Is recycling worthwhile?

[Bryn]

Repair, re-use, and only if they fail, recycle.

[french frank]

Repair, re-use, and only if they fail, recycle.

And reduce. I have a small wheelie bin and after a fortnight it's often still empty, sometimes after a month still nothing in it, because I recycle as much as possible and buy with that in view e.g. kitchen cleaning stuff (washing up liquid, laundry liquid &c) are bought from a shop where they will refill them. But none of these things make recycling not worthwhile. It needs consumers to take the whole matter seriously.

[PS My 'best shirt' is over 50 years old ]

[oddoneout]

It needs consumers to take the whole matter seriously.

Which many try to do, but if the policy makers don't do the same then compliance is a lost cause, hence my comment re national strategy.The situation which exist at present where households a short distance apart may have different rules about what can go in the recycling bin is not helpful, neither is constant change and apparent inconsistency for items taken to a household waste site.
You are fortunate to be able to have a small bin - my council got rid of theirs years ago(although there are some still around - I'm trying to find one I can arrange a swap with), so the choice is ordinary family household size or in special cases a larger size one. A fortnightly 12 litre bag of rubbish looks a bit silly in it, and together with the recycling bin takes up about a fifth of my front 'garden'. I am currently negotiating to have council approved clear plastic sacks(yes I know, more plastic waste.....) for my recycling instead of the bin as again there is so little to put in such an oversized container.
As an alternative to dumping everything in landfill recycling could be considered worthwhile, but dealing with the problem of waste is about so much more than how and where it is thrown away. The cloth carrier bags my local town, district and county councils dished out many years ago when they were being required to find alternatives to landfill were printed with the various 'r's -refuse, re-use, reduce, with recycle at the end- but then the focus shifted away from prevention to different ways of throwing away, aka recycling. The fact that so many of us now have the one big bin into which everything suitable is chucked doesn't encourage consideration of what is actually happening.
I used to be able to refill various basics(food and non-food) many years ago but the shop closed. Morrisons now allow the use of customer containers for things like fresh fish but I don't buy such items from there.

[Serial_Apologist]

Because for me it comes with conditions. As I've already said, when it is seen as the principal and most 'desirable'(whether environmentally or politically)alternative to landfill that can blind to considerations of other aspects of waste management, of which the most important I think is not producing it in the first place.

It's one of the problems with the "make the polluter pay" demand.

[Serial_Apologist]

With respect, I don't think it did sire the teddy boys. They were the ones who would never be the movers and shakers. The most they could hope for was a clockwork orange. What we are talking about here is the overly feet-in-slippers since their smugly-privileged childhoods brigades. Whether they think they are Lab, Lib or Tory, they need to have experienced deprivation and no alternative. By law. Preferably with commandants overseeing them who are illogical, unreasonable, full of force and smash them so that they never do seek office.

To further clarify, if someone decides at 20 or 30 or 40 or 50 that they wish to stand for office, that is the time that I would require them to do two years of military national service first : spending 15 minutes at a time getting the lines on their sheets straight before they are ruffled and it has to be done several times again; cleaning a rifle for six hours at a time to barracking, unable to move from the spot; night exercises with blackened faces and rifles shooting blanks; having to clean their boots to perfection otherwise they are thrown back in their faces; and regular slopping out tasks. This was what was required of me in the CCF at 14 and I wasn't intending to stand for office. Let them be required by law to do the same.

An enlightened boot camp, with you in charge, then.

[Lat-Literal]

An enlightened boot camp, with you in charge, then.

I wouldn't want to be in charge of it.

No - recycling is not worthwhile if nothing is done to curtail population numbers, house building on the green belt is rampant, fracking is proposed, the number of vehicles on the roads is preposterous, public transport is useless, rich people are jetting off all over the globe at every available opportunity and every home is turned into the equivalent of a council dump or a fly-tip. It is not worthwhile when there is one size of bin designed for a family of 15 that is delivered in quadruplicate plus grass bin and which blocks fire escape routes, thereby forcing home owners into illegality, either by having to break the requirements of mortgage companies/insurers to keep such routes free or by having to keep the bins on the highway.

It is not worthwhile when old people, disabled people and/or the mentally ill are at risk of personal injury by having to carry these heavy monstrosities around to fit into tight spaces where they don't fit and to stand in hilly rockeries to access one or two of the bins that are just about reachable. It is not worthwhile when several of them are not reachable at all let alone able to be wheeled to the pavement once a fortnight and that non-collection is deemed the resident's fault as rats seek to move into what a borough's headquarters has created.

It is not worthwhile when it is so done on the cheap that the one-size fits-all is as a starting point the only policy with the excuse that there cannot be individual home assessments. What about initially dividing homes into two categories based on council tax band or known number of residents? Oh no. Too logical. Far too reasonable. Too much a case of a bit of common sense and effort having to interfere with a love of abject force. It is not worthwhile when most of the ready meal packets and much else that individuals put as required into recycling bins are not recyclable at all, nor that even the stated ambition of a transition to four or five massive bins is an increase in recycling rates by just 10% and that may be bogus.

