Recycling (The new warning system)

[snowboarder]

Hey Tom you clearly live on a better street than I (we?) do. Your service sounds amazing. My actual BIN disappeared last summer and despite phone calls and emails it took them 6 weeks to get us another one - they were out of stock! I nearly went and bought one in despair....smelly.

Sure we can go to the recycling place or the dump, and we do, but when a doorstep service is apparently offered...

I think we've all had different experiences that's all - and therefore have different views of how good Southwark are. No need to be rude!

[Brendan]

Re. Going to the recycling dump. This is assuming that, like me, you do something as environmentally unfriendly as drive car. What about the people who live far away from the dump and don?t drive?

[louisiana]

Tom Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> For large unwwanted items, like piles of cardboard

> boxes, fridges, in-laws, etc just call the

> council, they will quote you a day when they will

> collect, the eve before put it all out by the bins

> and hey presto - its all gone....

> You lot are a bunch of numpties sometimes.

> Do you normally have to ask how to wipe your arses

> too?

I've actually done that a few times. Yes, they will take bin bags of stuff, or specific large items such as old fridges, up to 15 per time. But no, they won't take stuff that looks like paper/cardboard. Different department, apparently. Or old plastic commercial bakery trays that people have dumped it your garden ("that would be against the regulations"). Or metal lamp-stands that have similarly appeared next to your front gate out of the blue (nothing resembling a metal pole permitted).

I have had a 3-foot x 8inch rotten log sitting outside my garden wall that's been there for a year, as the garden recycling people say its diameter is too large (though it fits in their paper sacks with ease), while the large item people say its recyclable garden waste. Not exactly the kind of thing you can put on the rack of your cycle, or put under your arm, to take to any recycling depot.

I don't have a car, and I'm not sure that recycling systems should rely on people having cars.

A lot of this wouldn't be necessary for me to remove if people didn't fly-tip on their neighbours. It just wouldn't occur to me to dump my rubbish over someone else's garden wall, in their garden, or on the footpath next to their bins. And don't get me started me on dumped motorcycles...(yes, there's one lying out there right now). Maybe they just get frustrated at trying to get rid of certain types of items (I've been *gifted* with what look like several large and heavy sash window metal weights recently, as well as the front part of an iron grate), and just pass the problem on.

[Tom]

They will take cardboard boxes containing other cardboard.... play them at their own game.

No - it probaly won't be recycled, but that's their fault, not yours.

BTW - sash window weights are worth a fortune - just had one window reweighted at ?80...

[catgirl]

Surely the point in recycling is to actually do some environmental good, not just to make yourself feel better. So if you know the council aren't going to recycle it, what is the point in leaving it out for them?

[Brendan]

No no the point in recycling is for all the companies who provided the services to make a big fat profit. ;-)

[figgins]

But if we are going to be threatened with fines by Southwark council, surely we have a right to demand proof that all of the stuff we put out to recycle is recycled. Can they prove this?

[James]

Sorry to sound thick but I never know what is and isn't recyclable - suspect I am putting inappropriate stuff in the box because I am keen to recycle as much as possible.

Does anyone have a quick guide to what is and isn't recyclable?

[Tea girl]

James,

It is a bit of a minefield I agree. The link below will take to Southwarks guide to 'what can be recycled'. It seems like I have opened up a can of worms here. Am eagerly awaiting my new bag and blue box!!!!

http://www.southwark.gov.uk/YourServices/environment/RecyclingPages/WhatCanBeRecycled.html

Happy Sorting. TG

[catgirl]

I usually check the southwark website recycling section every so often for what can be put out but I must say, I do assume that everything I put out in good faith will be recycled - I thought they would leave behind anything I put out that wasn't appropriate. It appears this may not be the case?

It maybe more helpful of the council (or the collectors) to leave stuff that they can't recycle and have a 'you left out stuff that we can't recycle, please check the website' sticker that they can leave on your box. At least this way people would be educated and can therefore change their habits.

Believe there was a hoo ha in Lambeth not so long ago when whole recycling bags were just being thrown into rubbish trucks when they had maybe one incorrect item in.

Have tried to contact southwark recycling section 3 times before with various queries / complaints, each time filled in a form on the website asking to be contacted but so far they have never got back to me.....

[Tea girl]

Catgirl,

Have just received an e-mail from Claudette at the following address:environmentalcustomerservices@southwark.gov.uk confirming receipt of my box and bag request. If you did want to chase up any of your queries, it may be worth adding her name to give it a bit more clout.

TG

[Mark]

I wonder if that's the same Claudette who answered my email to environmental services last night about 10:30? I filled in the online form to say my garden waste hadn't been collected (as usual) and the automated reply came from Claudette, I guess she's the council's version of Holly from Red Dwarf. Or Avon.

