| Recycling rubbish - something of a minefield? Posted by Chris from Nailsea at 15:25, 3rd October 2025 |     |
Firstly, may I state that I fully support recycling whatever we can recycle: we owe it to our planet, and future generations thereon.
However, I have accumulated some experience of the widely different recycling rules imposed by local authorities in North Somerset (where we live), compared with, just for example, the City of Bristol, the South Hams in Devon and Melksham in Wiltshire.
Examples:
1. In the South Hams, they require that used paper envelopes have any plastic windows removed before the remaining paper is put into a specific paper recycling receptacle. In North Somerset, we are told to just chuck all paper and cardboard in together.
2. In Bristol, they require that no food be put in the black wheelie bins - they have even been issued with quirky mock tape measure stickers saying 'no food waist' - and offering fines for any detected breach. In Melksham, I was therefore rather startled to be told to just put any food waste in the black wheelie bin together with 'general waste'.
3. In North Somerset, we were previously required to keep quite separate receptacles for 'plastics' and 'cans'. Now, we have been provided with big red bags, into which all plastic and metal cans should be chucked together.
4. Again, in North Somerset, we were all instructed recently to separate 'soft' plastics (food wrappers, crisp packets, for example) into a separate bag. However, I observed out of my window, when the recycling lorry arrived, that the operative merely tossed that bag of separated plastic into the 'food waste' compartment on their lorry.
This topic was provoked by an article on the BBC:
Recycling sacks to replace bins for thousands
Thousands of residents living in Bristol will receive recycling sacks to put their rubbish in instead of separate boxes.
About 8,000 homes in the city centre and along main roads will be given an orange sack, which all dry material should be thrown into.
The planned change is expected to be rolled out between April and June of next year and will affect properties such as flats above shops, where there is little space on busy pavements to store recycling bins.
Ken Lawson, the city council's head of waste and recycling, said: "It's a positive step to address properties across the city that have maybe been under-serviced and also caused disproportionate issues."
Affected roads would include East Street, North Street and Stapleton Road. Properties there would also get a weekly black bin collection, in black sacks instead of bins, and weekly food waste collections in small brown caddies.
An update on the changes was given to councillors on 23 September and it was confirmed the new sacks would happen independently of the proposed switch to a three-weekly collection for black bins - with a decision on that change due to be made this December.
The changes are expected to cost just under £440,00, which was paid for by a grant from the government's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).
A list of all the properties has already been prepared but not yet published.
Mixing all recycling together, known as "co-mingling", used to happen in many parts of the country before residents were asked to separate their materials into different boxes.
The drawback of co-mingling is recycling must be separated by the centres, before the different materials can be sold on to packaging producers, which is a more expensive and inefficient process than getting residents to do it, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
Thousands of residents living in Bristol will receive recycling sacks to put their rubbish in instead of separate boxes.
About 8,000 homes in the city centre and along main roads will be given an orange sack, which all dry material should be thrown into.
The planned change is expected to be rolled out between April and June of next year and will affect properties such as flats above shops, where there is little space on busy pavements to store recycling bins.
Ken Lawson, the city council's head of waste and recycling, said: "It's a positive step to address properties across the city that have maybe been under-serviced and also caused disproportionate issues."
Affected roads would include East Street, North Street and Stapleton Road. Properties there would also get a weekly black bin collection, in black sacks instead of bins, and weekly food waste collections in small brown caddies.
An update on the changes was given to councillors on 23 September and it was confirmed the new sacks would happen independently of the proposed switch to a three-weekly collection for black bins - with a decision on that change due to be made this December.
The changes are expected to cost just under £440,00, which was paid for by a grant from the government's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).
A list of all the properties has already been prepared but not yet published.
Mixing all recycling together, known as "co-mingling", used to happen in many parts of the country before residents were asked to separate their materials into different boxes.
The drawback of co-mingling is recycling must be separated by the centres, before the different materials can be sold on to packaging producers, which is a more expensive and inefficient process than getting residents to do it, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
