Recyclable materials

The recycling materials that are collected can vary from borough to borough.

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The recycling materials that are collected can vary from borough to borough. There are six recyclables that the Mayor thinks all London Boroughs should collect: food waste, glass, cans, paper and cardboard, plastic bottles and mixed plastics.

Are there any others recyclables that you would really like to have collected from your home?

The discussion ran from 10 August 2017 - 10 November 2017

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Comments (66)

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The emphasis must be on not producing waste in the first place. This needs to come from national legislation that puts demands on the producers of most of our waste (supermarkets, retailers) to reduce/eradicate unnecessary plastic packaging...

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The emphasis must be on not producing waste in the first place. This needs to come from national legislation that puts demands on the producers of most of our waste (supermarkets, retailers) to reduce/eradicate unnecessary plastic packaging. Single use plastics must become a relic of the past and soon. Recycling should only be a last resort. Something along the lines of a plastic tax or a total ban on certain products that are environmentally inexcusable (e.g plastic cutlery given out by food outlets, plastic bottles etc).

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I think there's a huge opportunity to use the fruit and vegetable waste from London's restaurants and bars etc better. Soil erosion is a huge problem, so using this waste food as compost could help farmlands outside of London.

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I think there's a huge opportunity to use the fruit and vegetable waste from London's restaurants and bars etc better. Soil erosion is a huge problem, so using this waste food as compost could help farmlands outside of London.

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Scenario.
1, You buy a house
2,The previous occupant has left some items that you need to dispose of
3, Some of them are bulky and you only have a small car (or no car at all)
4, You borrow a van from work
5, You arrive at the tip, sorry...

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Scenario.
1, You buy a house
2,The previous occupant has left some items that you need to dispose of
3, Some of them are bulky and you only have a small car (or no car at all)
4, You borrow a van from work
5, You arrive at the tip, sorry, Recycle & Reuse
6, "Sorry Mate! That's Commercial innit. Caaaan't tip that 'ere. Need a licence doncha Mate!"
7, Leave
8, Fly-Tip!!!!

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What concerns me incredibly is that people don't want to pay for household collection (if they are available by councils) or can't be bothered to dispose them at collection points. I believe that every council should give an opportunity to...

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What concerns me incredibly is that people don't want to pay for household collection (if they are available by councils) or can't be bothered to dispose them at collection points. I believe that every council should give an opportunity to collect household items from home, perhaps once a month. I understand that this may cost quite a lot but maybe there should be a small affordable charge? Also, there should be more information about how we can utilise such items.

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Generally Croydon is good at recycling and most residents comply. Two things they should change though: 1) We're charged (c.£100) for green waste collections, but they end in mid November, which is when our trees lose most of their leaves...

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Generally Croydon is good at recycling and most residents comply. Two things they should change though: 1) We're charged (c.£100) for green waste collections, but they end in mid November, which is when our trees lose most of their leaves. Residents then drive to the recycling centre to dispose of them, which is ridiculous. The council refuses to extend or alter the collection period. 2) Our local dump/recycling centre closes at 3.30pm so rubbish (and goods not collected from households) gets fly-tipped.

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We live in a block of flats and rent from a private landlord.
We currently do not have any recycling bins in our waste disposal area. We have spoken to our landlord about this who is not open for discussion on the issue. A year ago the bin...

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We live in a block of flats and rent from a private landlord.
We currently do not have any recycling bins in our waste disposal area. We have spoken to our landlord about this who is not open for discussion on the issue. A year ago the bin area outside our block was in such a bad state as the large bins were too small for the amount of waste produced by the block of flats. Tenants were not separating waste properly and throwing general waste into the recycling bins. We demanded larger bins and in that time the landlord removed the recycling bin and told the council not to pick up recycling from our block. She won't budge on this.

As a result any waste we produce at home has to be thrown into our general waste bin.

I have now started to try to bring any plastic bottles, cans, glass to a public recycling area a few stops away on the tube as it is so disheartening/downright depressing not being able to recycle.

