 20/12/14 22:13, Andrew Gabriel wrote:
In article ,
Tim Watts writes:
On 20/12/14 20:41, Andrew Gabriel wrote:
South Beds (back when it existed) got a government grant to buy all the
garden compost wheelie bins (probably 15 years ago?), but they made a
profit from the collection, composting, and sale of garden compost.

Councils which charged for garden waste collection generally got far
too
small participation for it to be a profitable business.

Rother has this year switched from free to chargeable garden waste.


Interesting. Reading (and other places) tried to do that, and goverment
told them the charge would count against them as a council tax increase,
and so they abandoned the idea and it remains free AFAIK.

Although collection of garden waste in Reading was free from the
beginning, residents had to buy the garden recycling bin, so the
take-up was not universal by any means.


Our charge is reasonably nominal £25 per annum and includes the standard
sized wheelie bin.

Uptake has been partial here. For me it was a no brainer as I have a long
hawthorn hedge and clippings are not practical to compost[1], would rip my
car to bits if I shoved it in for the dump and I fill my brown bin about
75% of the year (fortnightly collections).

[1] I have wondered if a chipper would work - but hawthorn is so wiggly
and stiff I wonder if it would even be possible to feed it into a domestic
shredder at any sane rate - unlike say long thin sticks of ash.

My house is not bonfire friendly - short all round garden - whenever I
have tried to burn materials I have smoked someone out in short order.


I compost all my own stuff including hedge clippings.
I take stuff from my neighbours too.
Takes one/two years to compost thicker twigs.
I run anything over 10mm dia through the shredder & it will compost in six
months.
I also buy compost at the recycle centre.
They will deliver by the truck load if you want.
There are no separate bins for garden waste here


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"Sailor" wrote in message
ldhosting.com...

The Natural Philosopher wrote




Its all a green con anyway.

no one uses council compost because its likely contaminated. nearly all
waste ends up as landfill anyway despite what you do to it


Really

http://www.cowbridgecompost.com/news.htm


Hmmm...
"Live - On YouTube
You can now watch us on YouTube. The facility, our machinery, the process
and our estate."
.... couple of three year old videos.



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On Sat, 20 Dec 2014 14:10:54 +0000, Brian Gaff wrote:

snip
However, I understand that the film stuff is only bonded at the outside
and
this is cropped off. snip


Ah!

Makes sense to crop the rim off - I just wasn't sure that they would go to
the extra expense of doing this.

Cheers


Dave R

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On 21/12/14 10:36, Huge wrote:
On 2014-12-21, Bill Wright wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Its all a green con anyway.

no one uses council compost because its likely contaminated. nearly all
waste ends up as landfill anyway despite what you do to it


The glass gets sent to China for use as hardcore, at a massive cost in
CO2 emissions.


Actually it gets used to make glass fibre insulation.


Some.

How much glass fibre did you use last year?
How many glass bottles did you throw away?

I'll bet the second was an order of magnitude greater than the first


--
Everything you read in newspapers is absolutely true, except for the
rare story of which you happen to have first-hand knowledge. €“ Erwin Knoll
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On 21/12/2014 00:39, Bill Wright wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Its all a green con anyway.

no one uses council compost because its likely contaminated. nearly
all waste ends up as landfill anyway despite what you do to it


The glass gets sent to China for use as hardcore, at a massive cost in
CO2 emissions.

Bill


It costs next to no CO2 to send stuff to china, the empty container
ships are going there anyway.
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In article ,
Bill Wright writes:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Its all a green con anyway.

no one uses council compost because its likely contaminated. nearly all
waste ends up as landfill anyway despite what you do to it


The glass gets sent to China for use as hardcore, at a massive cost in
CO2 emissions.


It was crushed and used here as hardcore, thereby avoiding landfill
tax, but there was some concern that according to EU rules, it probably
should still be subject to landfill tax, even when buried under roads
and pavements as hardcore.

It's never worth recycling back into glass - there's almost no market
for low grade glass made from recycled glass, and it costs more than
making new glass. Even the crushed glass hardcore costs more than real
hardcore, and is only marginally worthwhile due to avoiding landfill
tax.

--
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On 21/12/2014 11:43, Dennis@home wrote:
It costs next to no CO2 to send stuff to china, the empty container
ships are going there anyway.


Even if it were the case that the container ships use not even one extra
joule nor emit a single extra molecule of CO2, the transport from
numerous collecting points to the ships ain't going to be without any
CO2 emissions.

