h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This week our District Council has issued us with recycling bins. Hallelujah! And about time too. It's taken years. I've been saving all my bottles, cans, papers - cluttering up my house until such time as I just happen to need to go near a recycling station for some reason other than to recycle stuff. Obviously it defeats the object of recycling if you have to make a special trip in the car, thereby adding to the pollution, in order to cut down on waste and pollution.

I've had lots of sarcastic comments over the years, about the bags full of bottles outside my kitchen. Contrary to what my friends and neighbours may imagine, I'm not a secret heavy drinker - it's just that the bottles have a long time to accumulate before I deposit them. Frequently, I've got to the recycling area only to find that it hasn't been emptied for ages and there are bottles, cans and papers everywhere - so I take my recyclables home again.

Talk about apathy, though (Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz would have had a few choice word to say about this lot). Some of my neighbours aren't happy about having a recycling bin. They've never bothered to recycle before. They don't know where they're expected to keep the bin. It's all just too much trouble. How very very typical. It's depressing but unsurprising. I wonder if they'd enjoy living in the squalor, if everybody thought the same way and couldn't be arsed. There was an official announcement last November that the world's human population had reached 6 billion. It'll be 9 billion soon, then 12 billion. We could all swap diseases in a huge planet-wide favela as our population climbed and our resources ran out. Future generations could go to hell. Recycle? Why bother? Moan, moan, moan, grumble, grumble, whinge . . . "apathetic bloody planet."

Am I to believe your error of choice was the word "whinge" instead of "whine"? Also, I don't know what "arsed" means, though it may be a Britishism I'm not aware of.

In Minneapolis, we have curbside recycling, whereby once a week, on the same day the garbage truck comes through the neighborhood, another truck comes through to pick up glass jars and bottles, plastic containers, paper, and aluminum cans.

In some states, such as Michigan, where I used to live (in a suburb of Detroit), we have to pay a 10-cent deposit for cans and bottles for soda and beer. It costs extra to buy the beverage, but then the container can be returned for 10 cents. Lazy people still throw away the containers, but those who collect them, whether they bought them or not, can turn them in for a small windfall. It's nice incentive to recycle, and a program more states should adopt, I think.

You didn't spot it. "Whinge" is in the dictionary. It means to complain irritably. "Arsed" isn't in the dictionary but it's a colloquial term used in this area. I'd never heard the word until I moved to the Midlands. Being arsed means being messed about or bothered. You were looking in the right area though: [. . .whinge . . . "apathetic bloody planet."] The final full-stop (period) is the wrong side of the quotes. It was fortunate for me that I could throw in those red herrings and divert your attention away from the real target.

The system you describe in Minneapolis can be found over here in some areas. Different councils have different systems. There's no co-ordination. Over the border, in Northamptonshire, they pick up recyclables one week and non-recyclables the next. Everybody moans about it. They used to have a weekly collection of all types or rubbish. Most people have far more non-recyclables than recyclables and the fortnightly collection isn't enough for that portion of their rubbish. So if a person puts out their bin the night before collection day, some friendly neighbour takes the opportunity to dump all their spare rubbish in that bin. Neighbours are apt to fall out over that sort of behaviour.

We used to have deposits on most bottles, other than milk bottle, because milk was delivered door to door and the empties were collected at the same time. Kids used to make a decent living out of collecting and returning pop bottles and beer bottles. I don't know why that system ended. I thought it worked very well.

I am glad to find some people who think recycling is a good idea. I live in a small apartment in a crowded urban neighborhood and recycling day means that the garbage truck comes three times instead of once, creating more air pollution. Also it means that we need more rubbish bins (including recycling bins) outside our building. This gives people more opportunity to throw old shoes and pastries away in our rubbish instead of their own. (I am not kidding about the pastries; two people confirmed it, and the neighbor said that it was a very nice cake.)

I just feel like I am drowning in trash as is by living in the city and any program that requires me to keep more of it on hand is one that I am not in favor of.

There's no doubt about it, recycling is a pain in the neck. Trouble is, the alternatives are worse. We're into conspicuous consumption in a throw-away type of society. There are just too many of us and we can't get away with behaving like slobs indefinitely - not unless we really don't care about what we leave to future generations. It's a very important function of government to work out and provide solutions to this sort of problem. What do we pay our taxes for? I'd argue that this exactly the sort of thing I want my taxes spent on and if our local government's making a hash of the job, we need to let them know how we feel.

And what about the stuff we're recycling. There's a hell of lot more of it than there needs to be. Most of the paper I recycle is just junk mail that I don't even open before consigning it to the bin. If all the unnecessary packaging and junk mail was stopped, I'd probably have about a quarter of the rubbish I currently have.

