Bugs
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Does it really matter?The whole RRR thing...I happened to see a skip belonging to the company on the floor above out of our office window, on my way out. At a quick glance, I took in
a computer tower
a small monitor
and at least five bound packages of never-used flat pack cardboard boxes
the skip was full to over flowing and I can't imagine it's going anywhere
I go home and trip over the wine bottles, vegetable cans, newspapers that I'm carefully storing to recycle when they are collected
I go out on a "bins" morning and see at least half the houses I pass with four or five plastic bags and a number of other bits of rubbish.
We're now putting ours out once a fortnight because there's so little.
I arranged recycling bags at work - they have to be taken down once a week to the basement, in the lift. I keep a clear desk and rarely print things out, so my main paper pile is "recycling" which I keep for a quick final scan before dumping it.
But then I walk past colleague's bins and they are stuffed with envelopes and clean paper because they couldn't be bothered to walk literally feet to the bag.
They're just a few examples...sometimes I wonder if it makes any difference to bother (and that's without even considering the "paper exported...costs more energy to recycle...etc").
Discouraging, isn't it?
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Behemoth
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Every little does and just cos others spit inthe street doesn't mean you should do.
As we're an 'environmental' company we have quite a green ethos, all waste paper is recyled and there's a real drive to cut down or office equipment and materials, I've mentioned office furniture before. There's also a big self centred push to cut energy consumption, turning copeirs, printers off etc in the office as well as making our treatment more energy efficient. the prime driver is to reduce costs as enregy prices are going up and we have to show we've minimised them before we can 'ask' customers to pay more. However as a company we want to reduce our CO2 emissions and 1/3 of our vans are LPG.
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Bugs
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| Behemoth wrote: | | Every little does and just cos others spit inthe street doesn't mean you should do |
Sorry dad 
I'm not going to change my ways any time soon, but sometimes I just get fed up.
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mrsnesbitt
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yeah I know Bugs........our village is very good, but a few miles down the road it's like a different planet!
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tahir
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| Behemoth wrote: | | As we're an 'environmental' company we have quite a green ethos, all waste paper is recyled and there's a real drive to cut down or office equipment and materials, I've mentioned office furniture before. There's also a big self centred push to cut energy consumption, turning copeirs, printers off etc in the office as well as making our treatment more energy efficient. the prime driver is to reduce costs as enregy prices are going up and we have to show we've minimised them before we can 'ask' customers to pay more. However as a company we want to reduce our CO2 emissions and 1/3 of our vans are LPG. |
Very commendable
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Nanny
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does it really matterit is very disheartening sometimes when you do your best and yet see others who do nothing....but if some of us don't bother then no one will and at least we can try and get others to think about it.
at least our constabulary tries a bit by putting recycling bins for papers in departments and all batteries and print cartridges go to be recycled. there is always a campaing to switch off lights and keep clean desks (the latter i think more for security sake than anything ) and we now hav e"corporate sales" whereby you can buy some computers from the force when they become available.
however there is still a lot of waste at the end of march when departments go mad and spend the rest of the budget on stupid things. i have seen year old office furniture being chucked out as no other department wanted it and there is no space to store it...
the waste there is an unblelievable amount of money let alone the stuff that is going to the tip......
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Lozzie
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Bugs I feel the same way as you  
Until there are more palpable financial incentives to RRR (rather than just getting Bob the Bloody Builder to use it as his latest catch-phrase  ), it will be very hard to get people to change what are, for many, the bad habits of a working lifetime.
My only suggestion is to carry on doing what you do... even if you manage to persuade ONE person that RRR is worthwhile, that will helpo. It just doesn't feel like it, sometimes.
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Nanny
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does it really mattermore and more people are realising that the system as it stands can't go on and people like all of us (it's perhaps not only the future of the planet but perhaps because we are tight about money as well) are at least in a position to help others realise that you can reduce, reuse and recycle
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Behemoth
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Re: does it really matter | Nanny wrote: | we now hav e"corporate sales" whereby you can buy some computers from the force when they become available.
i have seen year old office furniture being chucked out as no other department wanted it and there is no space to store it... |
Sell? We give ours to schools 
I've often thought that there's a role for an organisation called 'Clearing House' where builders and organisations can deposit unused or unwanted materials, equipment, furniture etc. Depositers get credits which they can use to 'purchase' stuff they want and Joe Public can buy for cash.
