[sandy]

Warning, this is controversial BUT, I wonder how much of our recycling etc is propaganda? I do recycle but I have a vision of the recycled stuff being thrown into another large skip and shipped to some sub continent!!  Or, I can see many of the stuff we all put into the correct bins gets the odd foreign body so the whole load has to go into land fill? When I was at University, studying sociology I found it very interesting how the government manipulates people depending on the current economic situation, I am very bad with big words etc but a classic example to me was during the 2nd world war there was a need for more labour force sooooooo, the government promoted formula milk instead of breast milk so the mothers could return to work and staff the factories, then, after the war, “breast was best”, advertising campaign came into force, see what I mean. I have very strong beliefs but they do not always comply to the majority so I keep stum, but, in my opinion, the way to save resources is to not package stuff in the first place, I remember Bacon being sliced, bread being cut to order and wrapped in greaseproof that was reusable, milk bottles, pop bottles, veg by the 1Ld, especially from the market, biscuits loose, tea loose etc etc, I also remember young people taking back bottles to the offi to get money for sweets or crisps, and on that note, I remember cueing for chips with a metal dish to be filled, that will never happen…. Anyway, I try my best and comply but, I will still go for cheap, still drive the cheapest care I can find and not drive too much, not go abroad on a gas guzzling aeroplane, (that is until I visit my daughter in Aus) and try to be as self efficient as I can, I buy very little for myself, make do and mend and do a lot of home cooking, turn off the heating when  no one is in and burn logs from a local source and am always out foraging…If I could live life to an ideal I would grow my own stuff, not keep wanting the latest this and that and live as economically as possible, trouble is if everyone lived like that the economy would fold, they need people to buy perishables etc for the economy to sustain itself, well not me. That’s me, take me or leave me, I am not for conditioning.

[garden cottage]

Taxpayers are facing a multi-million-pound bill to store 100,000 tons of waste paper and cardboard as the British recycling industry plunges into crisis.
Rubbish carefully sorted by householders is piling up in vast warehouses as the market for waste paper collapses, and experts have warned that the mountain of garbage could double in the next three months.

Waste paper is now virtually unsellable, so the private firms contracted to deal with household waste have been forced to put it into storage incurring huge bills.

[Crofter]

I'm with you Sandy!

We often leave excess packaging at the supermarket and I was stunned to see on TV recently, a family of 4 asked to cut their food bill DOWN to £95 a week.  We've never spent £95 a week at the shops.  It seems that a great deal of the "depression " has been caused by the governments propaganda and the media.  Yes, It's real now, but would it have taken hold so fast if we had not been told we were about to be plunged into recession?
We live in a country with a non-elected leader and some oil reserves. Im just waiting for the U.S. to invade us!

[lordlonk]

I can remember miss lunnys shop at the end of our street - miss lunny had run it for decades with a loyal band of sistersand it was one those arkwrights shops of ronnie corbet - She was a lovely lad and you bought everything  by asking for  it - the weigh and save shops we have now  are very much miss lunny- she would have flour and sugar weighed out - exactly as previously mentioned - cold meats - bacons and all perishables were wrapped in greaseproof- corona bottles  had a deposit on them - lemonaade cream soda etc.- it was a better life and a more friendly world than we have now - Everything has to be thrown away after use now - To change peoples ways is such a hurdle to climb.

[rustyme]

