Recycling: best practice or a shameful business?

Tue 5 Apr 2011, 20:27

There are ways of sorting your recycling boxes that makes the job of the operatives much easier. There are bins for different materials on the pick up lorry and it helps if one groups types of rubbish together so that it can be put into the appropriate receptacle which are next to each other on the back of the lorry with less running around the truck.

Charlbury Area Waste Action Group (CAWAG) had a visit to the recycling centre in Witney last week and were able to look over the system in detail and came away with the message that there are ways in which we can help the people who do the pretty unpleasant and hard work of the kerbside collection (I spent a summer on the dustcarts in my youth and it was just about the hardest work I've ever done and I don't think waste operatives are remunerated enough for a job that is becoming, believe it or not, more skilled. One has to learn to recognise different types of materials, particularly plastics, and identify where they are supposed to go and there is further sorting back at the depot).

If someone like Christine Elliott from CAWAG could write up a guide to pre-sorting that could be posted up here (and possibly in a FAQ section on the website?) all will be much clearer. My wife went to the visit and this week was busily sorting our three recycling boxes to make the ergonomics of the pick up easier for the guys doing it. Meanwhile our grey bin was less than 1/4 full, we could easily do 3-4 week landfill collection rotas most of the time! I noticed that some of our neighbours do not seem to be getting the message, their grey box was full to overflowing and lid would not shut. Perhaps we should move to a charging by weight and volume scheme for landfill rubbish and then people who do not sort out their rubbish would pay their fair share of the rapidly increasing land fill duties. Don't forget that we are literally running out of holes into which to put landfill irrespective of the issues of running out of world material resources!