--
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"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
On 21/12/14 10:36, Huge wrote:
On 2014-12-21, Bill Wright wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Its all a green con anyway.

no one uses council compost because its likely contaminated. nearly all
waste ends up as landfill anyway despite what you do to it


The glass gets sent to China for use as hardcore, at a massive cost in
CO2 emissions.


Actually it gets used to make glass fibre insulation.


Some.

How much glass fibre did you use last year?
How many glass bottles did you throw away?

I'll bet the second was an order of magnitude greater than the first


But if you are a commercial new build, I suspect it is not

tim


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On 20/12/2014 18:55, The Natural Philosopher wrote:


no one uses council compost because its likely contaminated. nearly all
waste ends up as landfill anyway despite what you do to it


The compost ends up in grow bags and potting compost sold by the
supermarkets/sheds.


--
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On 21/12/2014 00:39, Bill Wright wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Its all a green con anyway.

no one uses council compost because its likely contaminated. nearly
all waste ends up as landfill anyway despite what you do to it


The glass gets sent to China for use as hardcore, at a massive cost in
CO2 emissions.


Much of the recycling is not CO2 effective. Add also the environmental
cost of people transporting glass to the collection points in cars.

As I've posted before people sort glass into the various colours, place
in in the nominated bins and then the truck comes along and it ALL gets
mixed up in the same load back to the 'recycling' plant.


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In article ,
alan_m writes:
On 21/12/2014 00:39, Bill Wright wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Its all a green con anyway.

no one uses council compost because its likely contaminated. nearly
all waste ends up as landfill anyway despite what you do to it


The glass gets sent to China for use as hardcore, at a massive cost in
CO2 emissions.


Much of the recycling is not CO2 effective. Add also the environmental
cost of people transporting glass to the collection points in cars.


Well "driving to the bottle bank" is a euphemism for pointless recycling!

I only started recycling glass when they started collecting it from
the kerbside.

As I've posted before people sort glass into the various colours, place
in in the nominated bins and then the truck comes along and it ALL gets
mixed up in the same load back to the 'recycling' plant.


Those date back to the original (failed) attempts to reuse the glass
as bottles and whatnot - that never worked. The giant bins with
compartments for each type of glass - the separators between the
compartments were long since taken out.

--
Andrew Gabriel
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In article ,
"harryagain" writes:
I compost all my own stuff including hedge clippings.
I take stuff from my neighbours too.
Takes one/two years to compost thicker twigs.
I run anything over 10mm dia through the shredder & it will compost in six
months.


I've had a compost bin running for about 4 years. Mostly grass cuttings
and other stuff the mower picks up - twigs and holly tree leaves.
The bin has been full at end of last two summers, but settles enough
over winter to get the next year's in (helped by me jumping up and down
on it at the end of this year).

The stuff at the bottom is not well rotted yet. Holly leaves appear not
to rot at all, and neither have the twigs completely.

New grass added at the top always looks like it's starting to rot down
nicely a week or two later.

--
Andrew Gabriel
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Andrew Gabriel posted
In article ,
Bill Wright writes:
The glass gets sent to China for use as hardcore, at a massive cost in
CO2 emissions.


It was crushed and used here as hardcore, thereby avoiding landfill
tax, but there was some concern that according to EU rules, it probably
should still be subject to landfill tax, even when buried under roads
and pavements as hardcore.


What's bad about putting it into landfill anyway? (I mean from the
Eurocrats' POV - obviously it's bad from our POV because the Eurocrats
tax it!)

--
Les
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On 21/12/14 15:59, tim..... wrote:

well there's something that they couldn't have predicted - not!

tim


Our recycling went up a lot when the council switched from their
previously laughable multi-sorted boxes (one with types 1,2,3 only
plastics plus cans, one for pristine paper, one for garden waste)

to

optional garden waste

and

green bin for *everything* vaguely recyclable (any paper, card, all
plastics, tetrapaks, tins) plus glass in a separate box.

The green bin is full every 2 weeks and the black general refuse bin is
a lot less full.
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On 21/12/2014 10:01, David wrote:
On Sat, 20 Dec 2014 14:10:54 +0000, Brian Gaff wrote:

snip
However, I understand that the film stuff is only bonded at the outside
and
this is cropped off. snip

Ah!

Makes sense to crop the rim off - I just wasn't sure that they would go to
the extra expense of doing this.

Cheers


Dave R

Semi-rigid packaging is either PVC or more commonly nowadays for food is
Apet, to heat seal the top film to the pack uses mostly PP and this is
laminated to the film during the production process.
Just to cut of the sealed area still leaves the laminated PP over the
rest of the pack.
Vacuum packs i.e. bacon cooked meats etc. are Nylon laminated with PP,
again this is an overall coating.

