Tuesday 25 September 2018

Test your recycling knowledge.

OTOH upped the ante in the comments here:

Pre-sorting your waste is no biggie... to more-or-less try to get it right for adults, but my council puts bossy warning stickers on the bin if you get it wrong. My children try. e.g. Pringles seem cardboard to them, but it has silver foil on the inside and is unrecyclable. For many things I am supposed to peel off the thin plastic film on the top to throw away, but recycle the plastic tray. Other things say 'refer to the recycling policy in your area.'

So either the recycling policy is not very strict, which makes the 'product' unusable other than for burning so this is all just virtue signalling, or the council policy is very strict, which certainly makes the obligation a "biggie"

Test your knowledge

Recycling cardboard - should you remove all the sticky tape?

Cooking oil - do you pour your cooking oil into a plastic bottle and place it in your food caddy, or absorb it in newspaper and dispose of in your caddy?

Wrapping paper - recyclable?

Unused tissues - recyclable?

Black plastic plant pot - recyclable?

There are 50 types of plastic, but only 6 are labelled. Which of those labelled 1-6 can be recycled?

Can triggers can be left on cleaning product bottles and pumps on soap bottles?


Knowing full well that I'll get most of these wrong, I will venture:
- Yes
- Neither. Take the bottle of oil to the recycling centre and dispose of there.
- Yes
- Yes
- I take them back to the garden centre if I can, if not I chuck them in the plastic.
(I've a nasty feeling they're not recyclable, going by the question).
- Not the foggiest
- I remove the metal bits and put them in the metal.

8 comments:

View from the Solent said...

Most gift wrapping paper these days seems to have glittery stuff on/in it. Does 'Yes' still apply?

Bayard said...

Down in sunny West Wales:

Recycling cardboard - should you remove all the sticky tape?

I burn my cardboard, so yes, but the council doesn't seem to mind it being left on.

Cooking oil - do you pour your cooking oil into a plastic bottle and place it in your food caddy, or absorb it in newspaper and dispose of in your caddy?

I very seldom have any to dispose of, but again, I burn it or use it in the chainsaw.

Wrapping paper - recyclable?

AFAIK, yes

Unused tissues - recyclable?

Why throw them away in the first place?

Black plastic plant pot - recyclable?

No

There are 50 types of plastic, but only 6 are labelled. Which of those labelled 1-6 can be recycled?

None, unless it's a bottle.

Can triggers can be left on cleaning product bottles and pumps on soap bottles?

Again, the council doesn't seem to mind.

benj said...

Just recycle the glass and metal. Everything else could and should be incinerated.

Pablo said...

Pringles seem cardboard to them, but it has silver foil on the inside and is unrecyclable.

Here, we are told to feed juice cartons which are a sandwhich of plastic, foil, and cardboard, to the paper recycling bin - curious -eh!?

Pablo said...

Re: black plastic plant pots

There was an item on this in last weeks' Gardeners World.
They are unrecyclable because the carbon that is added to the plastic (to make it black) is impervious to the light that is used at the recycling centre to discriminate the diff. types of plastics. Manufacturers have started producing a new type of pot that is recyclable.
Currently black plastic pots should be returned to a garden centre, where they are recycled.

ontheotherhand said...

Good knowledge everyone.
Cardboard remove tape - Yes
Cooking oil - depends on council
Wrapping paper - no
Tissues - they are not pure paper, so no
Black plant pot - no, but other colours yes
50 types of plastic - types 1 and 2 only are recyclable. However, other types might be collected by your council (like yoghurt pots), but they separate them out and burn it, or send it to China.
Triggers on cleaning bottles - yes
Pumps on soap bottles - no

Still think it is "no biggie"?

Pablo said...

I hear that China has stopped receiving our waste!

Mark Wadsworth said...

P, they did, a few months ago. Our local recycling centre stopped accepting plastic for the time being.