I’ve been saying this for years. When I came over to the UK in 1992 I didn’t give it much thought. I was 9. But as I grew up and especially since living on my own I’ve seen how monumnetally behind the UK is when it comes to recycling. I remember the three Rs, I remeber getting our birst blue box to be collected at the end of our driveway. Now, 20 years on the UK hasn’t nearly caught up. It’s shamefull really.

Perhaps there’s more support for recycling here in Canada. I don’t know the UK well enough to say.

In any case, the “warm up to recycling” message (from an Ontario city that happens to be called London)
is one that I posted because I basically found it to be lame. As a pro-recycling message, it’s weak; and as a form of environmentalism, it’s even weaker, since there’s a lot more to environmentalism (e.g. composting, e.g. local food).

Recycling also is overrated. People usually seem to think that no resources are expended when we recycle — despite all the transport and processing of materials. And I could go on (about ‘recycling’ that ends up in landfills…… etc).

Anyway, given how recycling has been promoted in Canada for decades, a “warm up to recycling” message seems silly here; or, rather, it should seem silly.

Tiny glass peanut butter or sauce jars do piss me off though. They would last one day in the family of 5 I grew up in… at least make them plastic!

And for whatever reason, the buy-back scheme works well in Ontario but that’s not necessarily the answer for the UK. The government does need to get people motivated to recycle, though – maybe through providing public recycling bins and some sort of education campaign…

I am from Northern Ireland and now currently reside in Australia but there has always been a bottle buy back in the UK but over the years it has become less and less and is nearly non existent. The same is true here in Australia, only one state, SA, has a bottle buy back scheme and I don’t really think it is effective as its only kids who do it to get some pocket money.

I also don’t like products getting larger and larger, sure it cuts down on packaging waste but it leads to food wastage and the follow on effect of obesity. That is obviously an extreme effect but portion sizes do make a difference. larger is not always better.

There does need to be more emphasis on getting people to separate waste as I think that is a major part of the battle, once that becomes second nature its a winner. As with web design, ease of use is a major part of getting people to do what they need to.

Just had a look at your site and read this. I couldn’t agree more about how rubbish (ha!) we are at recycling. It’s starting to improve mainly because local councils have run out of landfill space, so it has finally become economically viable to recycle, which is sadly pretty much the only reason anything gets done by government.

More generally among the population though, recycling seems to be seen as something that’s imposed on them by the state, and therefore something to rebel against, rather than something that’s just part of being a good citizen. The same is true of other environmental obligations. People don’t see waste as something that harms other people in any way, and there’s a real lack of appreciation that taking more than your fair slice of the world’s resources is a bad thing to do.

Thanks for giving me an opportunity to rant too