This has also prompted me to think about living as low/zero waste a lifestyle as possible or at least majorly reducing the amount of plastic wrapped produce I buy as I am forced to look at the amount of rubbish I produce daily.

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I separate as much as possible and hope that the council's also doing it to the best of their abilities, so unless I follow the guys on the trash trucks to where they take it I'll never know. I do my bit by paying the 'Poll Tax' and the...

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I separate as much as possible and hope that the council's also doing it to the best of their abilities, so unless I follow the guys on the trash trucks to where they take it I'll never know. I do my bit by paying the 'Poll Tax' and the council does their's.

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Thanks everyone for your contributions.

Does your local authority currently collect all of the recyclables on our list from your home?

Talk London

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Designated collection days for wood, electricals, garden waste, furniture, paint and other hazardous substances for pickup by the council in the calendar - like an amnesty day but any other day there should be fines

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Recycling batteries is the only collection point that I can think of near my home with a collection bin at my local library near me (and former workplaces).

It would be great if there were a lot more collection points for all different...

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Recycling batteries is the only collection point that I can think of near my home with a collection bin at my local library near me (and former workplaces).

It would be great if there were a lot more collection points for all different types of waste on a large scale outside civic buildings and public spaces (tube stations, green spaces, sports centres, supermarkets, shopping centres, allotments, railway verges etc) so that people are more likely to recycle. They should be a decent size to hold a lot of waste and emptied and maintained frequently.

Water fountains in a lot more public spaces and free self service water in all areas that sell or serve food would be great to encourage people not to buy more unnecessary plastic.

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I agree with the various comments about recycling already made.
Also more emphasis is needed on the options before getting to reycyling ie reduce, reuse and repair.
Reduce the amount of rubbish produced in the first place, and therefore...

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I agree with the various comments about recycling already made.
Also more emphasis is needed on the options before getting to reycyling ie reduce, reuse and repair.
Reduce the amount of rubbish produced in the first place, and therefore reduce resource consumption.

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Hi Fed

Thanks for sharing. We're also running a discussion on reuse & repair, with lots of suggestions from other members: https://www.london.gov.uk/talk-london/environment/repair-reuse

Talk London

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I would like to see the bag ban extended to all shops. People will learn quickly enough to take bags when they need them, and if you've just popped to your corner shop, chances are you don't need a bag, but shop sleepers give them and...

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I would like to see the bag ban extended to all shops. People will learn quickly enough to take bags when they need them, and if you've just popped to your corner shop, chances are you don't need a bag, but shop sleepers give them and people take them out of habit. Extending the ban is the only answer. Also stop selling them for 5p etc in bigger shops.

I think lots of people don't recycle because of stories about the council throwing everything in landfills anyway. Do something to get the real information out there to people so they know it's worthwhile.

We are all using way too much plastic and packaging, fruit wrapped in plastic, Amazon deliveries coming in giant, oversized boxes within boxes. Real change needs to come from a regulatory level - people are lazy and single use plastics, bottles etc are too convenient for change to be led from the ground up. Take away the options and you'll fix the problem. Fine big companies like Coca-Cola per bottle. They used to use glass, this is a better option, bring in deposit return schemes and just stop producing so much plastic in the first place.

Incentives for using your own coffee cup don't work, financial penalties have a better effect, but banning coffee cups is the best option. Yes businesses and customers would have to adjust, but it's the best option in the long run. Progress is slow until you take away the easy option.

Most single use bottles and convenience snack are full of sugar anyway, the less we have of them the better, so if they go up in price it'll only help the NHS cut their diabetes bill.

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I strongly support a minimum recycling standard to be set for all London boroughs to meet. However I would prefer London's recycling to be standardised, as surely the dozens of different systems and options are confusing and hugely...

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I strongly support a minimum recycling standard to be set for all London boroughs to meet. However I would prefer London's recycling to be standardised, as surely the dozens of different systems and options are confusing and hugely inefficient at best?

