How green are you?

[Chris]

Inspired by the disposable DVD thread (and in attempt to stop myself taking it right off topic with posts about washable nappies) I thought I'd ask y'all ... how green are you? Do you use your local recycling facilities if they are available, do green issues affect the way you buy stuff? Do you think yesterday's announcement that lots of wind farms are going to be built is good news?

etc etc etc ....

Have a go at the poll as well, although it's far from comprehensive.

EDIT - Sorry, the poll should allow you to choose multiple options ... hang on while I PM a Mod....

[Lord Nikon]

Old clothes - if damaged get recycled into rags for working around the house / car etc... clothes I am simply fed up with get taken to clothing recycling centres

[imback]

I guess I'm like most people, I always think it's a good idea but never do anything about it.

I use disposable nappies for my boy simply bacuse we tried the washable ones and they were more hassle, mad ehim to hot, and were so big that half his clothes wouldn't fit.

I don't recycle glass because the council only collect it sporadically, and it ends up being smahed up by kids.

To be honest I would recycle ,but being your average person, I will only do it if it is as easy as not recycling. Local councills are so lackluster about it all, so the only the option is to drive to recycling bank with a car full of trash.

[SMHarman]

I recycle newspaper (which is collected by the council fortnghtly - they give us a green packing crate to put it in)

Glass, Cans and plastic bottles which all pile up at the end of the driveway until I am heading toward my parents as we never bother to separate out the plastic and my council does not collect plastic - theirs 7 miles away does - mine says that the cost of transportation is too high. Hmmm those seven miles must really make a difference.

I also try to recycle card. Again as above my council don't collect it.

Garden rubbish goes in the compost. Saves trapsing it through the house. Grass cuttinsg sometimes go in the bin though.

Disposable baby nappes though. Also put the clothes in a dryer which is supposed to be unenvironmental, but then the washing machine and dishwasher are new so use loads less water.

Dishwashing in a diswasher is good for the environment you know! 18 litres of water in an average wash.

Milk is delivered and thus bottles recycled.

Nobody where I live collects tetra pak!!

We should pay deposits on plastic and glass bottles FFS even the Americans still do this.

A pretty big hastle to do this lot IMHO. Can see why most don't bother.

Wandsworth where I used to live had Green (glass), White (clear glass), Brown (glass), Orange (cans) and Blue (paper) bin bags. You put out each week. Why can't every council be like that.

[timewarrior2001]

I'm very green, I pour my engine oil down the drain so it can be put back where it came from (the local streams).

I refuse to obey the EU directive and I use Jeyes fluid as a weedkiller.

I often find myself throwing away perfectly good CD's because they are so damned cheap. And I can use P2P to replace them.

I help keep old people keep warm by cutting down as many trees as I can find, mind you the old buggers can chop their own firewood.


Yes as you can see I work very hard, dunno why friends of the earth laughed when i wanted to join them :shrug:

[zoombini]

Your poll does not give us the options of doing all of them?

I regurally fill a plastic sack for recycling, cardboard, tins, etc.
I always put any plastic packaging etc in there, although I have heard that the council do not want plastic?
absurd, stupid and typical.

I would be recycling about 80% of my waste if the local council would actually do something about it. A scheme was started and has sort of fizzled out half way through.

We have been limited on what we can actually recycle, the bags to fill are not delivered so you have to go to the town hall to collect them, yet its closed at any time other than std council times. So I cannot get any at the weekend.
The leaflet that told us of the dates for collection expired last year and has not been replaced, so its hard to remember when its actually supposed to be put out.

Newspapers, well they all get recycled in the cat litter.
I do not buy any, I get the mum in laws when she has finished them on Friday, the rest of the week I have a peek at others while waiting on the butty colection table in the canteen.
Otherwise I get all my news from here.

I recycle anything that is still usable if I can.
I am known as the founder member of the local skip watch brigade...lol

[Chris]

Originally posted by zoombini
Your poll does not give us the options of doing all of them?

Sorry, I messed it up ... tried PM-ing mods but they're a bit thin on the ground at the moment.

ADMIN - Anyone reading this, could you please completely re-set the poll and change it to allow more than one option to be picked please? Thanks!!!

[homealone]

Our Local Council (N.E. Lincs) are quite good about re-cycling lately. A couple of years ago we were offered the option of buying a large (300 litre) compost bin for £5. Then recently they supplied a wheelie bin for general garden waste and stackable bins for glass, metal & paper.

Our local tip is open 7 days a week for bulkier stuff and for things like old fridges & electrical equipment, oil, batteries etc.

I personally would like to see glass used more for stuff like replacing gravel for road building, as the energy used to recycle it is the same as making new glass and the only resources it conserves is sand & soda. Crushed glass apparently makes very good road building material.

[danielf]

We have a twin bin scheme. One regular bin, and one for Card Board, plastic (incl. bottles) and tins. Paper gets collected every two weeks.

There also is the option to use one bin for garden waste, but I can't be bothered with that.

Whatever bottles we use go to the bottle bank.

I'm still looking for a place to hand in my old batteries. That should be made easier.

[CuddlesTC]

I'd like to recycle, but unfortunately I'm living with my mum at the moment, and she refuses to have the supplied recycling box outside her house because it looks untidy (tch!).

Hopefully if and when I get my own place I'll be able to go back onto the council's scheme which allows recycling of paper, some plastic and cans through its box scheme. The nearest bottle bank will remain too far for me to walk though - good job I don't use too much glass!

(Old clothes - what are they? I wear 'em 'til they disintigrate and use the remains as dusters ;))

[zoombini]

I'm sure that I saw on the news that Green bottles do not get recycled and are just landfill. Thats when the DOT decided to try them out for making roads.

So its rather pointless taking them to the glass banks.

[Martin]

I can't vote dude:( I do all of the above:) I'm nery green but not in a hulk way.:)

[homealone]

Originally posted by zoombini
I'm sure that I saw on the news that Green bottles do not get recycled and are just landfill. Thats when the DOT decided to try them out for making roads.

So its rather pointless taking them to the glass banks.

no it isn't pointless - what's wrong with glass roads - I wouldn't mind driving down a green road?

[zoombini]

The use of glass as roadfill is being trial'ed, not in current use, just trials.
Ergo we as a nation dispose of more Green bottles than they could use/are using. So the majority of them still get dumped as landfill.

So unless you live near to somewhere that is actually taking part in the trials and the glass is actually getting collected & used for the trials it IS pointless. You might as well just throw them away with your normal rubbish instead of wasting the time, effort & petrol taking them to a glass recycling bank, they end up in the same place - a hole in the ground.

[homealone]

Originally posted by zoombini
The use of glass as roadfill is being trial'ed, not in current use, just trials.
Ergo we as a nation dispose of more Green bottles than they could use/are using. So the majority of them still get dumped as landfill.
So unless you live near to somewhere that is actually taking part in the trials and the glass is actually getting collected & used for the trials it IS pointless. You might as well just throw them away with your normal rubbish instead of wasting the time, effort & petrol taking them to a glass recycling bank, they end up in the same place - a hole in the ground.

That's no good - I'd have to stop drinking red wine, lucky for me the Council comes & collects the empties once a fortnight.:)

On a tangent it sounds like too good an idea - like the power station that was set up to run on coppiced willow, a completely renewable resource, that is now looking dead in the water, due to lack of investment.

[SMHarman]

Thats the problem with green glass isn't it.

Most of it is imported from France, Germany and the rest of europe as wine and beer bottles and its not economic to return it.

There was also a drive to get the wine manufacturers to use more clear glass so we can do something with it.