[Cambridge] Recycling

[karohemd]

I assume you have one of those blue recycling boxes now.
It's nice to have one for recycleable plastic but why bottles only? Surely, the shape doesn't matter but the material? Why can't I put in e.g. those annoying blister packs that are made of PE?
It's probably the same idiotic reasoning why I can't put cardboard into the paper recycling bin.

On the subject of recycling/waste management, where in Cambridge can I get dispose of electronics/computer stuff where it is treated/recycled and not just dumped? I have an old car radio, two keyboards and two knackered CD drives to dispose of.

Comments

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Hm. I'm reading this as laziness rather than feasibility...
Most packaging should have a mark so you can see what it's made of.
I usually try to avoid plastic packaging in the first place but sometimes this isn't possible.
Also, I'm not sure if all plastic bottles are made of the same material. I'd guess that those containing e.g. cleaning fluids are different from water bottles (because of chemical resistance etc.).

I know about cardboard in the green bin (which means it's going to be composted rather than recycled, which is my objection).
Why can't I put envelopes in the paper bin (with the plastic removed)?

Thanks for the computer recycling link!

[lzz.livejournal.com]

I totally don't understand why envelopes don't go in the paper box.

[mobbsy.livejournal.com]

Apparently the glue on them interferes with the paper recycling process.

[briggsy.livejournal.com]

We don't have that restriction, and I'm sure South Cambridgeshire DC uses the same recycling facilities as Cambridge DC. In fact they seem to define 'paper' as 'Anything papery except Yellow Pages'.

Not that SCDC provides plastic recycling facilities - they say it isn't economically feasible - recycling x amount of plastic apparently costs twice as much as simply making x amount of fresh plastic. So we have a green box paper/envelope/glass/tin collection, a green bin cardboard/garden/food collection and a black bin non-recyclable collection.

I guess I will have to start putting plastics in the green box soon as well. That box is already way too crowded, then again I drink too much.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Oops.

[vyvyan.livejournal.com]

Also, I'm not sure if all plastic bottles are made of the same material. I'd guess that those containing e.g. cleaning fluids are different from water bottles (because of chemical resistance etc.).

They aren't all the same material, but the majority of them are of types 1, 2 and 3, which are the only types of plastic currently recyclable in this area. Some proportion of non-bottle plastic items are also types 1, 2 or 3, but it's apparently not (currently) worth the hassle of training people to recognise them. By no means all plastic items (even bottles) have triangular marks on them indicating the plastic type, so the sorters need to recognise them by touch (which I presume is quicker too).

As someone else says, I think the problem with envelopes is the glue.

[belak-krin.livejournal.com]

Not laziness really... they have millions of items to sort each week, they can either restrict what gets recycled and actually get it done, or let people put everything in and have to throw most of it away anyways. It takes time to look for and check marks