U-Turn On Weekly Bin Collections

Whilst at first glance the UK’s government apparent U-turn on the going back to weekly wheelie bin collections would seem like a poor decision, yes there are many benefits, not just the obvious one’s either, like no longer struggling to fit two week’s worth of rubbish in to your bin, thus reducing the number of bags you have to carry down the drive and place at the side of your wheelie bin in the hope the refuse collectors take it with them. But given that most of us in the UK either have two or sometimes 3 different wheelie bins at home would you really want to have to put the bins out on the bottom of your drive or on the pavement 3 times a week, once for each one?

Then there is the cost, the government has said the cost to local councils will be too high to provide a weekly bin collection service to all their residents, and you have to agree the cost whilst I have no idea how much that would be nationally, I can see that a whole new refuse teams and refuse lorries would be needed, great in theory, job creation nationwide but this would all need to be paid for by someone, rate payers perhaps?

Another relevant point that has not been highlighted much is the cost of changing all our wheelie bins, these would all be swopped for smaller ones, we won’t get such large wheelie bins with weekly collections so all the old ones would have to be collected from every house and new ones delivered in their place, again job creation but lots of lorries and fuel required.

So whilst here at CK Polymers we would be inundated with recycling 100’s of thousands of wheelie bins we have to recognise the cost to the tax payer that would result from local councils having no choice but to increase rates to cover the weekly bin collections.

It’s a Hard Life Being a Wheelie Bin

A typical wheelie bin will have a lifespan of around 5 years before your wheelie bin will reach the end of its useful life. Based on an average twice monthly collection service this will equate to be emptied around 130 times.

This doesn’t sound believable, bear in mind this is averages and whilst you might treat your wheelie bin with respect not many people do. For example older people or people living alone tend not to over fill their rubbish bins thus when the refuse lorry hooks it up to the lift to empty it what little rubbish in there drops out easily unlike homes of larger families were the bins contents gets squashed and compacted over the course of two weeks resulting in the refuse lorries lifting mechanism having to shake the bin to within inches of destruction in order to get it emptied.

The 4 Steps To Recycling Wheelie Bins

Step 1:
Washing, all the years of crud inside and outside needs to be removed, along with any stickers such as house numbers, all these stickers have adhesive behind them that needs to be removed prior to any recycling taking place.

Step 2:
Removal of the wheels, axles and hinges, basically all that a plastic recycler is interested in is the parts made from plastic, metal and rubber components would be stored separately and these would be collected by their respective recyclers.

Step 3:
At this stage the body and lid of the wheelie bin get dropped in to large shredders and comes out the other side as small regrind pieces of plastic, this regrind plastic is then tested and graded as to its composition. Regrind plastic is often re-used as is by adding a quantity to a mix with virgin plastic in the production run of a new plastic product, any that is not used will go on to the next stage in the recycling of plastic process.

Step 4:
This is the final stage in the recycling of plastic wheelie bins, here the cleaned granulated plastic is processed in to a recycled compound by melting and extruding in the form of pellets. These plastic pellets can then be used to manufacture a wide range of products, some of which could be more wheelie bins but equally likely is your new cars bumper could have been your tired old wheelie bin in a previous life.

Other Recycling Options

You may be thinking that using paper would be better for the environment but the truth is that the process of making paper can do more harm to the environment that plastic production. To produce the paper they need to cut down trees and the pollution produced from the factories is more than what is produced from the production of plastic.

Producing biodegradable plastic is found to be the only effective material against ordinary plastic. The lifespan of biodegradable plastics is dependent upon the substances use while manufacturing and the environmental condition in which the biodegradable plastics are left to degrade, it is naturally degraded by heat, light and oxygen.

Today many plastics manufacturing companies are focusing on manufacturing biodegradable plastics and recycling plastics to make their business more environmentally friendly. The best way to tell if a company is environmentally friendly is by looking for logos like Energy Star, EPA and FSC.

Why biodegradable plastic?

There was many sanctions that Governments and most countries tried to pass to stop the use of plastic bags but due to their uses, none of these were passed in any of the countries mainly due to the fact that the public and the government could not ignore the importance of plastic in our everyday life and the difference it has made for companies and advertising over the years.

Scientists had to think of a new material that could take the effectiveness and usability of plastics while avoiding the harmful effects of Plastics and this is where biodegradable plastics were born. Out of all of the materials that they suggested biodegradable plastic fitted the requirements; making them low cost, light weight and water resistant.

This was the start to the plastic recycling and Eco Friendly Future with plastic waste materials, making plastic that degrades faster and causes less damage to the atmosphere is a great advancement in making this a more Eco and Environmental friendly world.

Ordinary Plastic: Friend or Foe

Standard plastics are in some way degradable but the problem is that they do degrade but they like to take their time to do this, most ordinary plastic can take hundreds of years to degrade but while it’s sat there doing this it also poses other threats to wildlife and the atmosphere.

While degrading it produces several types of harmful gases that damage the atmosphere, and can cause threats to wildlife like birds can get caught in plastic beer can rings and choke on small plastic items, fish can also get caught in the beer can rings and water can get polluted by plastics and most scavenging wildlife will encounter plastics that will cause them harm. While it can be seen as a friend to the environment as it degrades, it is seen as more of a foe due to its effects on the atmosphere and wildlife.

There is another option with standard plastics and that is recycling. Plastic recycling would mean that instead of it just sitting there doing nothing and damaging the Atmosphere it can be recycled in to another plastic product and used again as plastic bags, Bottles, Containers and most plastic products you use every day.

