Forum Topic

Ealing recycling rates down.

Must be up for the 'No Sh*t Sherlock' awards.Sterling Road closedPunitive charges to dispose of bulky furniture that cannot be recycledAn unnecessary booking system at Greenford, there's not much risk sitting in your car while it queues.And, there's surprise that recycling rates are down - really?

N V Brooks ● 1853d23 Comments

"....you won’t get a coherent answer,......."Sabiers is well educated and qualified then???    😃

Rosco White ● 1817d

You could write to Mik Sabiers, cabinet member for housing (at the moment). Given his track record in other posts you won’t get a coherent answer, even if you get one at all.Outside play space isn’t something the planning committee are that bothered about. There’s none at the proposed Perceval House development.

Simon Hayes ● 1817d

Quick question on Stirling Road. I went there this morning and had no problem dumping green waste, plastic and old metal. Nearby the bulldozers are demolishing old factories for the next phase of Acton Town's Gotham City. Next to the small space the dump takes up are a very new build storage centre and a slightly older business park. Will they be torn down for more high rise flats with no play space for families and, if so, who pays for them to move out?

peter king ● 1817d

Now LBE Council are planning to remove more than 100 neighbourhood recycling bins across the borough, this along with the closure of Stirling Rd. will increase fly-tipping, but not to worry fly-tipping  = increased revenue.

Fred Hunt ● 1820d

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000vgh8Brilliant programme.  We need to choose more carefully and buy better so that we can repair more things.Roll on more Repair Cafes and Restart Projects!  They are gathering pace.

Philippa Bond ● 1824d

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/amazon-cardboard-boxes-recycling

Philippa Bond ● 1829d

https://www.gwp.co.uk/guides/uk-cardboard-shortages/

Philippa Bond ● 1829d

Completely agree especially considering the effort that has gone into designing so many boxes so that they can easily be flattened! I'd like to see packaging innovations and their prize winning inventors lauded on TV. We once used to be able to just flatten the cardboard and put it beside our bins and it would be taken away.  With the increase that there must be now I wonder whether it wouldn't be better to be able to go back to this.

Philippa Bond ● 1845d

My least favorite sight...is seeing cardboard boxes not flattened and with polystyrene and bubble still inside...dumped in a "cardboard only" bin.One dispares.

Jim Lawes ● 1847d

https://stayhappening.com/e/ealing-repair-cafe-clothes-and-textile-repairs-E2ISTK1L7KGhttps://www.loveyourclothes.org.uk/

Philippa Bond ● 1847d

Although these projects will have to be online at the moment there is still useful information here.We need to be sharing information of those businesses that  repair items to extend their lives.  Not everyone - in particular the elderly - can cope with technology which keeps on changing so fast.  No sooner do you learn how to use something than the way it works is updated...and if your eyesight and/or memory is not what it was you will find it harder to remember and you may not be able to read those notes. 

Philippa Bond ● 1851d

An awful lot of work has been done over the years by WRAP (the Waste and Resources Action Programme) (https://wrap.org.uk/what-we-do) with manufacturers eg Heinz to lightweight cans, and also to lightweight glass bottles.  You used to be able to read up on the case studies but the website has been updated to show newer case studies. There were changes also so that the numbers of cans in a box was more economical for packing onto lorries and things like that.  Less weight = less fuel used in transport.  It was fascinating.It is very disappointing that so much recyclate is sent abroad for recycling.  This caused a noticeable problem in the pandemic when nobody could find eggs.  It wasn't that the hens had stopped laying but that all the paperpulp eggboxes were made on the Continent. There is also a defra regulation that egg boxes should not be reused because of the worry of disease spread so a constant new supply is always needed.We had enormous wheelie bins foisted on us.  Perhaps LBE could now consider issuing smaller ones just as were issued to other boroughs.  We were told that they didn't exist in Ealing when we could see that some had been issued.  The 240l were far too big and still are for many terraces of small cottages with little or no garden.  They now blight the streetscene.  At the time other Councils were reducing the sizes of the bins they had issued as their residents became used to separating their waste.  If there are no nappy users a much smaller bin should be quite adequate.It would be interesting to know how much of the recycling in the blue bins is rejected by the MRF.  We are not supposed to include bin bags or carrier bags and our recycling is supposed to be loose yet I constantly see these poking out the top of bins and it is not obvious whether it is recycling or just general rubbish.  With nothing flattened or squashed people have a volume problem.  Most card and cardboard packaging is now rather cleverly designed to be flattened to reduce its volume for recycling it.  There once used to be a lot of packaging made out of mixed materials but this is no longer the case.  Are the bags whatever is in them just rejected at the MRF?  I've heard of that happening elsewhere.  That would be interesting to know.With enterprises such as those to extend the life of our possessions by repair, reuse and repurposing you would expect the amounts to go down. There are many websites encouraging waste reduction and also explaining how to mend items and offering spare parts for sale and there are Repair Cafes all over the world now to try and reduce the amount of waste that we make and to extend the life of products and reduce the use of the planet's finite resources. 

