Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption
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cab
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Biodegradable bags conundrumWe don't use many placcy bags. What we get wraped in plastic is mostly in the cornstarch stuff from the local wholefoods place (Daily Bread, up on Kings Hedges Road), and the few placcy bags we buy are of the biodegradable sort two.
About the only compsotable thing that the council don't accept in the green bin is biodegradable bags. I've tried compsting them myself, can't say as they're particularly compostable either!
So... What should I do? Keep using biodegradable when we DO use plastic bags, and put them in general refuse? Or would I better off buying non-compostable, thus not sending something ultimately degradable into anaerobic landfill to slowly turn to methane? Note, sheet plastic (and plastic bags) are among the few theoretically recyclabe things we can't find a recycling home for around here.
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Barefoot Andrew
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I'm not using bags much - but that's because I've got cardboard boxes in the car. I do use bags occasionally though - e.g. I take a bag with me to the butchers.
I would suggest keep a small number of plastic bags and re-use them ad-infinitum. That's what I'm trying to do, only grabbing another bag very occasionally from somewhere if one breaks.
A.
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marigold
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Do you mean plastic bags as in, say, sandwich/freezer bags? You can send plastic bags/junk mail wrappers etc away to be recycled and, as they are light and non-bulky, postage should be cheap. But then you are adding more transport pollution to the cycle  .
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cab
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| marigold wrote: | | Do you mean plastic bags as in, say, sandwich/freezer bags? |
The latter, sandwich/freezer bags. Handy to have for things like sausages, fruit, etc.
| Quote: | | You can send plastic bags/junk mail wrappers etc away to be recycled and, as they are light and non-bulky, postage should be cheap. But then you are adding more transport pollution to the cycle . |
Oh, where can I send those to? Might well be worth investigating.
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marigold
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| Quote: | Plastic bags, polythene and mail wrappers
This includes both printed and unprinted polythene wrappers and bags. Things like vegetable bags, supermarket bags, mailing wrappers, bread bags, multipack wrappers and six pack rings.
Please note that polythene marked as 'degradable' cannot be recycled. It is very important that it doesn't get mixed up with ordinary polythene. All polythene items must be free of paper, food, sticky tape etc before they can be recycled.
Many major supermarket stores have Bag Banks in their car parks where you can recycle plastic bags.
Alternatively, send by post to
Polyprint Mailing Films Ltd
Mackintosh Road
Rackheath Industrial Estate
Rackheath
Norwich
NR13 6LJ |
Lifted from Southwark Council website, which came at the top of the list when I googled. Stuff has to be clean, so not much use for used food bags as it's pretty pointless (IMO) washing them for recycling. Looks like you can save the postage and drop them off at a supermarket recycling bin. The Tesco I use has the bins in the store doorway - I guess they need to be kept clean. Mind you, thinking about what it says above about not mixing in the degradable bags I'm going to check next time I go there to see if it says that on the bin...
I use junk mail wrappers for storing stuff in the fridge that is going to be washed/cooked before eating, as mini-greenhouses for seed pots and for storing all sorts of non-food things (eg. sewing threads), which at least cuts down on some purchases.
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Chez
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Our local veg shop takes donations of placcy bags for them to reuse.
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cab
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| Chez wrote: | | Our local veg shop takes donations of placcy bags for them to reuse. |
Carrier bags aren't the problem, I can recycle those. Its little bags that are the problem.
Marigold- thanks! Food for thought that.
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marigold
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| marigold wrote: | The Tesco I use has the bins in the store doorway - I guess they need to be kept clean. Mind you, thinking about what it says above about not mixing in the degradable bags I'm going to check next time I go there to see if it says that on the bin...
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Checked this morning - the bin says "carrier bags only". I'm sure some carrier bags are marked "degradable" nowadays, but I'll have to check that. Now I'm confused .
