Cleanzine: your weekly cleaning and hygiene industry newsletter 18th April 2024 Issue no. 1110
Your industry news - first
The original and best - for over 20 years!
We strongly recommend viewing Cleanzine full size in your web browser. Click our masthead above to visit our website version.
leader continued 13th October 2011
Continued from Front Page:
What we do need is comprehensive doorstep collections of recyclables and some consistency about what can be recycled and the type of bin that should receive it. At the moment, different councils collect different items and while some ask for cardboards and plastics in a black bin, others will want cardboard and paper in a green bin with plastics and aluminium in a brown bin - very confusing for people that move house and one of the main reasons so many bales of recycled goods are rejected because they are contaminated with other products.
My call has always been for the process of co-mingling to be adopted nationwide. This is where householders are allowed to put all their recyclables into the same bin, which then becomes the council's responsibility to sort. That way the ignorant, the misinformed, the confused and the just plain lazy don't contribute to the problem.
This all changed when I watched Channel 4's 'Dispatches' on Tuesday. It appears that many co-mingling processes are flawed in as much as some automated systems fail to recognise rogue items which then become part of a batch that is rejected and returned to the offending plant. As well as the transportation of these failed batches contributing to environmental decline, this is so wrong because the entire batch is likely to end up in landfill.
Earlier this week the UK's frightening unemployment figures showed that like much of the world, there are even more people out of work now and claiming benefits (in those countries that provide benefits). This means that there are fewer of us working and paying the taxes that will go towards the benefits paid to the unemployed, which means we don't have the income that will enable us to spend our way out of the recession.
When I started writing this leader, it was with the view of mentioning my ire at this injection of cash that's so needed elsewhere, into a scheme that is so damaging to the environment - and pointing you to the Dispatches link (www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/4od) so you can watch the programme for yourself. However, it's just occurred to me that if the automated sorting systems are failing, then surely there's an enormous untapped workforce that can earn their benefits doing it by hand? That way, everyone wins. Comments anyone?
13th October 2011