I always try to do my bit for recycling and doing the right thing with rubbish. In fact sometimes it does seem a bit of a chore; especially when organisations such as the old district council and the present unitary council, which have gone on about the need to recycle, have been using window envelopes for years. The window material made the whole non-recyclable – unless you tore the window out. I say, made, as some later materials are all right. Anyway, I continue to remove the window and to shred the address parts of any other envelopes for security. Oh yes and remove the stamps to go to Oxfam. I usually try to do this as soon as the mail and junk mail arrives.
So having a tin of dried up paint and a bike tyre to dispose of, I do the right thing and take them to the waste centre. I remove the lid of the paint tin to show it is dried up; that is all right. But it’s a decided no to the bike tyre! Now I find that in common with most things these days, bike tyres just don’t last until they wear out; they crack after only about eighteen months. So now I have two to dispose of. So perhaps ‘getting on your bike’ isn’t all good! When you get a car tyre changed you get hit with a disposal charge – but at least it goes.
While I am on the ‘soap box’, how ‘green’ is it to be sending garden waste from this area to somewhere in Lancashire? It seems that collecting and weighing all that was the easiest way to prove to central government how good you were being, even If it is no good for the biodigester or much else! Ten years ago we were being offered compost bins at a discount to encourage home composting – but that couldn’t be quantified.
Cut through tractor tyres can be used as baths for ducks and hens or filled with soil as planters. Though if used for the latter you might want to make some drainage slits in them; easier said than done!