Philippa Bond ● 1852d

If suppliers and manufacturers are indeed cutting down on packaging should we not expect recycling rates, as a percentage of all refuse collected to fall?  And would not that be a good thing?Maybe tracking the absolute weights of materials going to recycling and "rubbish" would be better?

Philip Coe ● 1852d

You credit Ealing with a level of transparency not evident in so many areas. I fail to see why reported recycling rates should be any different.

N V Brooks ● 1852d

Isn't recycling and waste still measured by weight?  Packaging has changed eg much glass has been replaced by plastic.  The amount of paper collected must have decreased as much news is now read online and there are fewer newspapers.  (A weekly collection of just one household's newspapers used to be very heavy.) Office mail is nearly all email with much reduced postal service/courier use. We should be moving towards a Circular Economy - check out the Ellen Macarthur Foundation:  https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/  and our Joint Waste Authority:  https://westlondonwaste.gov.uk/Apart from all the websites where you can sell things you no longer want eg ebay, there are the charities where you can give furniture when working eg the British Heart Foundation, and also Petit Miracles who will take some furniture not up to BHF standards which need some tlc and which can be upcycled.  Both normally collect.Then there is also freecycling/freegling - www.trashnothing.com is an easy interface for this.  So much easier than when I first signed up for freecycle with its clunky website!

Philippa Bond ● 1852d

You've misunderstood the issue here. It is well known waste is sent to foreign countries. The assumption is that it is properly processed and not just put into landfill particularly as in the cases you refer to the material is recyclable. I would assume Ealing have some way of auditing that it is and their controls are subject to some sort of oversight. If it is not then Ealing would be duplicitously inflating their recycling figures.

Gordon Southwell ● 1852d

You must have missed this then.In 2016/17, Ealing sent 9,019 tonnes of paper and card and 183 tonnes of plastics to China. It also sent 160 tonnes of paper and card and nine tonnes of HDPE plastics to India, 94 tonnes of paper to Indonesia, and plastics to countries such as Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam.https://www.mylondon.news/news/west-london-news/west-london-councils-sent-thousands-14837546

N V Brooks ● 1852d

You are right but as Mark points out the overwhelming proportion of waste is collected at the kerbside. I haven't seen numbers but I would guess it is in the high nineties percentage wise. The fall is alarming particular as the quote recycling rate will include 'Energy from Waste' which is basically the burning of rubbish that is otherwise not recyclable and claiming that it counts towards the target because a small amount of 'green' energy has been generated — ignoring the fact that burning things generates CO2. I'd be interested to hear Simon's source for his claim that 'a lot of recycling ends up in landfill anyway'. It certainly doesn't in this country as sending waste to sites in the UK is very expensive. If he believes that recyclables are being sent overseas and then dumped in landfill this would be profoundly worrying if true. I would assume the council have controls in place to ensure this doesn't happen but if there is any evidence that the system is failing then we should be told about it.

Gordon Southwell ● 1852d

All sorts of factors Conic skip licences are too expensive, transporting waste by car is only for those with adequate vehicles, waste management is big bucks where theres muck theres money but it's in the hands of operators of varying prudence.Fly Tipping ends up inevitable as it's been made harder and harder for ordinary people to get rid of items.With more and more flats and more and more shared houses often overcrowded and not designed to cope with the increased waste generated yet council tax presumably collected from each and every individual address it is not really adequate.In fact I am surprised it is as good as it is.But do not believe that recycling is quite as it is made out to be.

Raymond Havelock ● 1852d

Surely the reduction in the number of on street recycling pods has not helped. Like the ones that used to be at Gurnell Leisure Centre, University of West London and Waitrose just to name three.

Philip Coe ● 1852d

You are confusing the inevitable decline in the absolute amount of waste collected with the concerning decline in the proportion that is recycled.Waste brought to recycling centres and recycled as bulk will be a small fraction of that gathered by roadside collection so recycling rates weren't always doomed to fall during the pandemic. Also just because something is brought to a recycling centre doesn't mean it is recyclable.One of the justifications for bringing recycling in-house and incurring quite significant expense was that Amey was under achieving. Either they weren't or Greener Ealing is just as bad.

Mark Evans ● 1852d

In other countries, recycling centres even have veiling galleries for the public and are proud of the operations and processes.Follow a recycling truck here to a depot and you will encounter Prison grade security.Cameras, high fences, and all views inside blocked. More cameras than Longfield Ave, pointing outside up to 70m in range.Why one wonders?  It's not of high value, dangerous and likely to escape.It's there to keep prying eyes out.So what is there to hide that requires such secrecy, that is clearly not something that the public should be seeing?

Raymond Havelock ● 1853d

A lot of recycling ends up in landfill anyway, despite Ealing claims otherwise.

Simon Hayes ● 1853d