the recycling thing is sadly 25% con. They said only a few months ago now on the news , and actually named the councils too!!, that about a 25% of recycled rubbish was sent to land fill in India .After all the effort of people separating it and the councils collecting it , they sent it all to land fill . What a crazy world !!! What would be the reason to do that you may ask ...££££££££ thats the answer ,as always....and most likely always will be. The stuff they are storing now , is being stored because they can't sell it for the £200 a ton theywere getting , it only gets £20 a ton now. What happened to all the companies that this was meant to create , to convert all this stuff ? Once again ££££ it is cheaper to send it half way round the world and pay some peasant 20 rupees a day than setup a decent company over here that will employ people who live here. The government is set on pulling the country apart , selling off every british company there is , and creating some sort of financial mecca . Well thats all gone t*ts up now. The only people who can't , won't see it, are those who created the problem ie the government and the financial world. Even now Gordon Brown is continuing to set up some weird digital virtual world that he says is our future ? Based on what ? well based on what he and the rest of the ******* have been setting up over the last 20-30 years . They still can't see IT DOESN'T WORK  , it is falling apart round their ears , yet still they continue to line their own pockets and create a them and us society . Every thing they do only really effects normal people or the poorer ones. The rich can claim back on taxes nearly everything they pay out . The whole institution of government is basically corrupt. The present house of lords thing is just the tip of the iceberg. The rubbish that we create needs to be stopped ASAP , so does they throw away life we have created. There is a way we can continue to live a decent standard of living , but it entails going back to making things ourselves as a country as well as individuals. It can be done , but like the petrol industry , as long as there are billions of £'s to be made selling it why should shell and BP and so on say to everyone ..ok peeps don't buy our fuel use electric. The government say we should use the car less , then they give the go ahead to create out of town shopping mals , for the BIG boys..... and who do the big boys have on their pay rolls ? the people that make the rules.....thats who . How do we stop this insane catch 22 , well I think we may soon begin to find out . It is just starting with the strikes in the refineries , where they are employing hundreds of foreigne workers.
  In France they are already rioting over the way that Sarkozy is just stamping on the people , less so than Gordon Brown , but the French won't put up with it . So hang on to your hats folks ...I think we are in for a very bumpy ride . We have had the feast/banquite and now we have to pay for it . I think that world problems are going to be down on our list of things to worry about , they will effect us dreadfully , but we will have huge problems at home that will effect us even more.  If you look back in history , when there has been similar situations to this , what was the answer ? well WW1 and  WW2 ....... lets hope that the people in charge refrain from such an option , but going on very recent history, Blair, Bush and Iraq , I doubt common sence will prevail . That seems to be the one thing they all seem to lack , well honesty is another . 

cheers

Russ

[sandy]

I am sure companies could produce things that last say for 20+ years, things like, washing machines, Hoovers, phones, computers, TV, fridge etc etc all only last around 5 years if your lucky, and if you do want to get something repaired your told it's cheaper to get a new one, no one seems to want to repair things, although, we have a washing machine that was second hand 6 years ago and is still going Strong(fingers crossed) I suspect the simple scenario of:- First to create a demand for something that temps people to buy it, the latest model, the latest colour or trend for instance, then people will borrow money and work harder to obtain the new item, then, within a few months a new model is out so the old model is dispensable, often components or parts will not adapt the new model, I mean, why do phone, game consols and other gadgets not keep the same sockets as the model previously? I think it's so you have to buy more parts as well as the new model, I could go on and on. In my opinion, not talking political parties here, we have all been encouraged to spend more than we earn and more than we can afford, if you have children they are probably teased at school if they have not get the latest trend or car, and one of my biggest moans is the banks, they are all Crookes!!! sorry bank people out there, >:(I had NO money in my account ( I had some cash to put in)and I was asked if I wanted a Gold card!!!! I am getting mad now, I remember my Uncle lived on the edge of a peninsular in North Wales, not far from Abersoch, he was very self sufficient but buried he valuables in his back garden in case we were invaded!!! he died a few years ago, wounder if it's worth a trip back to see if he dug everything up!! I'm off!!!

[northfifeduckling]

I just don't know why we have to sell our rubbish to China, so it gets processed there? Why do we not have our own recycling industry, where is the government support there?  As long as it takes we have to make the best of our rubbish...I was just thinking to get the plans for a greenhouse built from water bottles. A friend just picked up all our wine bottles from way before Christmas to use them for raising her beds, superb idea! I use any plastic trays as mini greenhouses and under my plant pots, of course we have our own compost and our bin is filled only to a quarter or third each week. And freecycle's been great for any items that can still be used by someone else.
The digital virtual world has gotten this society where it is now, where some folks can cash in on virtual values, make their own billions no matter how many people, companies, producers and banks face their ruin on the way. This could be an opportunity to change things for the better, make communities more self-sufficient, reduce energy use for shipping stuff all over the world. I know, I'm dreaming but the seeds are there, folks!

