Maybe this should more appropriately be titled My New Garbage and Recycling Bin Is Too Small. We're a family of four and all our waste and recycling is adding up fast. After I purchase stuff at the supermarket, I've started reorganizing and putting stuff into plastic baggies and throw away as many of the boxes and packaging as I can AT the supermarket.
But that reduces less than half our recycling. I guess the main culprits are juice and milk boxes. Any suggestions on how to cut back on packaging?
Too much packaging at supermarkets
snoopgrl on 22/07/2014 - 13:40
Comments
This. We flatten everything before chucking it into the bin, otherwise all those bottles take up half the bin with empty space.
Absolutely agree. Our recycle bin is always full - but the general waste bin has enough room in it to put all the neighbours rubbish as well. As we live in a time where we are all encouraged to recycle packaging etc. why aren't these bins emptied on a weekly basis?
Supermarkets use packaging to 'prettify' their products to justify a higher price.
e.g cucumbers come wrapped with condoms, dishwasher pellets come triple wrapped for hygiene consciousness, snacks nuts come in plastic bags, and SD cards or batteries come with hard-to-open blister packs to prevent theft.
I guess you can't avoid packaging for certain perishable goods because they need to be protected during shipping and any spillage of things like sauces, juice or canned food means a faulty product and lost revenue.
I try to recycle everything and hardly have any landfill rubbish each week. I live in the North Shore and we have 4 bins (landfill, paper, other recyclables, compost). My compost goes in the garden.
Juice and milk cartons are can be recycled: http://www.earth911.com/news/recycling-mystery-milk-and-juic…
I've tried to practice the 4R's for a number of years now: reduce, reuse, recycle, rubbish. I avoid online grocery shopping because of the multitude of plastic bags that come with the order.
I have a pretty low opinion on recycling tbh. It's a huge pita aside from anything else.
Why in God's name are we recycling cellulose products? This means less trees are grown along with pointless - well, pointless unless you think doing pointless things to feel like you're "doing something" is fine - use of energy to reuse an already renewable resource, more CO2 is pumped out etc.
We mandated supermarkets to start selling us plastic bags which appear to use i don't know, 10 times more plastic along with printing. Somehow this was done in the name of being "good for the environment" LEL.
Oh yeah and Woolworths … I'm paying for a goddam bag, why in God's name is green ink all over my hands. And clothes.
I have no issue at all with people wanting to reuse their bags for supermarket shopping or recycling but why am I being made to play the idiotic game of doing something inconvenient and pointless?
Am I the only person thinking this?
A major component that dictates the price of a product is usually the packaging. Not just the cost, but the design, marketing, research etc. Sometimes there is so much empty space in a container it is ridiculous.
So this topic is still on my mind.. OP, are you still around?
What kind of products are you buying that are contributing to your waste/recycling most?
Could you possibly rethink the types of things you buy, consider alternatives if possible? Eg. if you're buying lots of processed (and thus usually overpackaged) foods, could you start making snacks etc like those yourself? Or substituting for other things? (this is really hard for me to write without knowing what kinds of things you do eat/consume). Maybe even consider reducing the amount of certain things you consume, if you can step back and evaluate them as being not-entirely-necessary? (say, fruit juice)
Buy as much as you can in larger bottles? So, 3L bottles of milk rather than several 2L bottles during the week or fortnight? Though if you're consuming cartons (boxes you say?) of milk, those will flatten a lot better for the bin than the hard plastic of the larger milk bottles, I suppose. You could apply the same to other household products you may be using - kitchen products and toiletries that leave you with recycling (like shampoo bottles, detergent bottles etc).
Or simply make choices while you're in the supermarket towards products that have less packaging. Tackle it before you've even bought the item. Fruit and veg from supermarkets often come in those plastic packs (with more plastic wrapping around them) - if you're buying stuff like that too, could you possibly look into markets for fresh produce, and BYO non-plastic bags? I do this - Parklea Markets is pretty cool for fruit and veg that I'm after, and the stuff I get is typically cheaper or the same price as at Coles or Woolworths.
As a last resort, there are some stores that sell stuff like grain/flour/cereals/dried beans and legumes etc on a weight basis, you just bring in your own containers or jars, scoop in how ever much you need and pay for that quantity. Pretty awesome in terms of reducing waste, but you can end up paying a bit extra. Depends though. I'd check Newtown for stuff like that. There was a little place right opposite Enmore Theatre years ago that did that sort of thing, but I haven't been that way in a long time..
i agree , we should start using milk bags like canada
From one udder to anudder?
(okay, that sounded funnier in my head..)
Oh. Wow. People are still replying to this. Well, the main problem was, at my apartment building we just had a dumpster and nothing was separated at all. Then they introduced all the colored bins about a year ago. And we never got a recycle one. All the neighbors made it seem like the garbage workers magically dispensed the bins so, honestly, I should have been more proactive and just called and gotten a recycle bin.
I guess I'm kind of lazy though. I was getting by fitting all our recycling and rubbish into one bin and then last week (wth) no one picked up any of the rubbish at my apartment building. So then I called and sorted everything out with the council. Sort of. They delivered our new recycle bin and someone, like, stole it! (Stupid story-anyway) But yeah, it is hard to fit all our rubbish and recycling into one bin.
Especially if the garbage dudes forget your apartment building. Sigh.
Well, to answer Waterlogged Turnip, yes. I started buying loose fruit rather than little punnets because they were creating too much packaging. And I was throwing away boxes from stuff like cereal and granola bars at the shopping center before I left. And I moaned to my hubby because he wants to drink bottled water and I'm tired of hopping around on the water bottles to flatten them but he was unimpressed with my trials and tribulations and refused to drink tap water. Whatever.
If I want to pick a fight with him, I don't want to argue about bottled water. (marriage saved)
Also, instead of recycling our paper straightaway, I just keep putting it in a drawer because it is currently low priority. I have two full drawers full now of receipts and random junk I would otherwise just throw away. So—where does that leave me? Fire hazard? Yeah.
And right. So I have found that it's very difficult to buy all you need without much packaging. In fact, if you're trying to save money then you're screwed. Loose fruit is more expensive than punnets.
Sorry—no deep thoughts on recycling other than I'm getting my new recycle bin on Monday (if no one steals it) and recycling is good.
End.
TLDR
Getting a new recycle bin maybe.Just wanted to add…because I guess this thread made me think about it and it bothered me….
There are about twenty-eight apartments where I live and we all only ever received regular red rubbish bins. There are only ever two recycle bins put out to the curb. (Well, perhaps that number will rise since someone stole my bin and I'll be receiving a new bin soon.)All my neighbors (we're all mostly foreigners but they were always questioning me about the garbage bins because I'm from an English speaking country, apparently, I know about the secret of the bins until they learned I did not know anything about the secret of the bins) claimed to have asked the garbage men when their recycling bins were coming and were told that they would be 'delivered soon'. I suppose my problem was listening to them. Anyway. So we had just been separating our rubbish from our recycling but putting it all in the same bin. I know Australia spends a lot of money on recycling and rubbish but if the councils don't give recycling bins to immigrants, it's hard for them to figure out how to get them on their own.
I don't know, I read a few blogs in desperation about the bring your own bags and fill them up kind of stores, Water-logged Turnip but all I have nearby is Coles and Woolies. One thing I will continue doing is making lemonade from packet mixes instead of buying bottles of it from now on. And if I can buy something in a bag rather than a box, I go for that now more if it's not too expensive. And be grumpy because supermarkets seem to be selling you a bunch of rubbish to go along with your food.
Flatten them with your foot before putting it in the bin.