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Why can't we recycle shredded paper with the rest of our paper/card materials? In these days of identity theft most people shred a huge amount of paper.
Also I still see lots of people who still arrive at out supermarket with no bags...

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Why can't we recycle shredded paper with the rest of our paper/card materials? In these days of identity theft most people shred a huge amount of paper.
Also I still see lots of people who still arrive at out supermarket with no bags and leave with new plastic bags - the only bags available at the supermarket should be hessian ones or ones that are costly (5 pence is not enough to save our planet!) and people will be reluctant to fork out for.

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I live in a block of flats within a small development. Each block has a bin store, which, when I moved here contained a general waste bin, recycling bin and food waste bin - each flat has its own small waste bin. Overnight, the food waste...

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I live in a block of flats within a small development. Each block has a bin store, which, when I moved here contained a general waste bin, recycling bin and food waste bin - each flat has its own small waste bin. Overnight, the food waste bins were all removed from our development. I wrote to CROYDON Council three times, enquiring as to why the food bins were removed, but never got an answer. The decsion to remove the bins was not communicated in anyway. It seems an incredibly backward step in my opinion. The food waste bin system still operates very well in other areas of the borough, so I would personally welcome if there were a minimum standard of service being proposed by the Mayor across all boroughs, and particularly within each borough.

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Because I live in a flat, my food waste is not collected. I don't have the space or time for a wormery, nor can I use the compost I don't have a garden. Because the Council charges for furniture or bust refuse collection, people in my...

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Because I live in a flat, my food waste is not collected. I don't have the space or time for a wormery, nor can I use the compost I don't have a garden. Because the Council charges for furniture or bust refuse collection, people in my block tend to just put them out in near our communal bin area and we have been collected fined for this. Some good pieces of furniture tends to get thrown away this way as well as small electrical items including Tvs. The council can collect for free and make or save money by re-using furniture.

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I find it frustrating that heavy metals and poisonous chemicals are used in cardboard packaging - otherwise it would be great for making domestic composting.

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I find it frustrating that heavy metals and poisonous chemicals are used in cardboard packaging - otherwise it would be great for making domestic composting.

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That's terrible. I knew they were gross but I didn't know they were poisonous!

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That's terrible. I knew they were gross but I didn't know they were poisonous!

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I find it really frustrating that different boroughs have different approaches to recycling, there must by now be a recognised 'best practice'.

I would also like a better definition of what is and what is not recyclable. For example the...

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I find it really frustrating that different boroughs have different approaches to recycling, there must by now be a recognised 'best practice'.

I would also like a better definition of what is and what is not recyclable. For example the 'windows' in envelopes can be recycled by some councils but not others. I looked recently on the Harrow site and it was unclear if they did, or did not recycle them, what do i do? And there are many such items. If we are serious about recycling, the standards should be clear.

And why are street bins in many areas not separating recycled items, they are in Westminster.

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I find it really frustrating that different boroughs offer different recycling services.

For small electrical items Brent only seems to offer the reuse and recycling centre which is difficult to access without a car. I end up taking mine...

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I find it really frustrating that different boroughs offer different recycling services.

For small electrical items Brent only seems to offer the reuse and recycling centre which is difficult to access without a car. I end up taking mine to Shepherd's Bush Library as they have a collection bin there.

My block of flats in Brent has not been given the proper recycling bins either so all the rubbish is a total mess and just gets taken as general waste. Really frustrating for those of us who want to recycle and feel strongly about it. One type of
Recycling bin for flats should be mandatory.

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It should be easier to recycle used batteries, used lightbulbs and old electronics. At least in Tower Hamlets, there is only one place in the whole borough where I can leave an old PC hard drive which failed. It's unusable if you don't have...

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It should be easier to recycle used batteries, used lightbulbs and old electronics. At least in Tower Hamlets, there is only one place in the whole borough where I can leave an old PC hard drive which failed. It's unusable if you don't have a lot of time on your hands.

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