PowerSwitch

Hi everyone
I'm a new poster on the forum, I'm by no means an expert on sustainability and energy issues but I'm interested and eager to learn.
I'm not sure if this was the right place to put this, but here goes anyway.

I was wondering what everyone thought of recycling in the UK being run, to a certain extent, at the discretion of the local authorities?
I've heard arguments for this lack of nationwide standardisation (the competitive element stimulates progress, etc). However, from living in two areas, I have seen that some systems appear to be far inferior to the others, and this seems to be backed up with the stats.
What does everyone else think?

P.s. Apologies if this isn't very topical, it's just something that's always seemed curious to me

I've had experience of this also. It's market-driven. When we lived in Hampshire the council was very specific about the types of plastic that could be put into the bin. I knew that some of those types excluded were perfectly recyclable. When I queried it, I was told that they just didn't have a contract for supplying that particular type of recycled material. We're now in Scotland and are able to put even fewer things in the blue bin.

To be honest, since we've been up here, we are making much more use of local suppliers for food, and the amount of stuff (especially plastics) that we have to recycle has gone down. We're also hanging on to a lot more stuff (e.g. glass jars for pickles, jams, etc.)

Sorry, welcome to the forum by the way.

I've found this postcode lottery for recycling pretty weird as well. Back in Wales I had just two bin bags each alternate week, one for landfill, the other for recycling stuff (unsorted). When I moved to Oxfordshire, suddenly there were about four different recycling boxes and everything had to be meticulously sorted into plastics, cans, cardboard etc. Then I was in Kent and the council didn't even accept most plastics as recyclable. I wish this sort of thing was standardised.

Mind you, surely recycling is only possible in an age of cheap energy? I imagine it takes a fair amount more energy to reuse plastics than to make more from oil, which would mean that recycling contributes to climate change. Anyone know what the energy implications of recycling plastics are?

I noticed the most difference with plastics too when moving from Somerset (only plastics bottles, no caps and no plastic packaging) to Gloucestershire (any and all unsorted plastics).
Although cynical I assume all local authorities are benefiting from recycling, so why the discrepancy? Are some going the extra mile or are others just missing a trick?
The local produce and the reusing sounds like a great solution. I remember a visit from a recycling, worker when I was still in school, telling us that the idea was to Reuse, Recycle, and Repair. Why enforce one and not even promote the others? Hate to be cynical again but I guess it's all about meeting quotas instead of reducing energy consumption

This recycling lottery is very weird indeed. When I lived over the border in Nottingham I got a warning letter because I'd contaminated my recycling by leaving the top on a plastic bottle. It threatened a fine in the event of a reoccurance.

Imagine my surprise when, a few weeks later, it emerged that EVERYTHING went to landfill recycle bin or black one. A neighbour who had been fined managed to get his money refunded but I've always wondered how much they scammed off people.

Hi Shattered Gambler

Very interesting questions - I have recently worked in this industry so I have a pretty good idea about what is going on here.

I suggest you get yourself a cup of tea/coffee and arm yourself with some choccy bickies before going any further!

Regarding the recycling lottery, this is actually symptomatic of how environmental legislation is implemented in the UK.

What happens is that the Government introduces a blunt policy instrument (in this case, this is the Landfill Tax ) and it is down to individual authorities as to how best deal with these policies.
Every local authority has different priorities, political agendas etc, and a consequence of this is the myriad of different waste colection services that you see across the country.

This is not true of most EU Countries as they tend to have a centralist control system. This means that they have a more harmonised approach to environmental legislation than you see in the UK.

Most of the local authorities (although certainly not all)in the UK have outsourced their waste collection service to specialist companies

These companies typically arrange for a set length contract to collect the household refuse and the Council/contractor will negotiate key points such as collection days, what type of bins will be provided - some councils provide wheelie bins for recycling, others provide colour coded boxes, along with agreed targets and performance levels.

Contracts can be terminated by either party at any time although in practice if a local authority wishes to terminate a contract, it has to have a dossier on the contractor's failings.

Got through the choccy bickies yet? There's more to come

What can actually be recycled is dependent on the contractor's MRF (Materials Recovery Facility) and how modern it is. Some councils now collect the plastic microwave food containers and harder plastics, but this is by no means uniform across the country.

In fact it does occur that neighbouring boroughs, who have the same contractor, have completely different recycling services.

As more modern MRFs come into use then the amount of stuff that can be recycled will increase.

Councils also have amenity tips - which aren't the same thing as MRFs - and can be operated by another company other than the household waste contractor.

One thing to be very aware of is whether your local authority sends landfill off for incineration - which is then used to produce electricity.

Many authorities have got long term contracts to supply landfill for this purpose and therefore have no incentive to increase recycling rates.

Some councils that use the box recycling service ratherthan colour coded wheelie bins are very particular about what goes into each recycling box.
The official reason why some authorities are fussy to what goes into the recycling is because of the end product after say the paper and cardboard is recycled.
The official reason that some councils use a box scheme for recycling is because that a given percentage of households in the borough have insufficient curtilage for two wheelie bins.

On your second cuppa yet?


So, onto the more important part - which is to follow the money.

Who gets the bonuses for achieving the recycling rates?

This goes to the waste collector companies, and they get the top whack if they achieve a certain figure (I believe this to be around 77%).
Therefore, once this threshold has been reached, there is no incentive to improve recycling rates further.

The councils hope to benefit by reducing their landfill tax burden - although in practice it doesn't always work out like this.

Is it the most "environmentally friendly" option?

