Forum Topic

Cardboard Recycling Collection

At one time the LBE contractors would collect flattened cardboard placed beside the green box.The LBE website used to say not to report it if it wasn't collected with the green box collection as there was another vehicle which would collect this afterwards. What has happened to this?  Is it one of reductions Enterprise/Amey have already made in the collection?Are you managing to get your cardboard collected?  

Philippa Bond ● 4062d18 Comments

Ours gets collected each week.

Nick Goodliffe ● 4062d

Grudgingly and only if it's flattened, in small enough pieces and not too far from the gate.

Jim McCauley ● 4062d

Ours gets collected each week, but we do flatten it and place it very near one of our front gates (together with our green recycling box and white recycling bag for plastics) . The recycling guys then return these(after being emptied)back inside our property.

Elizabeth Anna Thaddeus ● 4062d

I am on a red route so do not have a bin, just a clear plastic sack for recycling. I had not received any clear sacks for a long while, but when I thought a delivery may be due I checked my cameras to see whether any were delivered then stolen. I discovered that all sacks, black or clear, are thrown into a refuse collection truck which is closely followed by a similar but green painted refuse truck (empty?) which collects nothing but might provide protection from motorists who are still asleep at that time of day.

Christopher Bell ● 4062d

To be fair I have no complaints. Our cardboard is taken away, like other authors its  flattened & left in the box.A bit of a lottery which box is returned, even with large numbers, however this is more due to my dog which the chaps are nervous of

Peter Yale ● 4061d

There are refuse trucks which are split so that different collections can be put in each half.If you think that this was not the case and you see it again then please complain to LBE.  They will never increase their recycling rates if the contractor is not doing what I'm sure they are contracted to do.  I would have thought that that following truck was the one that picked up the larger quantities of flattened cardboard or the see-through bags.  You need to be quick about reporting it so that they can tell which crew it was.We don't need any sabotage from the contractors.  It is bad enough from those who are too self-absorbed to do anything at all about it!

Philippa Bond ● 4061d

I don't tend to have a problem either and I'm sure I sometimes don't tear it into little pieces - I just make sure that any larger box is flattened and left wedged between wall and the green box.I just keep passing gardens full of cardboard (a lot of it flattened) and most annoying of all one where it is flattened and which I would have thought OK but after a month of it sitting there it is now collecting fly-tipping. I have noticed some street recycling banks for cardboard but they are usually full.  (That may be why I've noticed them!)  Lots of people don't have cars nowadays and lots of stuff is ordered online and arrives in cardboard boxes. It would be good to see some more information on the website.

Philippa Bond ● 4061d

It is the same each week, here all sacks are moved to the kerb by someone working in the reverse direction a few minutes before the trucks arrive, then he probably joins the main crew, but out of my view. My view is partially blocked as they move past, but I do not see any left-right split at the back of either vehicle. It was about 0530 last week.

Christopher Bell ● 4061d

Many of the businesses in South Ealing near the Popes Lane and South Ealing Road junction have learned to exploit the nightly collections that are made of black bags to buildings where the "flats do not have room to store rubbish indoors" by ripping up their boxes in the knowledge that anything in a black bag put out after dark by the following morning.

Anna Leuven-Rice ● 4061d

I suspect that a lot of large clean cardboard is lost because it isn't collected with or following the recycling collection and householders then just shove it into a black sack.I can understand people in flats not having much room for all the cardboard that large items can come packaged in and worse still all the plastic that items bought in the supermarket can come packaged in.  However there are usually solutions.Solution No 1 is not to buy so much packaging - Buy Naked!ie you can pop into a greengrocer and buy exactly the number of courgettes that you want with no packaging to recycle or fit in a bin.  You then won't have to THINK what to do with the rest before they go bitter or turn into a liquid mush in the bottom of the fridge and you'll spend less TIME and effort dealing with excess food.  An example of how less is more!The Council should check that ALL the businesses along the road have current and continuing commercial waste contracts.  It is even better when they can get together so that one company's unwanted material becomes another's useful resource.

Philippa Bond ● 4060d

What I was trying to say is that the businesses have found a way to reduce their costs by black-bagging commercial rubbish as domestic rubbish and having it whisked away every night. These businesses usually have "token" legal waste contracts. They have to pay for each bag that is taken away so this is a way of getting rid of most of thier rubbish without paying.

Anna Leuven-Rice ● 4060d

The answer is to have a no black bags allowed situation.  All commercial waste should have to go in prepaid bags and all household waste and recycling in separate diferent coloured bags. A big problem seems to be landlords both not and not being able to (due to Council computer forms) set up systems for their tenants to carry on using - both bins and space in the buildings and outside.  (Of course the tenants once in situ are then responsible for continuing with the actual separation of waste and recycling.)This is what happens in other places and should be happening here too.

Philippa Bond ● 4058d

Passing a garden that is still the home of an amount of large pieces of cardboard half-flattened I notice that it now has a sticker.  There were some smaller pieces in a green box last time I passed.  The other suggestion on the sticker is that a bulky waste collection can be arranged with the Council.  That's extra cost of course.(And I know there is a cardboard recycling street bank within walking distance.)The great pile that spent more than a month waiting for collection/disposal has now gone, the yard looks neat and there is now no fly-tipping.  I don't know who took action.

Philippa Bond ● 4054d

And what will happen when we have alternate week collections via wheelie bins?

Sue Kendrick ● 4054d

The people who still do not recycle or make any effort to reduce their waste will still be the same people and will still have too much waste!

Philippa Bond ● 4054d

No price given for the ordinary bulky waste collection.It is cheaper if stuff is in good enough nick to use the British Heart Foundation or other charities/organisations here:http://westlondonwaste.gov.uk/or freecycle or another local neighbourhood website

Philippa Bond ● 4054d

The council where I have my other place is only obliged to take away cardboard the size (for example)of a large pizza box or a flattened shoe box.Anything else is classed as commercial waste and needs to go to council tip or many cardboard recycle skips in supermarket's.Maybe ealing use the same rule.

Jim James ● 4051d

It would be nice if they could be upfront and inform us!

Philippa Bond ● 4049d