I sympathise with you. The waste generated by the population of a big city all living cheek by jowl must be an absolute nightmare. But it has to be dealt with in a way that isn't going to turn our planet into hell for the future. I can't see how it can be organised without inconveniencing people. I have no kids so I could very easily say "it won't all turn to kak in my lifetime and if the people who have kids don't care, why should I - because it's their future that's at stake, not mine". It's a wonderful place and in the short time I've been here I've seen it deteriorate. I'd like people in the future to see crystal clear oceans and smell clean air carrying the scent of meadows and forests. Just sentimental I guess. Speaking of which, shame about that cake.

Yeah, too bad about the cake. I've never heard of any place with pastry recycling, though.

here each small town has big communitie recycling bins,one for glass,one for plastics etc.a friend has told me he has seen on collection day these bins being all dumped back together in the same truck.dont know if this is always the case,but this would be a cruel joke on the people who take the time to clean and sort their glass,plastics,news print etc.........

We have those big recycling bins in the village too. They're behind the village hall. That's all we had till the council supplied us all with our own recycling bins. I've heard rumours about the mixing of materials at the tip end but they sort the stuff carefully when they pick it up from outside our houses. It would be disheartening if all that effort went for nothing but now we have this land-fill tax I think the council has an incentive to do the job right.

My understanding is that those big trucks are partitioned as well so that although it looks like the green bottles are being thrown in with the aluminium cans or plastic containers they are (honestly) being separately collated. So all that effort we go to to throw recyclable waste into the correct container at the supermarket collection point isn't wasted after all.
On the subject of recycling bins, the North Lincolnshire council supplies large brown plastic bins to each household for organic waste. This is then collected fortnightly and composted in large borough compost heaps. A bag of lovely organic compost is distributed to each household later for their gardens. Seems ideal to me, wish my council would pick up on the idea.

Congratulations and thank you for being the last person to speak to me in the year 2000 and the only person at h2g2 to speak to me on 31/12/2000. Happy New Year!

We last conversed on the subject of plague villages back in July or August I think.

Anyway, yes, the system in North Lincolnshire sounds absolutely ideal and I wish we had it here too.

It makes sense that the separated recyclables actually get recycled as the councils lead us to believe they do. It's not as though they have money to throw away on hoodwinking us. They employ separate teams and vehicles to collect the recyclables and there's that land fill tax to pay if they want to bury the stuff. It's not that I think they're ever so efficient, it's just that they couldn't be stupid enough to go to all that trouble and expense to mislead us into thinking they were doing the right and sensible thing.

And a Happy New Year to you too! *raises in celebration*
Indeed it was back in Summer when we last spoke, shortly after my Plague Village article was approved. I've another one, about Castleton, patiently awaiting approval in the Peer Review queue now. Best writing about what you know I feel and there's plenty of places in Derbyshire worthy of the effort - if only I had more time to spend online.
Do you ever get the feeling that although all the recycling may ease our consciences somewhat, it is little more than a token effort in solving global waste disposal problems. Should I be demanding my milk comes in bottles again instead of plastic cartons, should I be refusing to buy any product with any excess packaging, should we be denying parents the convenience of disposable nappies, should we have "dustbin meters" as we have water meters to try and discourage people from generating excess household rubbish? And these are just off the cuff thoughts on domestic waste in the UK, without even starting on industrial waste, toxic waste, alternatives to landfill and a million other issues. How long is a 'throw-away' society really viable? Are environmental issues really given any more serious consideration than they were twenty years ago?

What a coincidence. I've just popped in to do a bit of tweaking to my entry on prions, that I'm about to take over to peer review. I've been messing about with it since November and I can see it getting very big if I'm not careful so I'll take it over and if they want any more, they'll have to ask - then I'll do some more if necessary. I'll nip over and have a look at your Castleton piece when I've finished this.

Yes, I agree with you about recycling doing more to make us feel better than actually solve the problem. It's funny, I used to think everyone should have the right to do their own thing so long as it didn't harm anyone else and now I feel quite differently. It's not that I've actually changed, it's just that I can see now that the consequence of billions of people doing their own (selfish) thing, is far from harmless. I hate the idea of governments telling people they can't have more than 2 kids or they can't use disposable nappies but I wonder why so many people can't see the problem themselves, without some dictatorial busy-body telling them what they should or shouldn't do. The idea of a nanny state (which we already have in a fairly dilute form) fills me with horror. Trouble is, I can't see an answer that the majority of people won't find disagreeable. Individuals like us can only make so much difference by recycling, refusing to buy overpackaged goods and plastic bottles. Even if a whole billion of us got all responsible and the other 5 billion decided to go forth and multiply themselves and their nappies and their packaging, the planet's still in big trouble.

