Recycling food packaging

Justin Passing said:
It's massively more efficient to use a an electric kettle, in terms of energy losses, than to use a gas ring. Something like 3:1.
If you store HW in a cylinder it'll lose heat, plus you have wastes in the pipe runs. 5m of 15mm holds about 1.8l.
To get 1l from a combi you have to heat the boiler up first

If the lost heat gets used to heat your house, then..... get some back. (same argument as filament lamps.)


1 litre boiled in a kettle at 50p/kWHr costs about 5p if I've got it ric
1000 x 4.2 x (100-15)/(3600 x 1000) x5x50.
Click to expand...
For the largest part of my life I've lived in houses with no central heating. It was a coal or smokeless fire and an immersion heater that was rarely ever used because of the cost. If I wanted a bit of hot water quickly it was the kettle - for example in the mornings I would boil a full kettle for a cup of tea and a shave. Gas central heating is a luxury I've had for the last 15 years or so, and now it looks like I'll have to give that up - because of the cost of covid crisis. It won't be the end of the world as I have lived most of my life without it.
 
JohnD said:
In summer we use around half a metre of gas a day, almost all for HW

Hw usage costs are trivial

But as cans and jars are sloshed in the washing up water, or rinsed in cold, and a few things go in the dwr, there is no additional cost
Click to expand...

My gas has worked at at exactly £5.46 per week, for the past 9 weeks except for the one week at the end of July, where it hit £4.59.
 
Harry Bloomfield said:
My gas has worked at at exactly £5.46 per week, for the past 9 weeks except for the one week at the end of July, where it hit £4.59.
Click to expand...
How much of that was for the gas?

My July gas bill was £15.45

Of which Standing charge 31 days at 26.99p a day £8.37

So gas usage about £7

If I saved 5% by washing up in cold water, I wouldn't notice

Have you got a combi?
 
Last edited:
Harry Bloomfield said:
I never have. Why bother, it will be cleaned anyway before they recycle it.
Click to expand...
Have you got some evidence that this is so please?
From everything I have known councils insist that ietms are cleaned "before" putting into the recycling.

Here is Rossendale councils info on what goes in what bin, just after the first set of bullet points it tells you items must be cleaned.

AFter a quick google it seems that several other councils also tell you to do this although several do not mention it.
AFAIK plastics are not generally recycled in the UK, we ship it all off to other countries, doing that to items covered in food waste promotes the growth of maggots etc. not good so they want items cleaned.

What does your council say?
 
mattylad said:
Have you got some evidence that this is so please?
From everything I have known councils insist that ietms are cleaned "before" putting into the recycling.
Click to expand...

I have never bothered to check, I just employ common sense. Common sense dictates that before materials are able to be repurposed, that they have considerable processing to go through of cleaning, melting down etc.. The contents of my green recycling bin is loaded into the back of the same lorry, which yesterday was loaded with the contents of my black bin. So the point of wasting my water and time on making them clean before they go in the green bin is what?

A large proportion of the contents of my green bin also goes for local incineration, to generate heat, for power generation.
 
I'm pretty sure that a large portion of many of our recycling bins still ends up in UK landfill.
Especially when we were stopped from sending it abroad to litter another country.
 
the big problem is a lot off "recyclable" stuff is not recyclable unless the moon is in the right quarter compared to the sun in other words unachievable without vast expense or a new technology not yet developed to make it recyclable
something like 60% is not recycled on average over all
a lot off actual "recycling" is not its just burnt so not reused
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top