Recycling: best practice or a shameful business?

Tue 5 Apr 2011, 09:10

Am I alone in finding the present system of recycling a humiliating experience?

Two men and a lorry have just collected my recycling. It's 8.15am, I've heard the lorry round and about for an hour or more (I believe they actually start at 6: they certainly did when I lived in Market Street), and the driver has to clamber in and out of his cab every few yards to help his mate. It's raining and both men are very wet already. The engine is left running while the driver is out of the cab: well that's actually illegal for obvious reasons. But I guess wearing out the starter motor every few days would make the whole practice even more environmentally unsound (and noisy).

They are sorting glass (some broken), tin cans, paper and card (some soggy) and often unwashed smelly plastic milk bottles into awkwardly placed 'windows' on the side of the lorry: the boxes they pick up are occasionally very heavy. In health and safety terms, one black box full of paper or bottles is well over any reasonable weight limit.

Often, when I come home in the evening, I see them still at it. It's well past 5 by then. The smell of sour wine follows the lorry down the road.

Why are they doing it? Almost all of us do our own shopping. Why don't we take our recycling with us and put it in the recycling bins there? Why do we prefer to have people do this work for us? And surely, if the councils are cutting back on services for the elderly, and recreational and cultural services, it would be better to employ people in those areas instead. Most people would still need a fortnightly waste collection, and those who cannot or will not compost will need a green bin collection. Kitchen waste: most people can compost it. It would make more sense to give us all compost bins than kitchen caddies and 'green bins', and locate communal green bins for people who live in flats.

I shall get a compost bin (which I believe I shall have to pay for: anyone got a spare they don't want?), and carry my black box materials in my shopping bag to the Spendlove every few days. My grey bin fills up maybe once a month, usually less often than that. Then will the council please spend the money it saves on something we would all benefit from?

I hope you'll join me and do the same.