Reducing Rubbish

Simply aiming to understand how I make so much rubbish, and find ways to reduce it. I'm not against plastic as it's useful in the right place!

[Reducing Rubbish @reducingrubbish]

@Tesco Yes please feed it back to the team: card packaging would seem to work fine for packaging and it would better fit with the environmental reasons I bought an LED bulb too. Thanks!

[Reducing Rubbish @reducingrubbish]

Why are energy efficient LED bulbs wrapped in plastic and halogen bulbs in paper ? @Tesco

[Reducing Rubbish @reducingrubbish]

@Tesco Thanks for reply but I disagree. Cardboard does a perfectly good job of protecting and informing, and you know this because other bulbs are still sold in card. Are you sure you didnt use plastic to make it look more expensive than standard cardboard boxes to justify the price?

[Reducing Rubbish @reducingrubbish]

@Tesco No reply yet....

[Plastic Pollutes @PlasticPollutes]

A chemical breakthrough could eat the #plasticpollution crisis https://t.co/dDi6lEPfUA

[Reducing Rubbish @reducingrubbish]

Balloon releases. Problem of polarizing conversation between an outright ban and doing them is we miss easy common ground eg never release foil balloons and never use ribbons. Industry + campaigners agree on these 2 points but I dont think it's widely known @mcsuk

[Reducing Rubbish @reducingrubbish]

@plastics2fuel @aplastic_planet @RHarrabin Thanks for sharing. Highlights a problem: everyone feels better because they are recycling and hitting collection target BUT it doesnt actually reduce the problem. Recycling could increase overall plastic use. Especially if colored plastic makes clothing where fibres enter water!

[Reducing Rubbish @reducingrubbish]

@aplastic_planet I would really like to understand the reality of recycling plastic more than once - not much focus on that as far as I can see. Do you have a source for max 12 times?

[Reducing Rubbish @reducingrubbish]

Glass and plastic both last for at least 400 years, break into dangerous parts and are inefficient to recycle. However glass is endlessly recyclable in a continuous cycle unlike plastics which are usually recycled once before disposal. Its a shame glass is so heavy!

[Reducing Rubbish @reducingrubbish]

Headlines usually lead with recycling rate - eg https://t.co/cpj4R62qEn but more interesting would be a focus on how much rubbish are we throwing out in total over time and what proportion has been plastic @BBCNews #reducefirst

[Reducing Rubbish @reducingrubbish]

Majority of plastic ever produced now is in landfill. Hardly any has been recycled and a tiny % has been recycled more than once. A waste of resources and a seemingly endless rubbish producing machine https://t.co/0qFGLhW1Gk

[Reducing Rubbish @reducingrubbish]

Recycling plastic is nowhere near as good as it sounds. Only 10% of recycled plastic has been recycled a second time before burnt or landfilled. If recycling is just adding a step before disposal we need to call it something else! https://t.co/0qFGLhW1Gk

[Reducing Rubbish @reducingrubbish]

@TheEconomist "To be disposed of, though, plastic waste must be collected. In Europe, America and other developed places, virtually all of it is..." - that is simply not true! Well under half is collected in UK for example. https://t.co/Wak3qlZLpz

[Reducing Rubbish @reducingrubbish]

"There’s no perfect solution to plastic disposal, so what we really should be doing is creating and using less plastic" https://t.co/dFcidRnHGp

[Reducing Rubbish @reducingrubbish]

Yes this is clever and yes it’s good to replace not-often-recycled plastic (LDPE) with commonly-recycled plastic (HDPE) … but using 4 TIMES as much plastic in a situation where a card sleeve does a great job!? #madness #pointlessplastic #plasticfree https://t.co/TrrIKQVndz

[Reducing Rubbish @reducingrubbish]

@Deposit_return @Recoup_UK @Pantamera @YouTube Thanks for sharing! I do like the basic idea of giving litter £ value which would certainly get more collected out of home. Also great to hear the process is true bottle to bottle recycling, not downcycling. Still interested to understand likely impact on kerbside collection.

[Reducing Rubbish @reducingrubbish]

@Deposit_return @Recoup_UK collecting more plastic through a return scheme won't help us recycle more of it in UK ?

[Reducing Rubbish @reducingrubbish]

"with 99% of Local Authorities offering a kerbside plastic bottle collection service, 100% kerbside coverage maybe isn’t too far away" @Recoup_UK - we dont need a bottle deposit return scheme as we have a really convenient scheme literally on our doorstep! #DepositReturn #plastic

[Reducing Rubbish @reducingrubbish]

A few plastic problems in UK: too much exporting of recycling; limited curb collection of pots, tubs and especially film plastic; too much focus on collection methods and % targets; not enough focus on refusing, reducing and reusing both as businesses and as consumers

[Reducing Rubbish @reducingrubbish]

#depositreturn is a very expensive answer to a problem we dont have - 99% of councils already collect bottles at curbside (387 out of 391 councils) https://t.co/an2kC9bqhk