It is not worthwhile when a local authority has so little confidence in its own policy that it refuses to answer correspondence from anyone although it promises to do so within 14 days; talks first about a visual assessment of every property having been made in which someone reckoned that no property could not accommodate them and second that visual assessments will be carried out where there is an unusual problem only not to do so. At least one of those things and probably both is a lie. It is not worthwhile when the policy favours wealthy people with masses of space and penalises the less well off and favours those with paved frontages and masses of cars over those with environmentally friendly frontages and no car.

It is not worthwhile when all of the redundant plastic bins are left to deteriorate in people's gardens because there is no service to take them away. It is not worthwhile when those who do have cars clog up the roads to dump the old bins somewhere themselves. It is not worthwhile when it brings environmental policy generally into disrepute. It is not worthwhile when much of this stuff is moved to the third world. And it is not worthwhile when all that it does is prove that there really is and always was a sinister and deeply unamusing side to clowns.

[Serial_Apologist]

I wouldn't want to be in charge of it.

I wouldn't advocate policies I wasn't prepared to implement myself.

[Lat-Literal]

I wouldn't advocate policies I wasn't prepared to implement myself.

I would be more than happy to implement it but it would be for the army to manage it.

I am a bit mystified by your approach to this. The 1945-1979 consensus would not have occurred had political leaders not had first hand experience of deprivation and/or devastation on the battlefields in which they were subjected to harsh routines. Post 1979 it's all generation burger and video game. Jong-Un, Trump etc...……..it's not just here but truly international.

There are aspects of policing you and anyone would advocate that you wouldn't personally wish to police.

And I reiterate that unlike Mr Macron, I am not advocating national service for everyone; just military national service for those who seek high office.

Re comments on "the continent" and the environment - some of the cities are blighted by graffiti that is far worse than anything here - Copenhagen, much of France and Italy etc. That has been the case for decades and I was very shocked when I saw it. If you travel south out of Lisbon by train, there are miles and miles of the ugliest tower blocks covered in the stuff.

[Serial_Apologist]

I would be more than happy to implement it but it would be for the army to manage it.

I am a bit mystified by your approach to this. The 1945-1979 consensus would not have occurred had political leaders not had first hand experience of deprivation and/or devastation on the battlefields in which they were subjected to harsh routines. Post 1979 it's all generation burger and video game. Jong-Un, Trump etc...……..it's not just here but truly international.

There are aspects of policing you and anyone would advocate that you wouldn't personally wish to police.

And I reiterate that unlike Mr Macron, I am not advocating national service for everyone; just military national service for those who seek high office.

Re comments on "the continent" and the environment - some of the cities are blighted by graffiti that is far worse than anything here - Copenhagen, much of France and Italy etc. That has been the case for decades and I was very shocked when I saw it. If you travel south out of Lisbon by train, there are miles and miles of the ugliest tower blocks covered in the stuff.

I see readily intelligeable reasons behind this which are not your tendency-to-automatic-decline assumptions requiring brutality to bring people to their senses solutions... unless I've totally failed to read your above messages correctly.

[Serial_Apologist]

I wouldn't want to be in charge of it.

No - recycling is not worthwhile if nothing is done to curtail population numbers, house building on the green belt is rampant, fracking is proposed, the number of vehicles on the roads is preposterous, public transport is useless, rich people are jetting off all over the globe at every available opportunity and every home is turned into the equivalent of a council dump or a fly-tip. It is not worthwhile when there is one size of bin designed for a family of 15 that is delivered in quadruplicate plus grass bin and which blocks fire escape routes, thereby forcing home owners into illegality, either by having to break the requirements of mortgage companies/insurers to keep such routes free or by having to keep the bins on the highway.

It is not worthwhile when old people, disabled people and/or the mentally ill are at risk of personal injury by having to carry these heavy monstrosities around to fit into tight spaces where they don't fit and to stand in hilly rockeries to access one or two of the bins that are just about reachable. It is not worthwhile when several of them are not reachable at all let alone able to be wheeled to the pavement once a fortnight and that non-collection is deemed the resident's fault as rats seek to move into what a borough's headquarters has created.

It is not worthwhile when it is so done on the cheap that the one-size fits-all is as a starting point the only policy with the excuse that there cannot be individual home assessments. What about initially dividing homes into two categories based on council tax band or known number of residents? Oh no. Too logical. Far too reasonable. Too much a case of a bit of common sense and effort having to interfere with a love of abject force. It is not worthwhile when most of the ready meal packets and much else that individuals put as required into recycling bins are not recyclable at all, nor that even the stated ambition of a transition to four or five massive bins is an increase in recycling rates by just 10% and that may be bogus.

