Recycling

[eastrock]

With all the controversy over our plans for disposal of waste in mind. Are we doing enough towards recycling? Do you recycle your waste responsibly or is it too much hassle?

[Jeremy Strickland]

I wouldn't say it's a hassle. I admit to not being organised at home with the recycling. Cardboard, plastic bottles,glass, and paper are piled up next to the bin and once a week a trip to rue des pre. Kitchen waste goes into a '5p shopping bag' and emptied daily into garden composter. The garage is chock-a-block with larger objects that cry out for a trip to the recycling skips at Bellozanne, but my wife wants to keep it all. Mind you I am talking about her bicycle, but not even Terry Waite would want to reclaim it.

The concern I do have is what happens to the recycled materials. From the Waste Strategy Plan of 2005 most of it is shipped to the UK at a cost to us of nearly half a £million.
What I would like to see is an increase in recycling which could be shipped to other closer regions such as France thereby cutting down on shipping costs, and C-footprint. It might be economically viable, and produce a break-even, or profit for us.
To encourage more recycling I agree with an Island-wide kerbside collection. It would mean a possible £20-30 p/a on the rates.

[eastrock]

In our household, we have gone from having three rubbish bins down to one. In terms of volume, it's amazing how much of it can be recycled. We plan a trip to bellozane once a week on our way somewhere or other. Reducing the need for petrol to take it there. It's a great facility, but there must be some way of taking other plastics and not just bottles.

There is a scheme in Germany that lets you leave packaging at the supermarket after the checkout tills. There is only so much you can shed but you can take the rest back when you next go shopping. The packaging then goes back in empty delivery lorries. This seemed like a very efficient way of doing things to me.

Could we have an industry here that could recycle products and export them?

[nickpalmer]

"There is a scheme in Germany that lets you leave packaging at the supermarket after the checkout tills"

Yup, they have had this legislation since around 1992 (16 years!). I mentioned it in our press release when the local Friends of the Earth group "returned" 2000 empty milk cartons to the car park of the JMMB dairy as part of our campaign to reintroduce returnable bottles and packaging

[generationx]

Back then FOE was possibly assumed to be a small off beat radical left-wing group of eco loonies identifiable only in the 'other' category as they didn't conform to mainstream capitalist consumer culture. You probably didn't get the press you deserved and anyway you were fighting a loosing battle. I don't know if this is entirely accurate but it's my guess. I was living in Cardiff in 92. In some parts of the city they'd introduced a door step recycling scheme. Various coloured bags and boxes were provided by the council, who tipped them into containers and off it went to the recycling centre. There were a number of different recycling centres in South Wales. I visited one that speciaised in turning old clothes into mattress filling. The whole plant was fairy compact; a small ware house, storage bins for clothes, a piece of machinery, space for the new product. They had enough material to generate it for 40 hours a week but it doesn't need to be turned on all the time and we could make mattresses instead of importing them and generating carbon miles. ( I know, rich people will still shop at Le Gallais for their bedding and buy their royals in M+S ). Back in Wales, a friend of mine started a successful business collecting office waste paper for recycling. The community was obviously up for recycling as recycling bins were numerous and generally well located. (no need to drive). When I returned to Jersey, I attended a recycling talk. The mood could not have been more different and boring. I recalled Derek Carter sounding very encouraging but it got no-where, like it fell on deaf ears -far too radical. Porritt gave a lecture on sustainability not long after. He opened by quoting some Jersey stats of the time. We had more cars per head of population, we recycled virtually nothing and threw away more per person than anywhere except the USA etc. It certainly made me feel ashamed. Jersey has woken up a bit more now. I think if we lobbied Jersey Dairy over their cartons, Surely the support would be more widespread this time round don't you think?

[eastrock]

Can the milk cartons be recycled at all? They take up so much space in the bin. Would it be better if they used plastic bottles or even glass?

I remember being horrified (yeah I know it's a bit extreme) that no form of environmental subjects were being taught at school or nurseries. I just could not believe it. Trying to get adults to change their ways is a challenge. With children it's easy. Show them right from the start and they will carry on for the rest of their lives.