Plastic Bottle Recycling

We’ve seen quite a few posts, indicating a can’t work, won’t work attitude to bottle deposits, despite the contrary evidence from some of our European neighbours. But conciounciously taking your own bottles back isn’t the whole story. Where thoughtless people have left bottles by the wayside, a legion of financially astute children, and even a few adults, are likely to collect the debris for its refund - as in the past. As someone who has involved themselves in local litter picks for several years, I think that I’ve seen it all - soiled nappies, bags full of kitchen waste, bottles of course, then spare wheels for cars, rubble, and shrubs and trees festooned with decaying dog poo bags, providing a revolting parody of satanic Christmas trees or dead birds, hung on fences as a deterrent by gamekeepers. 

Our local authority recycle almost everything 😉. Householders separate cardboard and paper which alledgely gets a premium. Our plastic recycing includes every sort of recyclable plastic including those cartons which have fruit juice, custard etc in them.

We customers didn't ask for plastic packaging it was foisted upon us by manufacturers who wanted to save costs 😤

Is this deposit to get us to recycle or to reduce litter? Cynical me says it grabs headlines. If it's to up recycling levels will it be applied to EVERY plastic container things are supplied in? (From grapes to spreads washing liquids to sauces etc). If that's the case then I couldn't afford to loose the 'deposit/tax' on all my recycling so my local authority wouldn't get an income, I'm sure I wouldn't be alone in this, so I expect my council tax would rise too.

If it's to reduce litter it seems the single use plastic bag charge hasn't made a huge impact if you look at the roadsides of the country. 😢

Edit I am more than happy to recycle at home or away. I have no objection to returning bottles or taking litter home, I'm just pondering the result of unintended consequences. I too never cease to be amazed at what others consider it acceptable to leave behind them 😤

It seems to be a diversion from the main problem of too much plastic everywhere.

I tend to think that simple solutions to problems are the most successful. What seems to be in the offing is a confusion of a system that we already have and is working well by those that buy into it. The question really is will we achieve higher recycling rates by a deposit system or spending a fraction of the money on educating those that need educating about recycling? Were we starting from scratch then a deposit system might well be worth considering. However what the suggested system is doing is putting yet another layer in place which is likely to confuse things. The Government needs to have a comprehensive recycling policy in place before making this sort of decision in my view.

David

The plastic container manufacturers are the responsible ones. They have made a fortune out of producing non biodegradable products.  Production of those products should cease immediately and biodegradable products only should be used. 

The Plastic Container manufacturers should bear the cost of cleaning up the plastic waste both on land and in the sea.

Will it happen - I doubt it , nobody cares enough about the environment  to insist that it happens.

K. 

Seems a stupid idea to duplicate existing recycling systems. I can see no significant effect on recycling and none on litter. 

Looking at recent TV programmes about recycling it seems the machinery developed to sort and recognise certain types of plastic can't be programmed to recognise black containers. This seems to be an urgent issue that needs more development work. When you think of state of the art production lines with robotics etc recycling machinery is a poor relation at present.

Simplest might be to ban black plastic trays in food and drink distribution

Yes. 

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