Plastics and Waste

One of the things I hate is recycling or at least the sorting of rubbish into its component parts. Glass, metal, paper I can cope with, BUT with plastics help! We not only recycle our own waste, but we offer our visitors in our barn a recycle service for them. On a weekly basis this reduces  what the bin men take to landfill by over 75%. So what is my rant over plastic about. Plastics are complicated, there are many different types (you can classify them into 7 types and each has a different method of recycling. Look out for the symbol such this.

This one is for polypropylene common to yoghurt tubs. But it is not so much the type of plastics it is the sheer quantity. Without exageration, so many products don't just come in plastic, they are excessively wrapped in another plastic.As for milk bottles why? I guess because they are light and cheap and they are taking over the world.

The irony to all this is that plastic was invented by Alexander Parkes in 1855 as a substitiute to replace ivorty for piano keys. Poor Elephants were being slaughtered for their ivory tusks to such an extent that it was becoming more difficult to obtain. So in a way, plastic was invented out of a sortage of raw material due to mans greed. Bakelite and nylon really put plastic into all our daily lives and today we are so dependant on it that no matter where we turn it is everywhere. Just look at a half or litre bottle of milk, better still save them up for a month and look at how much space they take up. Just imagine how much space it would take if we didn't recycle them and sent them all to landfill sites.

So what can we do? Milk now comes mainly in plastic bottles (thanks to our friends at ww.freephoto.com for the picture of the real glass milk bottle) so I guess we are largely stuck with them unless you have a coop close by. . For the other plastics we could be difficult at the checkouts of supermarkets  taking off all unneccessary wrappings OR we could shop local a butchers, fish mongers, fruiterers but these are getting few and far between. We have come to rely largely on technology to make our life easier so if we want this to continue we must take up a new mantra for waste

1.Try to Eliminate Waste

2.Reduce

3. Re-use

4. Recycle

                                       5. Dispose, but only as a last measure

If you would like advice and guidance you can e-mail me  or visit my website

Don't forget to visit 10:10 to help reduce your carbon emmissions

Have a good week

Chris Gledhill