Forum Topic

Recycling (revisited).....it can be satisfying!  Agreed?

A peep at the Civic Centre's webcam of a recent Executive Meeting shows Cllr Barbara Reid (Con) outlining the Borough's need to improve on recycling. We should start helping her!Apparently we need to raise our recycling level from some 18% to 40% pretty quickly...otherwise there are penalties in the pipeline!!So those dustmen out there..are collecting up too many black sacks overfilled with things that could be crushed down and re-used. Most of us know that.... but it does take a while to get locked into the recycling frame of mind..and whilst we may all put our old newspapers into those blue skips ..there's much more we could do..if we put our minds to it. Agreed?Recycling has been discussed on this Forum before..and worthy they were too.. but I cannot trace the threads via FORUM SEARCH.I've been able to reduce my refuse by two thirds during the past few weeks!Helpful pictures to follow...and I've discovered the local TESCO recycling site!

Jim Lawes ● 6823d17 Comments

Jim Lawes ● 6805d

It's good to hear that there are industrial machines around that sort WASTE when it has been deposited in those recycling bins...whether incorrectly or not.A firm called TOMRA have a selection of machines for for the recycling market and their website describes the action.Apparently Tesco's are already doing a trial somewhere in the UK with this machine shown below...and a planning application has been made to the Hounslow Civic Centre (ref P/2006/3108) to have one installed at Osterley's Tesco's....according to the Planning List in the BC&I Times.My colleague said that nearly all waste is recyclable..and the amount one leaves out for the dustmen should be reducing by significant amount.  I now have half a black sack instead of two.Those refuse collectors and their expensive lorries at the Bridge Road depot will soon be knocking off at 11am each day!! ;0)

Jim Lawes ● 6805d

The Ealing Forum gives us an answer for sensibly disposing of Computers and safeguarding your interests. Hav a look at http://green-machines.tripod.com/ ... sorted!

Jim Lawes ● 6820d

Old electronic items?oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooSmall household batteries?  In the green box?..Will they find them?oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooOld metal bits from curtain rails to meat skewers?0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000Old Carpets? Old matresses? Old furniture..sometimes in Acton people leave them in the street!ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooOld bicycles?ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooTime for tea..and thanks Audrey!..new forum technology makes its debut!

Jim Lawes ● 6820d

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Audrey Walton ● 6820d

Angela on the Acton W3 Forum has said that she tears up all her cardboard and puts it on the compost pile..and it works!!We learn every day! I'll have to tell my gardening man.At present I save for composting all uncooked food fruit and vegetable items..(not fish or meat)..and include egg shells and tea bags, banana skins,and apple cores,etc etc.The little green box ..which I keep in the garden....seems to have evolved into a home for fruit flies that increasingly populate. I don't worry about them now.When I open the lid,and many fruit flies escape and fly away..I know that food is on the way to other insects and birds..and that nature's recycling has begun!Cardboard..that's interesting!My waste in black sacks for the dustmen has gone down by 2/3s in the past month!!Of course old egg boxes go back to the farm along the road in Osterley Park.How are you doing?

Jim Lawes ● 6820d

We're suppose to be aiming to reduce our waste..and increase our recycling from 18% is it to double that figure...otherwise  "we" might be fined!!Who is going to do the arithmetic..and how do they do it?What is and what isn't taken into account.Does anyone have information about BRAG ..the Brentford Recycling organisation?

Jim Lawes ● 6820d

Not true in all cases Paul. Those of us who have the joy(!)of working at night have no alternative.

Keith Iddon ● 6820d

Some of us shop at this beautiful Supermarket..with it's line of recycling bins.We've published these pictures before..but I'm now really into this recycling game and want to learn more. It seems to be about education- information -education -information -checking on the Councils - and the Supermarkets..and learning and getting into the swing of it!Different collection points seem to take different things..what some places don't want..others do want. Should there be some kind of standard...or should it continued to be a mumbo jumbo.  What happens to all the trade waste ..the rubbish put in the Council's commercial skips!Right Wairose..they have 9 of these large bins but none of them take cardboard, box board(eg tea bag cartons),or shoes or clothing and textiles. But plastics YES.1)Paper2)Paper3)Cans (coke,beans etc!) and PLASTIC (all mixed up with tins!)4) 5) 6)  Same as 3)7)Brown glass8)Clear glass and jars9)Green glass

Jim Lawes ● 6820d

Yes its good news about the plastic recyling Vanessa..and am pleased to hear that you are leading the way by using the Tesco skips.I was thinking of those huge 40 foot lorries delivering plastic bottles of milk to supermarkets. Customers buy the milk,take it home,consume it..and yet the huge bulky volume of the plastic container remains intact.In time Brentford could be located under a mountain of plastic bottles!! It's crazy to give such items to the dustman in a black sack..which will then got to a landfill site somewhere.  I wonder where they are crushed down and recycled...in the backstreets of China?

