On Fri, 18 Jan 2019 13:28:50 +0000, Steve Walker
wrote:

snip

I also understand the local council have also given up on bundling up
plastic bottles for recycling because of just how much unwanted
plastic is put with the wanted.

One of the problems is that the bottles and caps are of different
materials and the recyclers want the former, but not the latter.

Understood.

The
trouble is that when you flatten bottles, they tend to partly spring
back unless the cap is on to keep them collapsed by vacuum.

I'll give you they can spring back a bit but ours generally stay
pretty flat?

What we
really need is a requirement for the caps and bottles to be of
compatible materials (not necessarily the same materials).

That would make a lot of sense.

So whereas they used to get a good price per truckload of 'quality'
plastic they now get next to nothing for a load of polluted stuff,
simply because they don't have the staff to do what the households
should do (properly) in the first place. ;-(

In the case of plastic bottles, it should be simple enough for
automating cutting off 1" from the cap end of the bottles at the
recycling plant if there is a cap on. Unscrewing it would be even
better, but cutting is fast, reliable and simple.

Yup.

Alterantively, I wonder if they can recycle shredded bottles? I'd be
happy enough with a strong, hand-driven shredder. They'd take far less
space then.

I guess that might be down to *all* plastic (drink type) bottles being
made out of the same (or mixable) material and people only shredding
those, not mixing them up with other stuff?

Given I've seen hard plastic toys in the box that should pretty well
only be a small range of plastic bottles, I'd not want to trust 'most
people' with such a decision (hey, that sounds familiar). ;-)

Cheers, T i m