Forum Topic

Kerbside Food & Drink Cartons Collection Starts 7/12/09

Hurray!  Something else that I won't have to cart around until I find a recycling place.Do flatten them though so there is more room as I bet people have been saving them up...Here are some ideas of how to squash them sent in for the competition:http://www.tetrapakrecycling.co.uk/whiteboard-squash.asp

Philippa Bond ● 6142d8 Comments

aka Tetra-Paks these do not seem to be included in the flats recycling so you'll have to either find a friend with a green box or find the dedicated recycling banks  (Lidl, Stirling Road Recycling Centre and Sainsbury's Chiswick are three I've used in the past).There is more on the front page of this site.

Philippa Bond ● 6140d

I've had my drink cartons etc picked up by the recycling people for months now - have never had them left behind.

J Smith ● 6140d

Most of these cartons have plastic bits (maily the pourers, but in some cases the whole top). Do these need to be removed?

David Fox ● 6140d

They also take cars as well. good luck with your letter

Peter Chadburn ● 6140d

I am confused. Do I put drink cartons in my plastics white bag or do they count as paper?

Viv Ellis ● 6139d

Food and drinks cartons aka Tetra-Paks are made out of cardboard fused together with polythene and/or foil on the inside eg the packaging used by Tropicana, Innocent, Covent Garden Soup and the supermarkets for juice and long-life milk and tomatoes etc.  They go in the Green Box.Since LBE's instructions have been that they were not recyclable in the kerbside collection and there are banks specifically designated for them paid for originally by the manufacturers of these more difficult to recycle containers it is good to see them now added.Collection and recycling are not the same thing. It all depends on what the contract that the Council has requires and how much contamination is acceptable.  If we had all put them into the green boxes then we might have found that all our boxes weren't collected. Plastic containers for milk together with other plastic bottles go in the White Plastics Bag.Keep looking at the packaging on what you buy as more and more companies are joining up to the scheme which tells you what it is made up of.There is lots of info on the Council website www.ealing.gov.uk telling you what exactly we can recycle in Ealing and how to reduce the waste that goes to landfill.  Since we have not been given the info I flatten and leave the lids off the cartons and I drink the last glass of smoothie which is diluted with the water I rinse the carton with.  If I knew they could deal with the lids as well then I'd put them back on the flattened ones but we are not given that information. Perhaps that is something that Mrs Green of myzerowaste.com could ask them?  She and her family are aiming to only put out ONE DUSTBIN of residual waste in ONE WHOLE YEAR.Removing the pourer from the smoothie type cartons is too much effort for me.  I am more likely to bother with the flat plastic ones on the longlife milk cartons.  Hopefully they'll tell us soon that they can deal with them complete. Leaving the lids on unflattened ones means that they take up too much space in my recycling box/house and are more difficult to flatten when baling.  I've got other things to do!

Philippa Bond ● 6139d

Just as well Mrs Green of myzerowaste.com doesn't live in LBE, then. Not content with not giving me back my white plastics container, the dustbin men won't collect plastics put out in a plastic bag in the meantime - and of course, the new bag on order hasn't turned up either. I give up.

M. Anderson ● 6139d

Oh no that it one thing you shouldn't do.  You need to show that you have more tenacity than they have!Why not ask again for a white plastics bag or maybe you can borrow one from a neighbour or even share theirs until yours arrives?

Philippa Bond ● 6138d