The UK is starting a recycling plan which is a good idea, this is how it works;

Today we got a black bin: for putting all our glass bottles in.
We are getting a blue bin: you put cans (aluminium & steel), clean cardboard, paper and plastic bottles with PET/PETE and HDPE signs on them.
A brown bin thats for Garden waste: branches & twigs, grass cuttings, hedge trimmings, plant material and prunings.
And we have a green bin for waste that cannot be recycled only.

Now, this is all such a very good idea as I think that recycling is the way to go to try and "save" the environment. I have alot of immidiate concerns however, there is alot of regulations and rules to the type of items you can and cant put in them.

In the black bin you cannot put:
broken glasses, broken bottles (all types of glass), mirror or pyrex.
Blue: your not allowed to put Envelopes.
Brown: Kitchen and vegtable waste, plastic.

Secondly, they tell you that you have to wash your rubbish, classify it all and for any excess rubbish you have to take your car and transport it to the local recycling center.

Thirdly, these new boxes dont have lids on them so everyone can see what your spending habits are, like how much booze you drink. Also, if its a windy night whos not to say that the rubbish wont get blown all over the neighbourhood - that the bin men wont clear up because they only empty properly classified bins (they wont take away bins that have the wrong stuff in them. )

And finally, they expect pensioners or disabled people to carry these bins outside to the kirb, they have no wheels. Where do people that live in flats put their recycling buckets?

I also think these new buckets may cause a tripping hazard as they are quite small and would be easy for drunks to start smashing bottles etc all over the neighbourhood.

If they are going to make people recycle, why are they making it a pain in the arse? People will just put all their recycle rubbish in the green bin because its easier. If you dont abide by these rules then the bucket men wont empty them and youll be stuck with all this rubbish. Also, someone told me in Oz they are getting rid of these small buckets because people were injuring themselves by tripping over them. Its 33 pound a bucket so if a box goes missing youll be out of pocket!

Its also occured to me that we are doing all the work to give to a recycling company who will then sell back the recycled goods!

So what do you guys think?

Cheers.

Sounds like a similar recycling policy as what we have here in the San Francisco bay area only, I haven't heard of those stipulations concerning exactly which plastics, which designation plastic bottles and exclusion of envelopes. Maybe I'm just unaware or maybe the recycling technology is more advance or more slip shod ;) We have three uncovered bins that probably involve a replacement fee. Besides those one can contract one or more (30 gallon?) drums of nonrecyclables.

I wouldn't doubt that the recycling companies have kind of a sweet deal. That seems to be the case for a lot of municipal, county and state wide subcontracting, basically the laundering of money. US Republican Senator John McCain has stated something like the Bush economy is one of adding more pork to the pork barrel and the policy gets mirrored by what other local politicians do.

Still, any way it happens, it does seem to require more work by the consumer to sort and transport their recyclables as well as non-recyclables. I wouldn't be surprised if that could be lessened with wise policy management but that seems to be the exception rather than the rule to most human governing systems at the moment.

I bet ya a lot could be done to render less garbage in the first place just through a little regulation of what is used for packaging but I further bet it would be a prohibitive can of worms to have politicians and businesses come up with consumer supporting policies.

The Germans manage it all all right, so whats the problem?
;)

WE've got that starting up here as well, it works a bit, but some of the bins do have lids on them. I guess the councils pick and choose what they want.

Yeh, I got it wrong, the blue and brown bins have lids where the black ones dont.

Round our way, we just have a couple of seperate bags : one for paper/clothing and one for plastic/tin. But nowt for bottles. Which means most of my empties end up in the landfill site, as I'd need a skip to carry away a week's worth of whisky and wine bottles......:O

I think local councils throughout the UK have different schemes operating: some better than others. 'Least I don't have to wash all my recycleable waste....

Yeh, its just a pain. There is so much confusion as well about where you put certain items. Such as plastic bottles with paper labels and glue to hold the labels on, old binders, they have metal and cardboard... Just things like that. I think a bin on your street for bottles, paper and aluminium that got emptied every week would be a better idea instead of making people have 3 bins + 1 plastic bucket each. I dont know why you have to wash the waste. :confused:

here in US well New York City we get 3 bins * dont know colors* but I know one is for regular garbage, one for paper only including cardboard, one for plastic/glass/metal.
And we also get these garbage inspecton cars going around that check if you throwing crap out correctly we got fined twice about 25 bucks each. And since the bins are on the street someone passing by could open them and throw shit in like a snapple bottle which happened to us actually. Its all to get more fine money out of people and it doesnt even save the environment or money just bs initiative like smoking ban.