[ed_pete]

Apart from the cynics amongst us I believe most people think recycling to be more sustainable way of living. Reading this thread I get the impression that a lot of people think Southwark Council could perform better in respect of waste collection and recycling services. Personally I'm generally pretty happy with their service, OK the odd missed collection, lost bag etc etc but overall not bad.

I'd encourage those that are disaffected to use another forum - Southwark Recycling Discussion Forum -to vent their spleen, or contact their Councillor, or email environment@southwark.gov.uk - doing it here's not change anything though if it makes you feel better to get it off your chest then fine.

Southwark's target for recycling for 2007/8 is a paltry 20%. Although they may get fined - which presumably means we Council Tax payers get fined - if they don't meet these targets, I doubt they'll get rewarded if they vastly exceed them. Therefore I suspect the strategy is to do the minimum to just scrape over the line.

[James]

Thanks for the link Teagirl!

I wonder how much of what we put in actually does get recycled.

[catgirl]

Thanks tea girl - will try Claudette directly next time.

Ed_pete - the environment@southwark email is the one I've had no reply from 3 times..... I agree, best course of action is to relay your complaints to those who are able to address them but having failed to get through on the phone or an answer to my emails, I am reduced to 'getting it off my chest' on this forum. Maybe next time I will go up there (on foot or by bike of course) and demand an audience with someone helpful.

Actually, I have had a pretty good experience with them so far, my previous gripes have been to do with non collection which is annoying but they do usually turn up at some point.

[Asset]

I had a conversation with someone a while ago at the recycling dept of Southwark to ask exactly which plastics we could recycle (you know they are all numbered) as it is fairly vague on the leaflets, and she couldn't tell me. She said just stick it all in which is what I do!

[Scylla100]

Does anybody know where the stuff we recycle goes to? Sometimes, the energy and pollutants produced by recycling an item is worse then making it new. I would think this would expecially hold true for recycling plastic. Even recycling paper and glass is hard on the environment. If Ken Livingston proposed a recycling plant in East Dulwich we would all freak out, those plants are nasty.

You could put all our junk in a land fill but I bet those are pretty much near to over full.

Maybe instead of picking on us poor over worked individual citizens they should do something that would make a difference like try and convince people selling us stuff not to wrap it in so much plastic.

[Asset]

It has been shown that the energy taken to recycle glass is less damaging to the environment than taking the raw materials and using them to make glass.

Likewise plastics which are made from by-products of the oil industry - that will run out soon anyway.

[Nero]

Recycling is good. Reusing is better. Reducing (ie not buying it in the first place, whether it is green, eco, fairtrade or bog-standard) is best. Nero

[Ultraconsultancy]

scylla100 - much of it goes abroad in huge shipping containers [and i'm sure you don't have to work hard to guess which countries] where it is commercially recycled, or just goes into landfill where it is recycled by desperately poor people scavenging among the barrels of dioxins. capitalism at work on your behalf.

[SeanMacGabhann]

Nero's point above is the overiding mantra I think we should aspire to. That doesn't make anyone a killjoy but there can be a knee-jerk reaction to any recycling/green initiative which doesn't seem to happen as much in other countries

For example Ireland's lead in taxing plastic bags has had a fantastic effect despite initial protests and a recent rise in their use

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recycling_in_Ireland#EPA_Statistics

That doesn't make the arguments re: companies cynically using good intentions for profit void - it's just something we need to attack on both fronts instead of taking camp in one side or t'other

[Joe likes dinner]

A little bit off the point here but does anyone else have a problem with other flats in your building dumping anything and everything in the recycling bins?

We own our flat and there are a number of tenants in the flat upstairs doing a flatshare which i wouldnt have any reason to complain about except for the fact that they have no pride in the house at all. The council refused to take our recycling bins last week because they were so over-full with any old plastic, metal etc and included packaging with food still attached...this is not the first time they have been left un-collected and we now have a nice collection of flies to go with said rubbish. I have requested extra bins and bags which i keep inside my flat and use for my recycling but i still have to put up with having a refuse site outside my front window. Have tried to huff and puff about this - does anyone have any advice or going through something similar?!!!!

[Asset]

stick it through their letter box hahahaha>:D< They'll be fined soon won't they according to the point at the start of this thread

[Joe likes dinner]

I like your thinking Asset, just a shame that their letterbox is also mine...could just pile it up outside their door? At the moment i am making a lot of in-direct noise stamping on bottles and cans and banging the bins a bit hoping they will get the message - typical Brit - hate confrontation!!!!

Bring on the fines!

[Ultraconsultancy]

Joe

if local councils arranged their recycling monitoring on an award basis rather than punishment, then that staff time given over to handing out fines could be handing out [say] half price vouchers for sports and leisure facilities, or [say] a free half hour consult in a legal/planning/energy advice shop.

theis would then give you an opportunity to approach your neighbours and evangelise the advantages of good practice, rather than being in your current position, whwere you seem forced to be critical of them.

its about whether, as a society, we think vituously or viciously.

UC