Pedants' Paradise

[AuntDaisy]

.

... still on recycling - and also perhaps a pedantic point : I am irritated by the ambiguity on the information leaflets provided by the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham regarding what can be recycled. Their repeated strapline is -

"If in doubt, leave it out"

Does this mean, "exclude it" - or "leave it out" for the dustmen to collect?
(Of course I know what is meant, but there's nothing like an ambiguity to get me riled... )

.

See it, say it, sort it... *

[vinteuil]

.

... still on recycling - and also perhaps a pedantic point : I am irritated by the ambiguity on the information leaflets provided by the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham regarding what can be recycled. Their repeated strapline is -

"If in doubt, leave it out"

Does this mean, "exclude it" - or "leave it out" for the dustmen to collect?
(Of course I know what is meant, but there's nothing like an ambiguity to get me riled... )

.

[oddoneout]

That's ignoring the major point of the exercise which is to reduce consumption of everything, recyclable or not. That would mean considering reduction in landfill alongside recycling rates.

Indeed, but that's not how the set-up works - or at least that used to be the case. Perhaps now someone has seen the light and councils are also given credit for reducing waste to landfill, but I rather doubt it. I haven't looked into that having got so dispirited with decades long arguments with the council about its approach to waste disposal.
The whole thing is a mess nationally, particularly the piecemeal approach that means households on different sides of a boundary(so can be almost next door) can have very different set-ups for their waste collection, depending on which companies the local council has decided to go with and how far they want(or are able these cash strapped days) to pursue landfill reduction. In my council area we have one general "recyclables" bin into which everything on the council's recyclable list (which will vary according to which council area you are in) goes(which must result in a high rate of contamination and therefore rejection), which then goes to a central sorting facility which also deals with other, neighbouring, councils' better segregated rubbish. Whether the "percentage recycled this month" figures are accurate I don't know - I suspect not as I would imagine it's just the figure for the amount sent for sorting, not the amount that can be, or actually is,recycled.
The lack of consistency is not conducive to encouraging compliance; even those fully behind the cause get dispirited by the anomalies( those moving from elsewhere, even within the same county, can find the differences puzzling) and also the changing decisions about what can be recycled. That aspect is particularly tiresome if one visits the tip as things seem to change from month to month - annoying if items are taken on the basis of what was OK on a previous recent visit.

[french frank]

if they managed to significantly reduce the amount going to landfill in the first place by preventing it being created or thrown away, that would be penalised as it would reduce the recycling rate...

That's ignoring the major point of the exercise which is to reduce consumption of everything, recyclable or not. That would mean considering reduction in landfill alongside recycling rates.

[smittims]

Here we've been amazed (dismayed?) at the number of people who drive here to dump large bags of household rubbish in the street litter bins across the road. Have they no wheelie bins? Or do they create so much rubbish that their bin would overflow? It's a mystery.