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Many times people complain about over packaging and commenting that they never wanted the packaging in the first place. This is over simplistic because everything we buy comes with the packaging or not as an inherent part of the purchase decision.

Most of the packaging that arrives in our households has to do with the way we live our lives today. We want fresh vegetables, in the past your parents and mine used to grow their vegetables in the garden, dig them up wash them and put them on the table. There was no supply chain from grower to consumer.

Fruit and Vegetables

Now you and I constantly want more exotic and out of season fruit and vegetables. this means strawberry in December rather than June. They therefore are picked in warm climates and shipped to met our demands. All this requires them to be packaged - you don't want or won't accept squashed strawberries.

Home Computer

Lets look at other items like computer. You can decide to buy one from a local electrical retailers and the packaging will be of a certain size or you could decide to buy from one of the larger Internet or phone retailers. the packaging around both PC's similar in spec and possible make will be very different. Why because of how you choose to buy.

The Internet purchase will be delivered with more packaging than the shop bought PC. The Foamer by independent delivery people in a general mailing system. Now you have a €700 PC being picked and dropped be delivery people despite being Marked as "fragile" requiring it to arrive in tact and undamaged. The packaging is there to protect the PC and yes you didn't buy the packaging but your choice of deliver and purchase method impacted the packaging supplied. It is more important from an environmental and energy efficiency point of view to protect the high quality item ie. PC than to have it arrived damaged and in itself become "waste".

Ready made meals

Lets take something we all frequently buy - a pizza. Rather than purchase the ingredients, (i.e. pizza dough/base, tomato base, toppings etc and preparing this ourselves) we want the convenience a meal in 10/15 minutes from start to finish. therefore we purchase it already made and stored in our home freezer. This therefore comes with associated packaging - our choice. 

Not defending packaging

Believe me I am not trying to defend over packaging, just reminding us all that packaging is part of how we now choose to live our lives. I want fresh milk but don't live on a farm with cows to supply it to me, therefore I need somebody else to collect it pasteurise it and deliver to the local shop for my consumption. 

Recycle all our used packaging that we can.

What  is important is that as much of mine and your used packaging is recyclable as possible and that we as consumers maximise our use the green/blue recycling bin systems to ensure we recycle as much as possible.  Also that manufacturers and suppliers do not over specific packaging but ensure it is optimal and fit for purchase. 

Next i will talk about the packaging reduction that is happening all around us often unnoticed by us in our daily lives. This helps reduce the amount of waste we all have to recycle.

 

 

Hi me again

Well this is a question I get asked all the time where do our recyclables go and why don’t recycle more here in Ireland.

Export of recyclables

Well first lets deal with a few misconceptions? Yes we do export most of the recyclables collected in Ireland. But most of it goes to the UK and Spain not to the far east. Less than 15% actually goes to China and Asia.

So the question is why?

Lets remember as we are all so often told by political and economic commentators Ireland is no longer a low cost economy. Recyclables such as used cardboard, steel, glass and aluminium are low grade second hand commodities competing against virgin pristine raw materials.

First lets look back

To understand where we are we need to look back first. Remember irsih Steel, Irsih Glass bottle and indeed more recently Smurfit recycling. All these primary manufactures have something in common all closed their Irish operations to manufacture product (low value commodities) in lower cost economies, building larger processing plants that need access to larger markets.

Close to market

Also as I often say to people when they ask. There is not point for example manufacturing wine bottles in Ireland to export them to Australia, France or South Africa to be filled? The same with making shampoo bottles which get filled in Germany or Greece?

So now you understand the bigger picture the question is what can we recycle at home.

What we can we do at home

However I do not want to be accused of being negative. I do not believe all is lost. While we may all like to recycle more at home the reality is we can do some recycling in Ireland and certainly more than we are currently. However as I often say it is a bit like the old beef industry we should be doing some primary processing here in Ireland to add as much value as possible before exporting our recycleables (or beef) to european markets for recycling. What I mean for recycling is we need to pre recycle by ensuring we maximum the quality and grade of recyclables by sorting out the poor quality fromm good quality clean material. 

Recycling markets at home

Obviously we can recycle more bio waste (i.e food and garden waste), also we can recycle more high grade high quality plastics. Also we can continue to recycle as we are already doing large amounts of wood. But we won’t have large enough or economically viable paper/cardboard mills, steel plants or aluminium smelters compared to those in Europe.

Recycling is about saving the worlds limited resouces

To finish there is nothing negative about most of recyclbles being processed abroad. Recycling is global industry and remember recycling is all about preserving our natural resource. So remember recycle more and recycle better for a better environment for all.

 

 

 

Hi there me again,

Yesterday we talked about the quality of recyclables in terms of the cleanliness of materials going into the green bins. Today I would like to talk about the some of the unusual and incorrect items often put in green bins. 

Visiting the sorting stations where green bins are brought to after collection, you would not believe what people often will put into the green bins. They items can be split into two categories 1) Non recyclables and 2) recyclable items in the wrong bins.

We've even had dead dogs in the bing

Incorrect items that I have witnessed in the green bins include dead dogs, paint tins, plastic toys and more ominously general rubbish.

Many times these items are put in deliberately by people using the green bins as a cheaper waste disposal method than the usual general waste bin.

These are generally put in by people who don’t care about anything and thankfully many times are tracked down and if found can be fined or have their waste services suspended – proper order.

Recyclables incorrectly placed in green bins

Clothes and shoes, small electrical items (i.e.toasters and kettles and in one case a microwave), garden waste and grass cuttings.

All of these items are recyclable but not in the green/blue bin dry recycling collection systems. Putting these recyclable items in the green bins is putting them in the wrong place and will not get them recycled.

These items are often placed in green bins out of ignorance rather than deliberately.

Our research show 9% of people admitted to putting in grass cutting in their green bins – this is obviously out of ignorance – I can only suspect on the basis grass is recyclable and therefore they assume it can go in the green recycling bin. This is a very dangerous and incorrect assumption.

Impact of such behaviour

Our Analysis of green bins nationwide would show on average about 5-7% of the contents are incorrect items that can not be recycled.

This equate to approximately 20,000 tonnes of material that often needs to be landfilled at an estimated cost of €1.8 million. This is indirectly costing you and I in higher waste charges.

Plea to all - please learn what can go into your green bin

If we want to ensure the sustainability and viability of our now common place “green/blue” bin collection systems we need to ensure we do not abuse them.

Therefore I appeal to the latter group who are mistakenly putting incorrect materials in there green bins, to please learn what can and can’t go in your green/blue bins and if in doubt contact your waste contractor.

Remember as mentioned before quality of materials is paramount both correct items in green bins and the cleanliness of materials. Both of these issues are for you and I as users of the green bin systems.

As usual -any question feel free to ask

For those interested in following me tomorrow we will talk about where our recyclables go ?