Let’s talk rubbish again! Better than rubbish, let’s talk recycling. From early next year we will be able to recycle much more of our waste, leaving very little to go for incineration or to land fill.
It has been very annoying to be able to recycle plastic bottles but not plastic containers of other types. We all have lots of other plastic containers because it becomes increasingly difficult to buy many products without the accompanying plastic package of some sort - margarine, cottage cheese, yoghurt, cream and many more. These cartons will all go for recycling, as will Tetrapaks in which many of us buy milk and fruit juice, amongst other things. While we must make every effort not to waste food, there are always things such as vegetable peelings that must be thrown away. If you don’t have space for a compost bin, both cooked and raw food will be collected each week and will be composted. For some people the new wheelie bins will be inconvenient and arrangements will be made for households that cannot accommodate the bins or will have difficulty in moving them.
It is good to hear that the new contract for waste and recycling will actually save the council £200,000 per year, something of a change from hearing how everything is too expensive to continue. But money is not everything and knowing that we are helping to conserve the world’s resources by wasting as little as possible is very satisfying.
As a country we are far behind others in Europe in the amount that we recycle. We have increased our rates of recycling since European legislation required our councils to provide a minimum level and it is good that they have taken that step further to enable us to waste as little as possible.
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