As for Co2, rigid cooked food containers contains 75% Co2 the rest being
N2, you often get a whiff when opening the packs.
Fresh red meats contain 30% Co2, the rest being N2 and a large volume of
O2 which keeps the meat red for presentation.

As for my recycle bin they allow all plastics & paper including
yoghurt/butter tubs which are PS which previously went to landfill so
everything goes in there if at all plastic, always plenty of room in the
general bin come day of collection which is every other week.
Just recently they now take small electrical goods and batteries, just
have to leave them in a carrier bag next to the bin, also Xmas trees the
first week in Jan.

My green bin takes garden refuse apart from cooked items which I put out
for the fox's/Badgers, peelings etc. go on the compost heap along with
shredded personal documents, anything else I burn, I love a good bonfire.

I come under Central Beds Council and with no extra charge on top of the
tax, they seem to be doing a decent job.

Barry

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In message , polygonum
writes
On 21/12/2014 11:43, Dennis@home wrote:
It costs next to no CO2 to send stuff to china, the empty container
ships are going there anyway.


Even if it were the case that the container ships use not even one
extra joule nor emit a single extra molecule of CO2, the transport from
numerous collecting points to the ships ain't going to be without any
CO2 emissions.


And in terms of ton/mile is probably not insignificant.


Adrian
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On Sun, 21 Dec 2014 15:58:15 -0000, tim..... wrote:

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
On 21/12/14 10:36, Huge wrote:
On 2014-12-21, Bill Wright wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Its all a green con anyway.

no one uses council compost because its likely contaminated. nearly all
waste ends up as landfill anyway despite what you do to it


The glass gets sent to China for use as hardcore, at a massive cost in
CO2 emissions.

Actually it gets used to make glass fibre insulation.


Some.

How much glass fibre did you use last year?
How many glass bottles did you throw away?

I'll bet the second was an order of magnitude greater than the first


But if you are a commercial new build, I suspect it is not

tim


There's a 330,000 sq. ft. new unit not far away - all the insulation is
(labelled) as wool - not many bottles in that, I hope.
--
Peter.
The gods will stay away
whilst religions hold sway
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On 21/12/2014 16:53, Andrew Gabriel wrote:
In article ,
"harryagain" writes:
I compost all my own stuff including hedge clippings.
I take stuff from my neighbours too.
Takes one/two years to compost thicker twigs.
I run anything over 10mm dia through the shredder & it will compost in six
months.


I've had a compost bin running for about 4 years. Mostly grass cuttings
and other stuff the mower picks up - twigs and holly tree leaves.
The bin has been full at end of last two summers, but settles enough
over winter to get the next year's in (helped by me jumping up and down
on it at the end of this year).

The stuff at the bottom is not well rotted yet. Holly leaves appear not
to rot at all, and neither have the twigs completely.

New grass added at the top always looks like it's starting to rot down
nicely a week or two later.


I was talking to a guy whose company have the contract to maintain our
local park. All the shrub cuttings get left in their "yard" and put back
on the council beds a year later, despite none of the twiggy bits having
broken down. Sill, it's the right colour, and it probably acts as a
mulch of sorts, but it's a wasted round trip in a way.
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In message , at 16:15:04 on Sun, 21
Dec 2014, alan_m remarked:
As I've posted before people sort glass into the various colours, place
in in the nominated bins and then the truck comes along and it ALL gets
mixed up in the same load back to the 'recycling' plant.


My local bottle bank has two bins. One is labelled "Clear", and the
other is labelled both "Green only" and "Brown only". Obviously a
psychology experiment.

(The truck which collects them has two compartments)
--
Roland Perry
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"PeterC" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 21 Dec 2014 15:58:15 -0000, tim..... wrote:

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
On 21/12/14 10:36, Huge wrote:
On 2014-12-21, Bill Wright wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Its all a green con anyway.

no one uses council compost because its likely contaminated. nearly
all
waste ends up as landfill anyway despite what you do to it


The glass gets sent to China for use as hardcore, at a massive cost in
CO2 emissions.

Actually it gets used to make glass fibre insulation.


Some.

How much glass fibre did you use last year?
How many glass bottles did you throw away?

I'll bet the second was an order of magnitude greater than the first


But if you are a commercial new build, I suspect it is not

tim


There's a 330,000 sq. ft. new unit not far away - all the insulation is
(labelled) as wool - not many bottles in that, I hope.


just because some commercial new builds aren't insulated with glass fibre
products, doesn't negate the fact that those that do are using up more than
their own quantity of previously "consumed" glass containers.

tim





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