All you need is a big warehouse and yard, storage and forklifts etc and some sort of database/cataloging system and Bob's your uncle
Easy.
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sean
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You could run it in between your website and sausage manufactory.
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Behemoth
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I feel a corporate empire coming on.
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Bugs
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| Lozzie wrote: | | even if you manage to persuade ONE person that RRR is worthwhile, that will helpo |
Don't worry, I'm still quietly and consistently evangelising. My eldest sister is now obsessive about recycling - although she has a blind spot for those plastic coffee filters which she takes to stay at my mum's, and she drives *everywhere*. But then she's only short.
And I need to phone my mum and check that the compost bin that I ordered while she was out one day has arrived. The amount of tea she gets through in a day could probably transform the entire estates gardens let alone hers 
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Behemoth
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I'm plucking up the courage to put an old yog pot next to the office kettle and asking my colleagues to donate their used bags and coffee grinds.
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Bugs
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What bit needs the courage, Behemoth?
I'm concerned by the unpleasantly unwashed cups and general desire not to have most of my colleagues anywhere near my veg patch, even if it is once-touched year-old compost. Paranoid, moi?
It's such a good idea though, I am sure a few enlightened places have compost stuff that I've heard of.
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Behemoth
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My lot know I'm a bit odd - it's the other lot in the next wing who weshare with - engineers you see - humans are a hinderance to their plans.
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ButteryHOLsomeness
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we had a clever way of slowly getting my husbands parents to start recycling.
when we were living in glasgow there simply wasn't anything close by for recycling. we had to travel several miles to get to a recycling facility and it was out of the way AND we don't have a car (sold it when we moved there) so we had a houseful of stuff
mil always commented but would take us in the car with the bootful of stuff each time they came to visit! ours didn't recycle cardboard so she said she'd heard they did in her village (Dunoon) and she took that away with her
well, she had a good look around and found out they'd take the garden waste there. since they were doing up an old mess of a garden she was there frequently and kept noticing more things that they did
meanwhile she's still hauling us to the recycling area every time she came by and still taking things away for us and before you know it, she's hooked 
actully, i'm quite impressed with dunoon's facilities, very commendable but only suitable for those with cars
glasgow is a disgrace when it comes to recycling 
edinburgh isn't too bad. we are fortunate that we live practically across the street from pollock halls of residence. they have two large recycling banks set up AND we have two paper bins here with the flats normal bins. The paper guys saw me one day with my bags full of stuff that i was recycling (i'd been saving it awhile!) so they gave me a key which saves a LOT of time since the slot isn't very big...
mil still offers to take things to the recycling for us. we give her our old batteries and such like, the occasional cardboard etc
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wellington womble
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With landfill getting so expensive, it's going to become more compuslory, I think. The more forward thinking counicils (barnet springs to mind, but bucks isn't bad, and some of the leicester ones) are now starting to restrict the amount of rubbish you can put out. Bucks already collect glass and paper, but are now pioloting a scheme where they'll collect greenwaste every week, but balck bags only once a fortnight. My cousin in Leiecester has a wheelie bin which is only emptied once a fortnight if the lid will close, and they won't take any additional rubbish (she is using real nappies cos of this!)
They can only do this if they collect recylcing, too, otherwise they will be valule for money rows. So they'll get better. When i was a kid my mum was weird cos she recylced, my cousins kids do it automatically - its normal. If we caan start getting schools to do it, all those futuree office workers will do it automatically too!
If you blaze a trail, Bugs, people will follow!
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Bugs
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| wellington womble wrote: | | If you blaze a trail, Bugs, people will follow! |
See, that's the problem, I'm not much of a trailblazer, I know that compared to lots of people here I'm not getting up to much, and I need support and encouragement myself  ...when of all the people I know in real life and day to day (ie not you lot, you might all be in my head!), I'm probably the most careful, the most reduced, the most reusey and recycly...the world is in a sorry state.
Ah well, onwards and upwards...as you say people will start to move when they have less choice and if education is improving we might go the right way eventually...
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