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gnome
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at the moment, the bio-degradable issue is a whole new can of worms. there is actually little that is environmentally friendly about bio-degradable packaging. thereare reorts that landfill sites are actually too tightly packed to allow bio-degradables to break down - and we don't really want them too because then they produce methane. as for plastic bags being recyclable - well it depends how that is done. commercial plastic recycling companies recycle plastic by heating it up to flashpoint, so it melts. this shortens the molecules, so it is a poorer quality plastic. you can recycle plastic very few times before it becomes a useless mess - and of course plastic comes from a non-renewable source.
one use they could have is for bagging up organic waste that is to be sent to a bio-mass feeder. these are a pretty newish idea, and are starting to take off - but they are a bit thin on the ground at the moment. the idea is to use decaying organic matter as a fuel source. as bio-degradables produce methane, this makes them ideal for bio-mass feeders.
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Helen_A
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Anywhere you can peg the broken biod bags out in the full sunlight for a couple of weeks? IME a heft dose of sunlight deals with them nicely, and then they are crumbly and just mix into compost
 cos I left a whole load of stuff out in a couple last summer and they disintegrated when it came time to take them along to the garden waste bin at the recycling centre...
Helen_A
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cab
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| Helen_A wrote: | Anywhere you can peg the broken biod bags out in the full sunlight for a couple of weeks? IME a heft dose of sunlight deals with them nicely, and then they are crumbly and just mix into compost
cos I left a whole load of stuff out in a couple last summer and they disintegrated when it came time to take them along to the garden waste bin at the recycling centre...
Helen_A |
Interesting... I'll try that. It makes a lot of sense, thanks.
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Maxwell Smart
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| gnome wrote: | | at the moment, the bio-degradable issue is a whole new can of worms. there is actually little that is environmentally friendly about bio-degradable packaging. thereare reorts that landfill sites are actually too tightly packed to allow bio-degradables to break down - and we don't really want them too because then they produce methane. as for plastic bags being recyclable - well it depends how that is done. commercial plastic recycling companies recycle plastic by heating it up to flashpoint, so it melts. this shortens the molecules, so it is a poorer quality plastic. you can recycle plastic very few times before it becomes a useless mess - and of course plastic comes from a non-renewable source. |
All too true - but unfortunately most people just see the word "bio-degradable" and think great! I can use them with no care what so ever. Though I believe corn-starch bags are better than other bio-degradable bags, they are not so suitable for things like food.
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Bogzla
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Re: Biodegradable bags conundrum | cab wrote: | | About the only compsotable thing that the council don't accept in the green bin is biodegradable bags. |
have you tried? I've put them (the corn starch bags) in our green bin and it's always been emptied ok
mind you that's South Cambs and not Cambridge city council
never understood what the reasoning was for this
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cab
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Re: Biodegradable bags conundrum | Bogzla wrote: |
have you tried? I've put them (the corn starch bags) in our green bin and it's always been emptied ok
mind you that's South Cambs and not Cambridge city council
never understood what the reasoning was for this |
Yes, I'd been putting them in there, because they're biodegradable, and the bins were emptied. Transpires when you read through the details on what you're meant to put in there, it says no plastics even if they're biodegradable. Whether thats also true outside of the City, I dunno.
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gnome
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usually, whoever is collecting the green bins will just collect what's put out - some poor sod at the depot has to sort out what can and can't be used. all too often the whole batch will just be tipped as contaminated mixed waste because there isn't the manpower to sort it.
doorstep recycling is less successfull than local council's claim, because they havetargets to meet, so just fudge the figurs.
do you think council employees say to each other - "oh dear - we've failed to meet the targets our out of touch government have set - race you to the job centre" no, they say "these stats are way off - they can't be right. someone must have messed upon the paperwork - we'll have to guess the figures. what sounds reasonable to you?
for doorstep recycling to work, it is necessary for the average householder to know at least as much about recycling as the experts working at the recycling centres, so they know what to put into the green bins, and how to seperate it. there is no magical way to seperate a few biodegradable bags from a heap of paper, cardboard, and tincans.
we need a genius to come up with an idea that actually works. even if every bit of packaging had disposal instructions written on the back (or bottom) there would be people who can't read, people who can't be bothered, and people who are confused by the whole thing.
almost everyday i learn something new about recycling - its amazingly complicated and still shrouded in too much mystery.
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