Via IanPJ:
Those of you who faithfully follow your local council's diktats wrt sorting your rubbish into various categories, or those of you who have been fined for throwing a crisp packet in with the paper may have enjoyed Monday night's Tonight programme on ITV.
Tonight revealed that we are being conned by our councils when they tell us that our rubbish is recycled.
The Tonight investigation revealed that waste, originally collected for recycling by four British local authorities, is being dumped on Indian farmland near the migration path of wild elephants.
Tonight reporter Mark Jordan travelled to the state of Tamil Nadu and found waste including British newspapers DATED FROM THIS JANUARY, food packaging from Tesco, plastic bags from Mothercare and even a St George's flag.
After digging down four feet with a JCB at one well site, Tonight discovered a hidden mountain of British waste including Walkers crisps bags, Sainsbury's apple juice, children's report cards and newspapers such as The Telegraph. It is estimated that the well could be up to 30 feet deep.
Tonight tracked down supposedly recycled mail found at one Indian dump addressed to residents living in Tendring, Wellingborough and Wakefield District Councils and Leicestershire County Council.
All four authorities collect recyclables intermingled in either one or two bins then send them to a sorting facility which will sell them on to be recycled in factories or mills.
A Tonight survey also showed that 46 local authorities HAVE NO IDEA what happens to their household collections of recyclable waste, after it is sent to their contracted sorting facilities.
Last week it said that some companies refuse to tell councils where they sell recyclable material because of commercial confidentiality. Ahh, that old chestnut.
Am I alone in feeling a tad "miffed" to discover that my council tax increases (part of which are allegedly being used for environmental purposes) and the draconian punishments handed down to "bin criminals" are in fact an elaborate cover for local authorities merely to raise more revenue and con us into thinking that we are doing something good for the environment, whilst they take a little extra slice from dodgy deals with dodgy recycling companies?
Who trusts our local councils now? Who are the real Bin Criminals?
Hattip Nanny Knows Best
2 comments:
I was informed by someone who did some contract work on a landfill site in Yorkshire that they weren't even bothering with taking it all to India but were dumping rubbish and recycling straight in the same hole.
I’ve always assumed that almost none of it actually gets recycled. The sinister way in which, at first, were asked to separate newspapers, suddenly escalated to almost everything. No way are they really recycling it. Perhaps 10% if they’re lucky.
Metals are so valuable (in comparison) that they must dominate the value of any waste. Tin cans, bottle tops, soda cans etc, but mysteriously we don’t separate metals from the rest. Now I know there are clever ferrous and non-ferrous metal separation techniques, but that’s once its all reached the MRF. If the councils simply asked us to put our cans in a separate bin, they could sell it for hard cash to scrap metals dealers rather than pay people to take it away.
It’s all lies.
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