It's been an interesting week trying to buy household products and food only made from recyclable packaging. A mixed bag. Literally.
For example, I just made a rocket (arugula) salad with fresh mozzarella. The rocket I bought from Waitrose last week was in a recyclable bag made from recycled plastic. However, the rocket I bought from Sainbury's today was in a bag that did not have the recyclable sign, nor was it made from recycled plastic. The Sainsbury's mozzarella was equally guilty.
However, Sainsbury's does use some bags that are recyclable, mainly for their organic products.
Less confusing were the products in cardboards boxes/cartons and aluminum packaging. All clearly recyclable. And almost all of the plastic packaging we bought was recyclable apart from a few random items we bought at Marks and Spencers and the lunch spot Eat. Things like salad containers that looked like they were candidates for the recycling pile turned out not to have any recycling symbols on them anywhere. And we gave them thorough inspections. Even the husband was getting completely annoyed by the plastic that should be recyclable languishing in the no-label zone.
A mystery: hidden recycling label on top, none on bottom
Rather than throw the non-recyclable offenders away, we've saved them to log them into our 'do not buy' book. One book encouraged people to save such packaging and mail it back to the stores with an official complaint. Instead, I'll make a list of the offending products and mail some letters to the stores that need to improve.
For your shopping information: Waitrose is the most consistent for using packaging that can be recycled and/or is made from recycled materials. Sainsbury and Tesco need to get way better.
I'm curious to know which stores are the best and worst on this front in in the United States.
There also needs to be some sort of consistency with recycling codes. It should be incredibly simple to identify what can be recycled but instead it can be confusing and obtuse e.g. a circular arrow with no text.
As encouragement to beginning recyclers, when we found out how much of our household waste could be recycled, our trash was been reduced by 75%. Yes, 75%! And it was actually our 12-year old niece who turned us onto the fact that we could recycle all cardboard--a trick I had been missing. Go the youth of England. And if we could compost, we'd have nearly zero garbage.
Separating recyclables is so simple and pain-free. We just have a catch-all bag next to our regular garbage can. When it's full, we pop it down to the local recycling bin.
With my recycling antenna up all week, it became a topic of conversation amongst friends. It turns out that quite a few of our friends do not recycle at all, even though most of London has front-door pick-ups and you don't even have to separate.
My task this week is to find out about the recycling lifecycle---where do the cans go, and how do they become repurposed? As quite a few people don't recycle because they don't believe it actually does any good (we're a cynical bunch!) it should prove a useful bit of research.
I'm now on a conversion campaign. But trying not to be annoying about it.
Rather than throw the non-recyclable offenders away, we've saved them to log them into our 'do not buy' book. One book encouraged people to save such packaging and mail it back to the stores with an official complaint. Instead, I'll make a list of the offending products and mail some letters to the stores that need to improve.
For your shopping information: Waitrose is the most consistent for using packaging that can be recycled and/or is made from recycled materials. Sainsbury and Tesco need to get way better.
I'm curious to know which stores are the best and worst on this front in in the United States.
There also needs to be some sort of consistency with recycling codes. It should be incredibly simple to identify what can be recycled but instead it can be confusing and obtuse e.g. a circular arrow with no text.
As encouragement to beginning recyclers, when we found out how much of our household waste could be recycled, our trash was been reduced by 75%. Yes, 75%! And it was actually our 12-year old niece who turned us onto the fact that we could recycle all cardboard--a trick I had been missing. Go the youth of England. And if we could compost, we'd have nearly zero garbage.
Separating recyclables is so simple and pain-free. We just have a catch-all bag next to our regular garbage can. When it's full, we pop it down to the local recycling bin.
With my recycling antenna up all week, it became a topic of conversation amongst friends. It turns out that quite a few of our friends do not recycle at all, even though most of London has front-door pick-ups and you don't even have to separate.
My task this week is to find out about the recycling lifecycle---where do the cans go, and how do they become repurposed? As quite a few people don't recycle because they don't believe it actually does any good (we're a cynical bunch!) it should prove a useful bit of research.
I'm now on a conversion campaign. But trying not to be annoying about it. The new Planet Earth documentary series is on now. It's a BBC series and it's absolutely wild. Spectacular. But my better half is threatening switch to Tog Gear unless I get off of the computer.
Please let me know your tales of recycling and any useful information you have for me to include in my 'where does it go?' research.
Comments
http://www.gardeners.com/Compost-Mixer-with-Base/default/StandardCatalog.20706.34-354.cpd
should be perfect for my small brownstone lot. i figure the more i can recycle the better. and if the plants benefit, all the better. i'll let you know how it goes.
countries in the EU at least for recycling. Norway
(one of the best) puts us to serious shame.
I myself am also guilty - but even such basics as giving people recycling boxes etc. including in the most expensive
London boroughs - they don't even do that! But in some of the outer boroughs they are much better, like wood green I think.
And regarding London boroughs, their policy is all over the place. Wood Green and Haringey, two of the pooer London boroughs, have recycling competitions. While posh neighbourhoods like Kensington and Chelsea don't provide bins or information or instructions which creates complete apathy.
Our mayor Red Ken really should get his act together. The campaign for Recycle Now and Recycle in London is spending tons of money on ads but they need to spend money on making it uniformly easy and clear on how to recycle in every London household.
Like, as anon says, providing bags and bins and instructions.