That's why I think it's the job of governments to find a way to educate everybody. Dustbin meters would be a good start. They should legislate against excess/unnecessary packaging (and junk mail which would mean upsetting business interests very badly) and put environmentally friendly facilities in place to cope with all the rubbish that's unavoidable. If they don't do that, I doubt enough individuals will make the necessary sacrifices. That's what it boils down to and the reason governments (who want to be liked and voted for) won't do what they should. Too many people don't seem to be willing to make even the smallest sacrifice in the interest of leaving their kids a pleasant, healthy planet to live on. Threaten them with a tiny bit of inconvenience and they squeal with indignation. Up to now, the few governments that have done anything about the problem at all, have only done the bare minimum to make themselves look responsible. I'm unimpressed. How are they going to tackle big, dirty businesses if they won't even tackle household waste?

Oops. That was a bit long and ranty. I'll pop over to have a look at your article now.

Hello.
You can actually recycle those plastic milk bottles, fabric softener bottles etc (although my nearest plastic recycling point is 30 miles away, in the "big" city, which means I have bags of plastic bottles cluttering up the place along with the evidence of incipient alcoholism.
If you tear off the names and addresses you can recycle your junk mail along with the rest of your waste paper. In our house we fight over it! The local paper mill pays the schools for the contents of their collecting bins, which leaves me with very little paper to put into my compost heap.(Crumpled paper mixed with grass clippings makes excellent compost) Thank goodness it's also possible to use the cardboard from cereal boxes, convenience meals et al in the 'heap'.
I believe it is also possible to recycle disposable nappies, although, thankfully, I haven't needed to pursue that avenue of enquiry recently.
It's nice that those of us who have always recycled are no longer regarded as cranks but an awful lot of people do seem not to understand what they are doing. I've given up trying to convince my fellow workers that feeding the blank sheets of paper the printer hasn't used straight into the (electrically operated) shredder, one at a time, without actually writing on them first, is NOT 'being green'. Aaargh

Hi again Trillion's new self

I know plastic bottles can be recycled but there are no plastic recycling bins in this area and I've tried putting plastics in my own recycling bin but the bin men just leave them. They only take glass bottles, paper (not telephone directories for some reason) and aluminium cans. The bins behind the village hall also take cloth. Most of my recyclable waste is junk mail and wine bottles (hic). I like the idea of the family having a tussle over who gets the rubbish.

It'll be a brave company or person who wants the job of recycling disposable nappies. I'd take my hat off to them if I was wearing one. I wonder how that works. Yuk! One of those things about which it could accurately be said "a dirty job, but somebody has to do it".

You're right about the crank thing. I expect I'll always be regarded as a crank for one reason or another, but once recycling really catches on there'll be one area, at least, where I can be regarded as normal. Fortunately, everyone in my office is pretty good with scrap paper. The fax machine is the worst waster of the lot - junk fax mail, couldn't you guess. So we just flip the paper over (plain paper fax machine) and run it through again. Then it goes to the recycling bin.

Sal

Now there's an idea
I wonder whether I dare suggest it.
I'm sure I remember someone(either my daughter or someone behind a stall at the Glastonbury International Children's Festival) telling me about nappy recycling a couple of years ago. I shall have to investigate further.
By the way, the best way to recycle cake (especially at this time of year) is to build a bird table.

Cake? Who has cake? If I had cake, it wouldn't need recycling!

When we had that cold snap and snow, I had to feed the birds on dog food (Vitalin - it's a bit like muesli). I don't normally feed them unless it's very cold. They enjoyed the dog food and the dogs were miffed because, not only did the birds get their food, but they weren't allowed to rush around barking at them.

jqr has cake (posting 4). Mind you, it's probably a bit stale by now.

Yes, I remembered that about 0.001 seconds after I hit the post button. Doh! Too late! I expect the rats had a feast and got their whiskers all sticky.

i was talking to a friend once sitting parked in a convenience store parking lot when,he threw some rubbish out the window.i told him that from now on i would think of him every time i saw trash beside the road. he thaught about it for about a month before he stopped littering in this fashion.he now recyles.the population issue is the wall im stareing at right now.and a president that thinks oil pipelines are the purdyest sights in the world.we are doomed

That's an uplifting story about your friend. If someone as careless as that with their rubbish, can be converted by such a simple and straight forward argument about the way his friend will perceive him in the future, there may be hope. The world's human population explosion is another matter. The questionable behaviour of big business and governments is yet another. It all makes you feel a bit powerless, doesn't it?