A Letter from Nantwich

May 2007                                                              See also an update on foil in this letter

Wrong kind of plastic

To recycle - or not to recycle? That is the question. Well, the mineral water ("pop") and milk bottles on the left are fine. But the items above are not. The ice-cream carton and the washing gel measure (Type 5), and the clear and black food trays (Type 1) are simply not bottles and so cannot be accepted. But they are all plastic, so why can't they be recycled? Read on . . .

AS someone who supports recycling to the hilt, I am disappointed that the borough council are not able to do more to help in the battle to save the planet and to stop our green and pleasant land being overrun by land-fill sites - especially with the bad name that local authorities up and down the country are getting for being heavy-handed over their recycling.

   There is much talk in the national press of The Recycling Police. That is, those people who make sure you don't put your bins out on the wrong day; don't put the wrong type of waste in a bin; don't put so much waste in a bin that there is a gap (however small) under the lid . . . Not to mention the huge fines for transgressors.

   It is hardly conducive to getting on board those citizens who don't see why they should trouble themselves with all this recycling business.

   Locally, I am not sure how much it is the fault of Crewe and Nantwich Borough Council (CNBC) or is down to a lack of proper nationwide facilities for recycling, but I am sure more recyclable waste could be taken away with a concerted effort. When I raised this in February 2006, a recycling spokesperson said: "Nobody in the UK will take other types of plastic from us." Other than plastic bottles, that was. Are there no enterprising people out there ready to cash in on the recycling boom which has to come about if Government targets are to be met? 

    I have checked again with the recycling department of CNBC and am told that they are still taking only plastic bottles (no mention of the caps, although they might be all right). That is, presumably, restricting the type of plastic waste to milk, water and mineral water bottles. [Above is a sticker from back of a car park payment ticket confirming the bottles-only policy.]

    But the waste accepted for recycling involves only three of the seven different types of plastic - and not all uses of those.

The full list of plastics can be seen in the panel, right, from the Waste On-Line website - www.wasteonline.

org.uk/resources/

InformationSheets/

Plastics.htm. [There are nine A4 pages of useful waste information behind that link.]

   Since the recycling department at CNBC says specifically "plastic bottles", we can assume that means oven-ready meal trays, although made from the same type of plastic as bottles (Type 1 - PET), are, presumably, out. The previously-mentioned bottle caps are Type 2 plastic and would seem to be all right although they are not a bottle - as such.

   That still leaves four more types of plastic which the CNBC waste crews cannot take away. And which - more importantly - will have to go into the black (general waste) bins and on to the landfill sites.  

   My criteria for disposing of plastic into the recycling bin has been: did it have a recycling number (in a triangle of arrows) imprinted on it? If the answer was "Yes", I recycled the item. It seems I was wrong to do so! Bet I wasn't the only one doing that . . . (See this Letter from Nantwich for an update).

   I have a large quantity of polystyrene shapes which was used in a large parcel I recently received, to cushion the contents. Polystyrene is not a favoured plastic, and the pieces are not bottles, so they will have to go in my general bin. They will probably take up half the space of the bin in one fell swoop.

   The best that the County Council recycling department could come up with (in a recent CCC newspaper) for polystyrene was to put it in the bottom of plant pots for drainage purposes. My packaging bits would fill a large number of pots - if I had any.

   One thing that surprised me when I read it somewhere was that the foam plastic trays for food cannot be recycled because they contain air. But wouldn't the air simply seep back into the atmosphere as the plastic forming the tray was heated in the recycling process? (At least, I assume it is melted down).

 As I say, the councils have got to do a lot more towards enabling further types of waste to be recycled if they want to encourage us to help them meet the Government's demand for fewer landfill sites.

   Worse still, those of us who are currently keen to help will start to ask: "Just what is the point?"  

If it is not economical for individual councils to tackle issues such as other plastic, is it not possible for several councils to get together - under the umbrella of Cheshire County Council, say - and fund the necessary recycling plants?

Not all bad news

WHEN I was a lad, my father collected the silver foil tops on milk bottles (recyclable glass) and took them to somewhere in Crewe.

  I understand that Houston and Sons Ltd in Victoria Avenue, Crewe, recycle foil and will give you money for it, and aluminium cans.

   A Crewe Scout group which used to collect foil has dropped off the radar, apparently.

   I have heard that recyclers are going to trial (horrible modern use of the word) foil recycling banks at a few of the borough's recycling sites. An announcement is expected on this in the local Press over the next couple of months.