No. The best option is not to create all of this unnecessary waste in the first place. The waste hierarchy is Reduce, Reuse and Recycle - the UK is on the bottom rung here.

Tess makes the valid point that as resource constraints become more apparent, then the probability is that more people will start to appraise what they actually need rather than buying lots of pointless stuff just for the sheer hell of it.
There are signs that this is happening already.

What would happen if supermarkets were obliged to take back ALL of the plastic packaging and give customers a deposit back?
Virtually everybody would be rushing back to your nearest Tescos (or whatever other big supermarket happens to be closest) dumping everything back. Stuff going to landfill would plummet.
This is extremely unlikely to happen though and has been added as a thought exercise.

I hope that answers your questions and hasn't put you off from posting other questions on here

Hope you haven't run out of tea/coffee in the meantime

Councils provide wheelie bins? We get free blue recycling bags, but now have to buy black landfill bags that they used to give away. The only bins/boxes we get are a small brown one to put kitchen waste into, and a bigger green one to put kitchen waste out for collection. The green one makes a nice letter box that takes packets and small parcels .

rb, thanks for the explanations.

With regard to plastic recycling, do you know what they do with it? Is there some chemical process to turn it back into convenient oil for reuse? How much energy does it take? Will there be a temptation to landfill the lot if the energy cost of recycling is too much relative to buying a fresh barrel of oil?

I'm just wondering if recycling is ironically making the energy crisis worse...

Until recently we had a fairly haphazard collection of newspapers and glass. The Highland Council has now gone on to the "standard" black bin / blue bin alternate weekly collection system. Trouble is, there are so few things that you can put in the blue bin, that many black ones get overfilled. It's not a problem for us, as we are a fairly small household and don't generate a lot of waste. But for larger families with children, I imagine it's a problem.

Interestingly, I remember when I was growing up, in "pre-wheelie bin" days, we had a regular galvanized bin with a galvanized lid (similar to the garden incinerators you can buy), which was emptied weekly. I wonder what the capacity of the typical wheelie bin is compared to these old bins? I would guess at least twice as big.

Tess wrote:rb, thanks for the explanations.

With regard to plastic recycling, do you know what they do with it? Is there some chemical process to turn it back into convenient oil for reuse? How much energy does it take? Will there be a temptation to landfill the lot if the energy cost of recycling is too much relative to buying a fresh barrel of oil?

I'm just wondering if recycling is ironically making the energy crisis worse...

Hi Tess

WRT recycled plastics, they do get turned into a variety of different things - a rather basic summary can be found here
WRT energy used in the recycling process, it is actually a lot lower than you imagined as this document states

However it is now time for spotting the elephant in the room.
In the video from the first video regarding plastic bottles - what is one of the things that they are made into? Why, plastic bottles, of course
Surely it would be better rinse said bottles out and reuse them
Same goes for glass bottles - who else on this forum remembers getting money back from the old Corona bottles of pop?

Tarrel wrote: I wonder what the capacity of the typical wheelie bin is compared to these old bins? I would guess at least twice as big.

The galvanised bins, I believe, have a capacity of around 80 litres, whereas most standard whellie bins come in at 180 litres. Other sizes are (normally) available - depending on your local authority.

raspberry-blower wrote:

Tarrel wrote: I wonder what the capacity of the typical wheelie bin is compared to these old bins? I would guess at least twice as big.

The galvanised bins, I believe, have a capacity of around 80 litres, whereas most standard whellie bins come in at 180 litres. Other sizes are (normally) available - depending on your local authority.

Well, there we go then. A bit rich for people a couple of years ago to be making a fuss about the switch to fortnightly bin collections, when they have been enjoying the benefit of more than 2 x capacity in their rubbish bins.

raspberry-blower wrote: WRT energy used in the recycling process, it is actually a lot lower than you imagined as this document states

Hi rb, thankyou for finding that paper. I think what I didn't expect was that the plastic would only be recycled back into 'plastic flakes' rather than back to oil. So they are comparing the processes:-
1) virgin oil -> plastic flakes, and
2) plastic bottles -> plastic flakes (by mechanical means)
whereas I was thinking the comparison would be between
1) virgin oil -> plastic bottles, and
2) plastic bottles -> virgin oil -> plastic bottles
which would obviously take much more energy in the latter case.

Anyway, mystery solved: they don't recycle the plastic back to an oil state but only to the mid point of plastic flakes. That explains how it's an energy efficient process, thanks.

We used to have one smallish black wheely bin for all rubbish.

Then the small wheely was replaced with a large black wheely for
general rubbish and a large green wheely for compost and cardboard and
paper (not phone directories or wrapping paper). Black and green bins collected on alternate weeks.

Then we got a a green crate for recycled paper and card and glass.

Then we got a second green crate for the glass, and also plastic bottles
with recycling symbols, cans and aluminium foil.

Then the crates were replaced with a large blue wheely for all glass, cardboard , cans and clean plastic waste expect expanded polystyrene and pyrex. A blue crate fits in the top of the wheely for paper which is really heavy to lift out so that you can put your recycling in the bin underneath.

Of course some households complained that one big black bin wasn't enough for two weeks, so they got a second large black bin. Making 4 large wheely bins per house.

I also collect wood ash in a steel bin from my wood burner,
and we have 2 compost bins in annual rotation,
and a large pile of uncut wood waiting to be put in the woodstore.

I use the green crates for carting cut wood around.

The council spent £20M on a giant automated recycling plant, which has just broken down again, and for the next few months most of the rubbish will be sent straight to landfill.