[doganjo]

I have sent an email to our local Council to ask what happens to all the stuff we put out in the recycling bins.  I will post their answer - if I get one :-)

[sandy]

Now I am no scientist although I know a few, but I would be really happy if in some way we could produce a clean fuel from rubbish!!!! I think about that paper and I am sure I have heard of it being turned into fuel, am I thinking wrongly!!! My brother told me it was a very costly business to recycle bottles as they have to wash, add sand, add chemicals etc and so,why do we not have the old returnable bottles? one of my pet hate and my dog Bruce's pet loves, is plastic drink bottles on every walk I go on, if they were in money back bottles someone would collect them all, bring back money back bottles then children can earn their keep!!

[northfifeduckling]

They can do it in Germany, from beer to lemonade, water and juices, from all these you can choose the glass bottle option. It used to be like that here with milk bottles. Unfortunately even in Germany Tetra packs and plastic bottles (which do come with a deposit to get people to recycle) are getting more popular, people argue they are not so heavy to carry...I think one of the arguments in Britain against washable deposit bottles is the threat of running out of water, if all these bottles have to be washed. We rather have Starbucks sorting that for us with their non-stop running taps! It still doesn't make sense to me that the stuff gets shipped to China. How can it be worth it having  the recycling done there? Or don't they produce new bottles with it but use all our rubbish in incinerators for energy?

[lordlonk]

Id love to have money back bottles - Im sure our little off licence years ago use to do it on beer bottles too ? - i have this memory of people bringing brown bottles back to the off licence when i was buying my bitter lemon and twiglets - heheh

[sandy]

I remember young people collecting emptys as they found them and buying sweets, penny chews I suppose, pop and crisps, I bet today it would be cigaretts and cider or Buckfast up here!!! Why and when did it all start, a lot to do with heath and safety I suppose, I had a very busy cafe as a teenager, ran it with my mum, we used to get money back on coke bottle returns, we were the biggest seller around the area as we had a cafe on a busy bus station, all those fry ups!!!! One of the delivery men sliced through his foot when a bottle broke on him, although coke still comes in those rather nice bottles.  I am a modern person and do not keep looking to the past but when things work, why do we change them to cause a problem? I watched Countryfile yesterday and could not work out if introducing Beavers was a good thing or a bad thing, the programme showed both aspects, I find this just illustrates how complex the world and nature is so we shuld not mess it up, even the pigeons live off chips, crisps and Kebebs!!!

[northfifeduckling]

I think it all boils down to money, it's probably much cheaper to produce throw-away plastic bottles. There are  more dangerous glass bottles about now in parks, etc., because there is not really an incentive to take them away. "The council takes care of it anyway", attitude. A deposit on cans and bottles would make a difference, I believe.

[Fluffywelshsheep]

We often leave excess packaging at the supermarket and I was stunned to see on TV recently, a family of 4 asked to cut their food bill DOWN to £95 a week. 

I must admite we uses to spend about £80 a week on shopping  for a family of 5 but since we have reduced the  household (it was the two that left that where the worst) it is now down to £30 /£35 at most a week. and they went out and bought stuff that they wanted!!!! afterwards too
It is shocking to think about the amount of food that get bought and not all way used, I have survived on £15/£25 for a family of 2 that grow at the weekend to a family of 6 that was ok but boy do teenager eat !!!!!
I think i might start the excess packing leave it at the supermarket policy

[sandy]

I know, I had three very active girls, all grown up to remain very active women BUT, they ate loads, I think my eldest would have nearly aloaf of bread and half a pack of cereals every morning after her swimming trainins and her paper round, she was very slim and very fit but I used to go to the supermarket on Thursday and only have the basics left by the weekend, then of course they bring friends around, my Ex used to invite all and sundry around when I was making tea and on Saturday lunch we always had other people...We now, we are much more economic, not sure how much we spend as I tend to have a big shop then leave it for a wile.....Funny how you could have a freezer full of meat and a load of dried goods but teenagers would say they have nothing to eat....