The other thing I can't recycle in my rubbish
Thanks to Herefordshire Nature trust webite...
"Frustrated that your recycling efforts are undermined by not being able to recycle Tetra Packs and other fruit juice, soup and milk cartons?
Drinks Cartons are made up of around 80% paper with polyethylene waterproofing and, sometimes, an aluminium lining to give extra product life. Most recycling schemes will not deal with them.
There is a solution! A recycling mill in Scotland is dealing with drinks cartons until local authority schemes are set up. They provide labels so that cartons can be sent to them for recycling (senders must pay postage).
Make sure cartons of milk, juice, soup and sauce are rinsed out, drained and flattened by pulling the ‘ears’ before being packed in a suitable cardboard box, which should be labelled with the mill’s label. The logo on the label acts as an identifier for the paper mill to ensure that the collected cartons go into the right pulper without opening the box! The cartons are pulped and reprocessed into other paper products.
For labels, telephone 020 8977 6116."
For more information see the consortium who actually do it - Drinkscartons.com
Not exactly easy - but nevertheless better than sticking in landfill (or is it?)
posted by Lenny @ 7:45 PM
7 comments
7 Comments:
Is it this blogs intention to discuss options that only include recycling and reusing? as an option that could be used as a stop gap measure (or even as a solution to many of the problems), that you haven't touched on, is incineration.
Thanks both...
It is certainly not my intention to focus on one thing. My intention is to gather information together around a theme and then propose a methodology, or perhaps brainstorm solutions to change people's behaviour in a positive way.
In truth - I'm not sure where this will all end up - I just believe that design has a lot to offer when it comes to encouraging environmentally friendly behaviour - people tend to think its the domain of science & technology. This is an exploration.
I only ask as one also needs to deal with the here and now. This being the enviromental impact of posting large packages from the corners of the Empire to Scotland vs disposing of your waste in your locale.
(Apologies if I am going off subject)
A better solution would be that operated in the Scandanavian countries and a select few - legislation on the type of container allowed and a deposit paid on those returned. (the deposit is obviously the incentive to change individual behaviour!) Therefore rather than relying on enterprising individuals the Govt creates a market which the producers are legally obliged to fill. Economics should then, theoretically, force the producer to develop more reusable products.
http://www.dansk-retursystem.dk/composite-50.htm
I agree anonymous - and I will not be sending my own cartons for that reason. They sadly continue to be put into my rubbish as a consequence.
A few things leap to mind:
1. Many things sold in tetrapaks could as easily be sold in glass again (as many of them used to be) - then they can be steralised and reused which avoids the 'cost' of recycling.
2. The cardboard in Tetrapaks is compostable... the problem is that it's bonded to either foil or plastic (I believe) which makes it non biodegradable and not easy to recycle. Wouldn't it be good to combine it with biodegradable plastic so that you could compost the lot.
3. If you are right - and it's best that the producers have to deal with it then that potentially puts a big burdon on the consumers to organise it all in readiness for the producers to collect their bits. How can this be made easy - or interesting? The historic tactic which leaps to mind is giving money back for returns (deposits). I'm not sure that's enough of an incentive. I believe there may be another solution... I'll need to ponder this one more. Any ideas?
loathe as I am to attach a link to a tabloid site, but this article does answer many of your questions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container_deposit_legislation
Thanks - evidence does indeed appear to show that it does make a difference. That's great and I wish it would happen more in the UK!
I wonder what issues it throws up in the average household where many different types of bottles are collected. If they are all returned to the same place then it stays reasonably simple (albeit with the need to go back to the shop still there). If you need to manage the return to various places and store the containers in the meantime it gets messier. How do people deal with it now? Could anything be done to improve it for them? Could a company make a business out of collecting everything, sorting it and managing the refunds?
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