Recycling food packaging

We used to repair electric motors for the local council in Liverpool. Went to pick a job up one day and was talking to a couple of guys about recycling etc and the extra work it creates sorting it out. I was 'informed' that any programmes you see on TV of workers at a transfer station/tip is just propaganda. No such jobs exist(ed) at that time with the exception of glass pickers. Any refuse collected each week goes through the same processes. The waste is taken to a transfer station, it is dumped and then fed on to conveyors, any bags are automatically split open to expose the contents. As the belts move forward they pass under magnetic belts which draw up ferrous metal, (which may also pick up other items with metal attachments such as wood/plastic etc), they then go through light blowers which blow off things like loose paper, tissues etc. Broken glass is left on the belt but intact bottles, glasses etc are now picked off by hand and thrown in bins next to the operators. Non magnetic metals such as brass/alloys etc usually stay on the belts after the have passed over screening mesh to let smaller things fall through. Cardboard is blown off by stronger blowers, (though lighter bits often get blown off with the paper).
All the ferrous metal is sent to a scrap yard for shredding if the depot doesn't have it's own shredding machine. The shredded metal, (usually small pieces about 1" square are then shipped to places like China for reprocessing. The paper/cardboard is sent to the paper mills and plastics are shipped abroad for recycling as we do not have the facilities in this country.
Inevitably a lot of the waste slips through and still ends up in landfill but there is no necessity to wash things out because, as someone said earlier, anything that is recycled goes through various processes such as washing, heating, firing etc that contaminants are either skimmed off the top or drained from the bottom.
 
Plastic bottles from the UK end up in places miles away like (don't quote me on it) Turkey and India.

They are struggling to recycle all this plastic.

I personally can't see the point of sending stuff half way round the world to recycle, even less to see it fester.

Plastics is the scourge of the world: our rivers, lakes and seas are full of it and animals are dying having invested it by mistake. Plastic use needs to be drastically reduced. Eventually, there should be no need to use plastic.

There are great alternatives for fluid containers like glass, paper and cellulose-based "plastics".

Customers buying products wrapped or contained in recyclable materials should be charged a large deposit which will be returned when the packaging is deposited in an official recycling container.
That will help to solve the issue of litter, as kids collect the unwanted packaging for a few quid in their pocket.

I wrote to my Council around 20 years ago about increasing the number of plastic items accepted for recycling. Their response was frankly pathetic. The only plastic items our local Council accepts are bottles. Nothing else. Other Councils in the NW accept all sorts of plastics, not just bottles, but not ours. I wrote to them again about 10 years ago and again recently, but nothing has changed. Their answer, which has not changed over time, is that bottles, while made of many different types of plastic are the grade required for making bottles thus are fit for recycling, unlike other plastic items made of the same type of plastics. It is most frustrating that they have persisted with this "policy" when others are doing much better.

Make of that what you will.

This issue is a Nationwide, indeed Worldwide issue and Councils should get their heads together and share all they know. There should be a Nationwide policy on recycling, adopted by everyone.

While we swap to other more easily recyclable (or compostable in the case of cellulose based bottles) materials, we still have to deal with the plastic we have. It should be recycled in-house and not allowed to leave the country.

In short, not enough is being done and we need to improve, otherwise this planet, and the people on it, will be stuffed.

It's utterly ironic that everyone is hell-bent on taking the easy path while on Earth without a care for the future. Not realising they are crapping in their own back garden.
 
securespark said:
Plastic bottles from the UK end up in places miles away like (don't quote me on it) Turkey and India.

They are struggling to recycle all this plastic.

I personally can't see the point of sending stuff half way round the world to recycle, even less to see it fester.

Plastics is the scourge of the world: our rivers, lakes and seas are full of it and animals are dying having invested it by mistake. Plastic use needs to be drastically reduced. Eventually, there should be no need to use plastic.

There are great alternatives for fluid containers like glass, paper and cellulose-based "plastics".

Customers buying products wrapped or contained in recyclable materials should be charged a large deposit which will be returned when the packaging is deposited in an official recycling container.
That will help to solve the issue of litter, as kids collect the unwanted packaging for a few quid in their pocket.

I wrote to my Council around 20 years ago about increasing the number of plastic items accepted for recycling. Their response was frankly pathetic. The only plastic items our local Council accepts are bottles. Nothing else. Other Councils in the NW accept all sorts of plastics, not just bottles, but not ours. I wrote to them again about 10 years ago and again recently, but nothing has changed. Their answer, which has not changed over time, is that bottles, while made of many different types of plastic are the grade required for making bottles thus are fit for recycling, unlike other plastic items made of the same type of plastics. It is most frustrating that they have persisted with this "policy" when others are doing much better.

Make of that what you will.

This issue is a Nationwide, indeed Worldwide issue and Councils should get their heads together and share all they know. There should be a Nationwide policy on recycling, adopted by everyone.

While we swap to other more easily recyclable (or compostable in the case of cellulose based bottles) materials, we still have to deal with the plastic we have. It should be recycled in-house and not allowed to leave the country.

In short, not enough is being done and we need to improve, otherwise this planet, and the people on it, will be stuffed.

It's utterly ironic that everyone is hell-bent on taking the easy path while on Earth without a care for the future. Not realising they are crapping in their own back garden.
Click to expand...
Superb post.

Spot on.

Esp. the last paragraph.
 
Fair comment.

But enough to be heading for irreversible damage.

We need more that are not, in order to tip the balance in the planet's favour.
 
I lived in Zimbabwe in the 90s, recycling was driven by economics there, bottles all carried a hefty deposit and supermarkets had a returns counter, plastic bags were in short supply so they were washed in the creek and re used, raw materials etc were imported using precious forex which had to be applied for through the Reserve Bank which was a laborious task
 
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