It is not worthwhile when a local authority has so little confidence in its own policy that it refuses to answer correspondence from anyone although it promises to do so within 14 days; talks first about a visual assessment of every property having been made in which someone reckoned that no property could not accommodate them and second that visual assessments will be carried out where there is an unusual problem only not to do so. At least one of those things and probably both is a lie. It is not worthwhile when the policy favours wealthy people with masses of space and penalises the less well off and favours those with paved frontages and masses of cars over those with environmentally friendly frontages and no car.

It is not worthwhile when all of the redundant plastic bins are left to deteriorate in people's gardens because there is no service to take them away. It is not worthwhile when those who do have cars clog up the roads to dump the old bins somewhere themselves. It is not worthwhile when it brings environmental policy generally into disrepute. It is not worthwhile when much of this stuff is moved to the third world. And it is not worthwhile when all that it does is prove that there really is and always was a sinister and deeply unamusing side to clowns.

Well all that, but this is not to diss recycling, per se, is it?

[Lat-Literal]

Well all that, but this is not to diss recycling, per se, is it?

I feel that the more everywhere becomes like London, Hong Kong or Dubai - concrete, little greenery, wall to wall traffic - the planet isn't worth trying to save via recycling etc. In terms of priorities I would see recycling as the cart before the horse and actually the horse is travelling in the opposite direction. It's lip service at best just to make the power mad feel good.

I see readily intelligeable reasons behind this which are not your tendency-to-automatic-decline assumptions requiring brutality to bring people to their senses solutions... unless I've totally failed to read your above messages correctly.

Brutality already exists.

It is among those who are supposedly in service who have always managed to avoid serving anyone in wider life but themselves.

I'm not even sure that being forced to make a bed several times to get the lines on the blankets/sheets straight or cleaning a rifle for several hours under orders is brutality.

The worst of it from my point of view was being told to get up at 6am with someone hammering at deafening levels on a tin barrel.

[Dave2002]

Not actually "recycling" - but disposal ... why is it that trade waste is such a pain? Many tradesmen nowadays refuse to take away their waste, and some of it can't easily be disposed of. No wonder there are problems with fly tipping.

Currently I have plastic bath and a shower screen to dispose of. I have started by trying to saw the bath into bits - it would eventually go - but would take a while, and then I'd have to find a dump to take it - which probably wouldn't be too difficult.

Other things which are difficult to dispose of - tins which still contain chemicals and liquids - such as paint. These are likely to be refused at many dumps. I suspect many householders will find their own solutions.

[Serial_Apologist]

I feel that the more everywhere becomes like London, Hong Kong or Dubai - concrete, little greenery, wall to wall traffic - the planet isn't worth saving via recycling etc.

Whereas I am of the opinion that what we're discussing is all part of an interrelated whole, the parts of which reinforce one-another and keep the wealth-creating system going in its present haphazardly functioning form on behalf of the privileged lot in charge at the top and their sycophants in the ranks, straddling us all and strangulating the planet's self-correcting capacity.

[Lat-Literal]

Whereas I am of the opinion that what we're discussing is all part of an interrelated whole, the parts of which reinforce one-another and keep the wealth-creating system going in its present haphazardly functioning form on behalf of the privileged lot in charge at the top and their sycophants in the ranks, straddling us all and strangulating the planet's self-correcting capacity.

Farage, Johnson, Cable, Sturgeon, Blair, Corbyn, Arlene Foster, Adams......all of these people would have been different if they had had to spend time together in a military dorm.

And not for the worse.

For two years.

If you tell me you don't believe that, I don't think I could believe you.

[Serial_Apologist]

Not actually "recycling" - but disposal ... why is it that trade waste is such a pain? Many tradesmen nowadays refuse to take away their waste, and some of it can't easily be disposed of. No wonder there are problems with fly tipping.

Currently I have plastic bath and a shower screen to dispose of. I have started by trying to saw the bath into bits - it would eventually go - but would take a while, and then I'd have to find a dump to take it - which probably wouldn't be too difficult.

Other things which are difficult to dispose of - tins which still contain chemicals and liquids - such as paint. These are likely to be refused at many dumps. I suspect many householders will find their own solutions.

I've long felt that if people were given the facts, and programmes in which alternatives to our present ways of doing things were allowed to be fully aired rather than discussion-curtailed, then the next day people would be bursting with things they wanted to say - in their homes, to strangers on the way to work ("Hey, did you see that amazing programme last night?"), in the work breaks, down the pub. It seem to me that half-presenting issues and making sure no definitive solutions are reached, all in the name of "balance" and "entertainment", is actually a hindrance to finding solutions - which the politicians with their fixed terms in office and the business world with its short-term trendings and shareholder interests will never do. People would come up with solutions such as only using toxic or undisposable products on goods which are made to last; this would never work out under capitalism for the above timeline reasons, and in any case it puts people under such pressure and contradictory demands and expectations there is not the time to assimilate let alone form the necessary assemblages for discussion, funding, planning and execution; and so we go on, round and round, repeating the same old failed solutions and finding scapegoats.