Benefits of Biodegradable Plastic’s

As the title suggests it is a type of plastic, which can decompose naturally and is therefore less harmful to the environment. Using raw materials to compose these plastics makes them more environmentally friendly and this is why they are becoming more popular.

As we have all seen most of the packaging that our food and drink products come in are plastic packaging and this is helping the increase in business for the plastic manufacturers. Not seen as good by all people this increase in production does come at a cost to our environment. In our everyday lives the use of plastic is inevitable due to the many uses we now have for plastic.


People can just not imagine their lives without plastic, advertising companies are making good use of plastic for their advertising banners for products that are either made from plastic or use plastic packaging. The fact is that plastic is cheap and durable but also harmful to the environment, according to survey’s more than 2.4 Billion plastic bags are dumped every year in developed countries.

Think of all the Plastic that you throw away every year, enough to fill a lorry?

Plastic Recycling is a better choice instead of sending it off to landfill to go to waste. Recycle your plastic and make it a greener future.

Plastic Crafts

Plastic is not just for recycling

Recycling plastic does not just mean putting it in the recycling bin; it also means reusing the plastic to save 

buying materials.

Using plastics like empty bottles, empty/Dead pens, biscuit boxes etc. can be used to make craft items, art and storage devices. Reusing plastic boxes or tubs to store food, materials and other objects can save on buying new storage boxes. There are many site out there that show you how to make handy items using your old bottles  and art that has been done using old pens and old plastic bottles.

·         You can reuse old plastic bottles to store home brewed drinks saves money on buying mew bottles

·         Turn a bottle in to a funnel by simply by cutting the top off and turning it upside down

·         Plant Incubators - When frost threatens in the spring, protect tender plants by cutting the top off a plastic bottle and placing over plants to protect them from the cold.  

·          Flower Pot Filler - If you have a very large planter, such as a half barrel, try throwing some smaller bottles in the bottom to fill space.  Most plants will not require the amount of soil and space in an oversized planter and you will save on expensive container mix.

·         Ice Packs - Fill about 3/4 of the way with water, put the cap back on and freeze.  Pack into coolers - works just as well as "blue ice".  Won't get your sandwiches soggy and will provide fresh, cold drinking water if needed.  Save on buying bags of ice to fill large coolers.  Great for cooling down bunnies and other small animals in hot weather too.

These are just a few uses for your old bottles I am sure you can think of a lot more uses in your home.

Plastic Pens

These can be used for art and use around the home by using a low heat you can mould the plastic in to many shapes and can make hooks, silly straws, air powered gun etc. there are many more items that can be made. A lot of people like to experiment with using these for art projects like this guy did: http://tinyurl.com/6dv9gfk

Just goes to show you what can be done with a little imagination.

How much Plastic do you Recycle?

Please post your answers here, just a little study to see how much people recycle and then I can make another post that can show you what can be done with what you don't recycle Plastic wise.

In one week:
e.g How many plastic bottles do you throw in a normal bin?
and any other plastics you throw away.

Hope to get a lot of Comments Thanks.

How Are Plastics Recycled

Ever wondered what happens after your waste plastic bottles and packaging gets collected or you drop it off at your local plastic recycling collection point.

Prior to plastic recycling the plastic products have to be sorted in to there various types, this is due to part of the recycling plastics process involving melting the plastic and not all plastics melt at the same temperature, differences mixing here can lead to a brittle recycled plastic product, think of how oil and water don’t mix well.

Once the waste plastic has been identified and separated the recycling process can begin, recycling plastic is much more involved than say for glass or metals, usually starting with shredding and washing to remove paper labels, adhesives and other impurities, this is followed by melting the clean plastic and extruding in to the form of pellets which then go on to manufacture the next lot of plastic products.

Recycled scrap plastic is more often than not recycled in to something completely different to what it started out as, plastic bottles could easily become your garden furniture, a point worth noting is that it is not always possible to recycle it over and over again and here in the UK we still don’t have recycling facilities for all types of plastics, typically the likes of yoghurt pots and butter containers either go to landfill sites or are shipped to overseas plants for recycling.

Due to the continual growth in dependencies of plastic manufactured products, something like 20 times more than 50 years ago our need to recycle rather than continuing to create from new plastic grows ever more important, often it is all too easy for us to forget the knock on effects such as conserving non-renewable fossil fuels and minimising the amount of rubbish that goes to landfill sites.

All plastic products have a Plastic Identification Codes – or PIC for short imprinted on to them somewhere, this is a plastic recycling symbols, made up of a circulating arrow in a triangle shape with a number between 1 & 7 in the centre. The PIC was implemented by the Society of the Plastic industry in 1988.

Type 1 is polyethylene terephthalate (PET or PETE) - Fizzy Drink Bottles / Oven Ready Meals
Type 2 is high-density polyethylene (HDPE) – Milk and Washing up Bottles
Type 3 is polyvinyl chloride (PVC) = Shampoo, Squash Bottles, Cling Film
Type 4 is low-density polyethylene (LDPE) – Carrier Bags & Bin Liners
Type 5 is polypropylene (PP) – Micro Meals & Margarine Tubs
Type 6 is polystyrene (PS) – Yoghurt Pots, Toys, Electronic Goods
Type 7 is other (usually PC or ABS) – Headlight Lenses, Safety Glasses, Melamine

So next time you put your waste plastic in the bin, see if you can spot the plastic identification code, currently there is no legal requirement for plastic manufacturers to label their products but the majority do so, possibly ahead of future legislation that may come in to force.