Mehitabel I see, sorry I misunderstood. I think some people would work harder but there will always be those who cannot be bothered.
We recycle everything that the Council will collect, the main content of what is left of our rubbish is plastics other than bottles, which at present there are no facillities for. I try to avoid it if possible but manufacturers ib the quest for a longer shelf life seem to use it more and more. My main concerns are when these are burned they produce chlorine, not a nice gas and a comment from a manufacturer of filters who says that in his experience companies try and save money by not replacing them as often as they should.
I admit when I go to United Downs to take the parts of my garden rubbish which is not domestically compostable, I get annoyed when I see people dumping into the mixed waste; which goes to landfill, glass bottles, wood, cardbard etc. when they are surrounded by separate recycling points for all of these materials. What can councils do when some people are too idle to sort their rubbish.
This is why I said a "clean, modern" incinerator. Incinerators do not simply spew out their soot across the land: their output is filtered and cleaned these days. Modern incinerators also generate power which helps to reduce the global warming from electricity plants. It'd still be better if we (i) generated less rubbish and (ii) composted more.
I think Cornwall do pretty good on the recycle front, at least in Caradon anyway. We have a kerbside pick up every other week, and Polperro is a ***** to do this kind of thing in, but it works very well.
We've got excellent recycle pick up here, but only recently. We did have a container for bottles and cans and we had to tie our cardboard and newspapers up. Now we've got a smaller wheelie bin for rubbish and a large bin for recycling, everything goes intogether, making life simpler and it's picked up every other week. Our old big wheelie bin is used for garden waste now, and picked up once a month. So no-one has an excuse not to recycle.
Fancyabrew: I thought about adding a caveat to that quote from the Greenpeace website - something along the lines of 'yes, I know it's Greenpeace and they have an environmental agenda and some of you will immediately rubbish it for that reason, but don't you think the government has an agenda too?'
Something like that. It was a suggestion of somewhere to start, you know, if you were interested in learning some background. I don't think it's gospel, and I don't think that was implied in my wording, apologies if that's what you inferred.
Iskerrys: that quote from the Greenpeace website was published almost exactly four years ago. Do you think the technology has improved that much since then? Could you point me in the direction of the literature?
I've been trying to find actual figures in parts per million of the emission composition of the latest 'clean, modern' incinerators, but all I have found so far is corporate press releases and glossy corporate websites making fabulous claims about their products. I'm willing to be convinced, given the appropriate evidence. If incinceration is totally clean, then I'm for all for it, particularly if it generates electricity. I have asked the Analytical Chemistry professor at my old university if he can help me with finding this information - I'll let you know if I don't hear it from you first.
Also, the Greenpeace quote does not say the incinerators 'spew soot', it says they emit tonnes and tonnes of PARTICULATE matter. Diesel car engines emit particulates too. They're microscopic, and unless the engine's poorly maintained you can't see them either And when you say 'Incinerators do not simply spew out their soot across the land: their output is filtered and cleaned these days' , I'd be interested to know what time frame you're referring to? Incinerators have had 'filters' of various sorts for years (10 years since I studied this at undergraduate level) by law, and I'm sure they're improving all the time with technology, but that doesn't mean they've improved enough to not be a threat to people's health.
Perhaps I'm missing the point though. Perhaps all this blustering is merely to disguise a NIMBY tendency because you live down-wind of St Dennis??? :wink:
GolowDydh: I totally agree; there will always be people who can't be bothered. The couple (no children) who live opposite us regularly put out five or six large bin bags on collection day to our half-size one. And we pay the same rate of council tax - I don't know what proportion of council tax is devoted to waste disposal, but I know it's quite large. But I can't believe there isn't a way they could be persuaded; financial incentives (i.e. fines) usually work! I have yet to make an exhaustive study of the recycling programmes in other countries such as Germany and Holland, but I know they have much more sophisticated waste management systems in place, which include penalties for householders not carrying out the appropriate segregation of household waste.
I think our councils ARE working hard on this, things have come on a lot in the last few years with kerbside recycling, but the appearence of effort and rapid change is partly because until relatively recently they were doing next to nothing - seems a bit like too little too late?!?
One area of relatively simple change which could have a major, major impact on the amount of waste we have to deal with would be composting. Allow me to quote Lucy Siegle in the Observer Magazine:
It's easy to see from the above figures that composting could make a HUGE difference. There are existing schemes in other parts of the country, including London, where you don't even need to have a garden to participate.
Well, it can be quite apparent by the amount of refuse some people put out that they aren't even attempting to recycle. We're like mehitabel, 1/2 to one bin bag per week for the whole family. Next door are the same - also ardent recyclers. However, you go past other poeples houses and their wheelie bins are overflowing. It's obvioulsy not going to be cost effective to employ someone to go through rubbish but perhaps if the refuse colectors could note who leaves out more than one bag a week they could get a visist from the a country recycling worker or summat?
Iyskerrys: NIMBY, as you well know, refers to the idea that people are alright with something as long as it doesn't affect them. Therefore, if, as I suggested in my amusing little addendum, you're downwind (of the prevailing wind), you're not affected by the incinerator emissions so you can be happily and vocally in favour knowing you won't have to suffer the adverse consequences unlike the poor sods living in the other direction. Pretty obvious really.
I am first to admit that the notion of 'enforced' recycling poses some practical problems. But I read in the Evening Herald recently that they are proposing something along those lines in, I think, West Devon, so it's clearly not impossible.
Any advances on those figures Iyskerrys? I notice you haven't contributed anything constructive, merely reacted to throwaway asides. I shall leave them out in future!
Cheers, single-issue newbie. By constructive you mean an opinion that agrees with yours, I presume. Have you still not noticed that I wrote a CLEAN incinerator? Of course I don't want one that's harmful to the environment.
You say you've looked at Greenpeace and manufacturer's figures - well, surprise, surprise, one says they're terrible, the other that they are wonderful. Neither set of figures are unbiased. Until you get an investigation which is financed by a disinterested party (which is 99.9999999% unlikely to happen) you'll never get an unbiased set of figures which won't send people on the other side of the opinion fence off into a tizzy.
Reminds me of the MMR scare. There was only ever ONE study which showed a link with autism, and that has been discredited. ALL the other studies showed no link, but see what a fuss there was about it and how many millions of pounds were wasted on court cases, and worst of all, how many kids were left unvaccinated by worried parents.
When there is an unbiased analysis of emissions to compare to Greenpeace's, I'll look at the figures, but to date I don't think you'll find one.
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