Jim Lawes ● 6821d

Thin card can be put out in your green box - we always have done, what is impressive is the amount we do not throw away since we found out that we could recycle plastic - it is scandalous the amount that is used for packaging, but it is bulky and we are finding we have to make two trips a week to Tesco to get rid of it, I try to do that when I'm going there anyway so I don't use fuel needlessly.

Vanessa Smith ● 6823d

I think you will find that Andrew Dakers will be the most knowledgeable Jim apart from Barbara Reid of course.Andrew will be at tonights meeting so you might be able to grab a chat?

Paul Fisher ● 6823d

Thanks for your message Bernadette..you must be so angry with "them" and "them"I'm now foscused on this subject ..as are some other people and several local Forums. Questions need to be asked and the people in charge interviewed I reckon.Which of our Brentford and Isleworth Councillors are interested in pursuing this subject?  Cllr Barbara Reid must be overloaded with a wide range of work..and need assistence.I'd love to go to the recycling Depot and see what happens..and find out what the collection procedures are.Andrew Dakers is I believe knowledgeable on this subject..and he told me recently about the local recycling interst called BRAG. Must add that to the list of the things to do!The Civic Centre website has detailed lists of what happens to all the types of waste..but there is still information fog around..I reckon.

Jim Lawes ● 6823d

I have posted about recycling many times before and usually they have been negative postings.  Now that the subject has been raised again I unfortunately have another negative posting.  I really do do all I can to recycle but I am ubcreasingly fed up with the whole thing.  I really do not have any choice about where to leave my green box other than right next to the small wall at the front of the house.  This appears then to be an open invitation to anyone passing to chuck in all sorts of rubbish that I inevitably get left with.  Each week after collection of same, I come home from work to find that I have more bags in my bin than there was before my green stuff was collected.  Clearly someone is trying to recycle but appears not to realise that plastic bottles are, for who knows what reason, not collected and as a result the bags are left for me to dispose of.  I came home on Tuesday evening to discover this has happened yet again!  The bags in my green box were not mine and contained plenty of glass and tins but also the ever present plastic bottles. It now becomes my job to either sort someone elses rubbish into recycling or to simply throw their bag into my black bag thereby increasing my rubbish.Added to this, my black bag collections take place before 6.00a.m. on Wednesdays.  Last week I took my bag down at about 5.30a.m. and placed it in the usual spot.  When I left for work at 7.00a.m. it was still there but everyone else's rubbish had been collected.  I therefore had to bring it back in and store it for another week.

Bernadette Paul ● 6823d

"(The Bridge Road depot is filled with non active dustcarts by 2pm or before each day!)"Yes Jim and one comes down our road at about 6.30am, but woe betide anyone daring to leave their rubbish out overnight instead of at the crack of dawn as there is a £50 fine waiting for offenders.

Paul Fisher ● 6823d

Sorry about that huge picture..an error re size..ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooBut what is missing at that Tesco's Recycling Depot?  Well at least the two different kinds of Board waste skips.  There's the corregated cartons..those brown boxes..that come in different sizes and thickness..E flute etc. And then box board..the thinner card that teabags may be packed in.oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooI was amazed to hear that containers of our plastics waste and other things get sent out to China to get sorted by the locals in certain places..and reclaimed,crushed and re-used somehow to help China's industrial expansion!Well better than burying it all over the UK! So when does the education programme start..big time?Nonetheless ,the Tesco line of recycling units looks most impressive.Finally of course, all waste food (uncooked) is added to the compost collection..in that little green box.  In the end there's little to give the dustmen..and they knock off early every day as it is! (The Bridge Road depot is filled with non active dustcarts by 2pm or before each day!)

Jim Lawes ● 6823d

Nothing could be simpler than popping along to Tescos at Gillette Corner (even if, like me, you don't shop there)and see the range of recycling bins!oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooPlastic is my latest bug..and it was pleasing to see that there is a plastic skip waiting!ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooThat's the soup, baked beans, and rice pudding cans dealt with! But tins can obviously re crushed,melted down and re-made into something..rather than bury them in the ground somewhere.ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooHow many old pairs of shoes do you still have knocking around..well don't put them in the dustbin!ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooJam jars, pickle jars,HP sauce bottles..the dustmen are no longer getting them from me!!ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooAnd then there is the newspaper bank..magazines too.ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooBut what is missing?  Well at least the two different kinds of Board waste.  There's the corregated cartons..those brown boxes..that come in different sizes and thickness..E flute etc. And then there box board..thinner card that teabags may be packed in.oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooI was amazed to hear that containers of our plastics waste and other things get sent out to China to get sorted by the locals in certain places..and reclaimed,crushed and re-used somehow to help China's industrial expansion!Well better than burying it all over the UK! So when does the education programme start..big time?

Jim Lawes ● 6823d