Who on here does it?

I have managed to reduce my rubbish from three bags to one by being quite strict with it for many years now, black plastic is just plastic that has been recycled to death apparently and cannot take any more hence it goes in the bin, polystyrene is just a pain! why is it used if it cannot be recycled.

Croydon gives us three wheelie bins. Cardboard, other recyclables and rubbish. The rubbish bin is smaller than the other two. We always did it anyway and took the recycling to one of the three local centres. Don’t need to take it now

** Bore alert **

Recycling is done for many reasons

1. for metal, it is done to reduce the highly destructive and expensive excavation work needed to extract ore. Also reduces processing costs considerably.

2. For paper/cardboard, it is not really about saving trees. It is about reducing the (toxic)treatment and bleaching agents used to turn wood into paper

3. For glass it is about reducing fossil fuels for furnaces. recycling glass requires less energy than starting with sand.

All very commendable.

Since the 1990's, Local Authorities were collecting old fridges (for £25 a pop)so they could extract the harmful CFC gases and re-use them.
Trouble is, there were no extraction facilities in the UK, and lacking any foresight, successive Governments stockpiled old fridges at a site in Barking for 15 years, whilst they tried to think of a solution.

As a binman in the early 1990's we took fridges off residents for £10 (trousering the cash), and just crushed it in the wagon.

I disengage, I turn the page.

My old man was a dustman with a hat
He told me they once put half a mini in his truck for a drink.
Back then there were no wheelie bins, it was the metal bins and they carried them.
Now that was a hard job.
I remember our garden was half full of aluminium saucepans he used to collect and scrap.
I think about 1 in 5 were folded over half a brick to make the weight up.
Very shrewd.

Where I am there's three types of skip, one for glass, one for cans cardboard plastic and paper, and one for non recyclables. No wheelies and works well.

In my day, we didn't have to worry about recycling, we were naturally green....

Milk came in glass bottles (to your doorstep) that were 'rinsed and returned'

Soft drinks/beer can in glass bottles that had a deposit charged on them - if you didn't take them back to the shop for the few coppers deposit someone else would!

Newspaper had 2 main recycling uses: Broadsheet was cut into 6 squares per page, Tabloid 4, a piece of string through a hole in the corner and that was the family's toilet paper for the week sorted, or

a sheet of paper folded diagonally then in 2" folds across, bent in half and 'woven' crosswise made the very best bricks for lighting the fire.

Old clothes (mostly natural fabrics in those days) either went to a jumble sale, to the rag and bone man for 1/6d a bag (or a goldfish or windmill depending on supply and demand), or were cut up and used as dusters, polishing cloths etc. It was a common sight to see windows being polished with a tatty pair of soft cotton underpants. Old towels has so many uses you couldn't list them all.

Meat from the butcher came wrapped in greaseproof paper, which was thrown away, and then 2 sheets of white cartridge paper which was cut up for drawing paper for the kids.

One gas copper of heated water, in a tin bath on the kitchen floor would wash an entire family. (and only happened once a week)

Modern recycling/green issues - PAH! don't know the meaning.....

A stairway to Heaven and a Highway to Hell give some indication of expected traffic numbers