10th May 2024
Having said that we try to minimise waste, should what we recycle be seen as recycled waste? Flour and oats both come in large paper sacks. The sacks are single use which arguable might seem wasteful but they can be recycled. They are good for collecting all the other paper that goes out for recycling. Margerine comes in plastic tubs – again single use but recyclable.
One reason that our dustbin fills slowly is because we can recycle much of the ‘waste’ that comes into the house. We recycle paper and card, aluminium foil, tins, glass and standard plastics via the Council’s kerb side collection. We take soft plastics to the Coop for recycling, toothpaste tubes to Boots, medical blister packs to Superdrug. There is a recycling bin for small electrical goods at the library and for batteries at Robert Dyas.
Recycling is good and worth doing but it comes with its own consumption of resources and production of emissions. And we know that in reality many things that are labelled as recyclable are not recycled – often because they are not put into the appropriate recycling bin. Greater thought needs to be given by designers and producers to reduce what needs to be recycled and how often.
The aim becomes not consuming more than you need to consume, buying less and ensuring the best and most efficient use of what we do consume.
The Green Tau 