Amazing recycling idea

[Dangerous2]

chris watton said:

You know, I had completely forgtton about this! In the 70's, we used a 'pop man'. He brought us bottles of pop every week, and when we finished them, he'd come round again, take our empty bottles and give us full bottles again!
I also forgot about the milkman, taking our empties back every morning and replacing them with full bottles.

I can only guess that with the rise of car use, people started to shop for this stuff themselves.

dandelion and burdock. mmm.

[Shuvi Tupya]

cymtriks said:

Oh, another thing, deposit bottles...

Why did we ever stop doing this?

Deposit containers would cut nearly all the rubbish in hedgerows down to zero almost immediately, what happened to this, once common, approach?

Is it a coincidence that the council tips are now the only people profiting from recycling? I doubt it.

[fathomfive]

Dangerous2 said:

chris watton said:

You know, I had completely forgtton about this! In the 70's, we used a 'pop man'. He brought us bottles of pop every week, and when we finished them, he'd come round again, take our empty bottles and give us full bottles again!
I also forgot about the milkman, taking our empties back every morning and replacing them with full bottles.

I can only guess that with the rise of car use, people started to shop for this stuff themselves.

dandelion and burdock. mmm.

Highlights of summers with the grandparents were waiting for the 'pop-man' to come down the road and sell us bottles of Lowcocks Lemonade, Dandelion and Burdock and American Cream Soda - to which was added vanilla ice-cream for an ice-cream float.

Happy days

[chris watton]

We have to pay £40 per year (on top of council tax) for 'being green', for the refuse collectors to empty our green bin twice a month!

..All about the money...

[davidspooner]

Brilliant, I'm reading and enjoying a thread on the internet about cardboard boxes!

[StevieBee]

xr287 said:

supertouring said:

The fact that the shelf stackers immediately break them up is odd, is it becuase the supermarket has re-cycling targets and if they "gave them away" there would be a chance they would not meet them?

It's because theres nowhere to put them so it makes much more sense to condense them as soon as they are used. There are no targets other than don't throw recylable things in the waste compactor. Would you want a bunch of cardboard boxes taking up huge amounts of warehouse space with no use for them?

Bit more straightforward reason than this. Money.

There is big demand for cardboard and supermarkets are in better positions than local authorities to benefit from this demand as there is less contamination (mixed with other materials). In April, the value of a tonne of cardboard ranged from £102 to £115. That's an amount some of the bigger stores would easily generate in a couple of days. It's also why some chains are now starting to claw back car park recycling operations from councils as they can make decent revenues from collected materials.

Councils don't like this as they too benefit from the revenues that recycling bring in - not in terms of direct cash but by offsetting some of the cost for providing a complete waste service (around 90p - £1 a week per house on average). The more recycling that gets done through supermarkets, the less goes through the council (commercial waste is not counted within council audited figures).

In the scheme of things, the amount of money a supermarket gets from selling recyclable material is a drop in the ocean but they can use the initiative to pontificate about being all cuddly and green whilst at the same time, make a few quid.

Every little helps!

[cazzer]

stripy7 said:

Probably a fire risk. Used to be "box rage" over the best ones, no placky bags 30 years ago.

No plastic bags in 1981? Are you even being slightly serious?

[chris watton]

cazzer said:

stripy7 said:

Probably a fire risk. Used to be "box rage" over the best ones, no placky bags 30 years ago.

No plastic bags in 1981? Are you even being slightly serious?

I am 44 and for as long as I can remember there has been plastic shopping bags - although these days, they're much less well produced...

[Liokault]

chris watton said:

I am 44 and for as long as I can remember there has been plastic shopping bags - although these days, they're much less well produced...

I'm 38 and I remember getting our shopping from Sainsburys in a big paper bag. Can't say there were no plastic ones, but they would have been much less common.

[chris watton]

Liokault said:

I'm 38 and I remember getting our shopping from Sainsburys in a big paper bag. Can't say there were no plastic ones, but they would have been much less common.

When there was a big Sainsburys in Redditch town centre in the 70's, I know they had plastic bags, as my mom would use them to wrap up my school lunch in (too tight to get me a lunch box!)

[Liokault]

chris watton said:

Liokault said:

I'm 38 and I remember getting our shopping from Sainsburys in a big paper bag. Can't say there were no plastic ones, but they would have been much less common.

When there was a big Sainsburys in Redditch town centre in the 70's, I know they had plastic bags, as my mom would use them to wrap up my school lunch in (too tight to get me a lunch box!)

Hmmmmm I also had a mother who wrapped my sandwiches in Sainsburys carrier bags....I wonder when they changed over from paper to plastic and when it went 100% plastic. Those paper bags were huge (or was I just very small?).

[skwdenyer]

Shuvi Tupya said:

Is it a coincidence that the council tips are now the only people profiting from recycling? I doubt it.

There is definitely money in recycling! A little while ago, I had a large amount of waste timber (2x4, etc.) to dispose of. Wishing to be 'green' I called the local timber recycling project who said, yes, they could provide a skip for it. The catch? The skip to collect the product which they would later sell cost 20% more than a simple 'put it in landfill' skip from a reputable skip company.

I'm sorry, but that's just daft but, having said that, it sounds like a business to be in right now! Get people to pay to have stock delivered to you in order to sell The Council is in on it too - a wheelie bin for my business for recycling costs more per week than the equivalent landfill bin, despite the Council selling-on the contents.

[AndrewW-G]

It's always struck me as odd, that none of the supermarkets have produced a plastic box insert for trolleys (or two for a small trolley and 3 or 4 for a large one) no need for any plastic bags and having the supermarkets name all over it would help generate some consumer loyalty

[skwdenyer]

AndrewW-G said:

It's always struck me as odd, that none of the supermarkets have produced a plastic box insert for trolleys (or two for a small trolley and 3 or 4 for a large one) no need for any plastic bags and having the supermarkets name all over it would help generate some consumer loyalty

There's probably some concern over health & safety - would the box be too heavy to lift safely? A bag has a natural weight limit due to its flimsy construction.

If / when non-contact 'labelling' systems become truly reliable and cost-effective, such ideas will have greater currency - simply push the entire, ready-packed trolley through the scanner and be presented with a bill. The last time I looked, as passive technology ('Holotag' IIRC) was looking good to take on this market - has this progressed?

[ninja-lewis]

AndrewW-G said:

It's always struck me as odd, that none of the supermarkets have produced a plastic box insert for trolleys (or two for a small trolley and 3 or 4 for a large one) no need for any plastic bags and having the supermarkets name all over it would help generate some consumer loyalty

Safeway and Sainsbury's had plastic boxes to fit a special trolley 10 years ago. They never caught on.

Safeway Green Box instructions

[CanadianScot]

I work at Morrisons at the weekends (I'm at Uni, it pays for the petrol....)and I must give out 10-20 boxes a day to people who ask. We put a lot down by the checkouts as well and they all get taken.