I thought textiles could go into the ordinary green recycling bin?
also there’s a difference in how the green garden waste (in the brown bin) and the kitchen leftovers waster (in the grey bin) and processes post collection. so the two can’t be mixed. the green waste isn’t processed to appropriately deal with food waste, bones, fats etc.
this kind of kitchen waste is probably the worst for decomposing anaerobically in landfill to produce harmful waste greenhouse gasses, mostly methane, so getting that out of the landfill stream will be most beneficial.
This is the bit I don’t get about these bin changes. I thought close to 100% of Lewisham waste was incinerated, which in turn generates electricity, so why do we want to divert waste intended for incineration to somewhere else? The council says this will save a little bit of money, but they certainly don’t explain how or why.
Hi Daffodil, I obviously don’t know whereabouts you are, but I usually take mine to the council one in Canadian Avenue behind the Catford library if it’s any help.
@jrothlis I think I read somewhere that Lewisham is trying to reduce incineration of certain waste types, including food, where incineration is not efficient. Have you had a look at their website? I believe there is information there on the reasons behind the changes (if memory serves). Their Environment Department on Twitter is a good source of info and answers queries pretty quickly: @EnviroLewisham
Re textiles: they were allowed in the green bin for a few years but no longer. Probably too much contamination. There are no council textile facilities locally as there are so many on-street charity collection bins. The council recommends that’s where we take textiles for recycling.
presumably any savings made by the council will be because they are running fewer pick up bin lorries, and any kitchen wast that isn’t going to SELCHP means that Lewisham can make money by taking other london boroughs waste for incineration.
Well I never realised that - I’ve been merrily throwing old socks, t-shirts etc… into my green bin for years now.
That’s what happens when someone sticks a dirty great sticker of whats allowed/not allowed on your bin - you tend to follow its guidance until someone replaces the sticker (which they haven’t)
If they want to improve their contamination rates, maybe checking that the guidance on the bins themselves is not out of date would be a good first step.
I raised this with Lewisham and they said leaflets went out to explain the changes, but I don’t remember getting one. And that we should follow the guidance on their website, not the labels on the bins. Which is pretty ridiculous.
Recycling bins in FH Sainsbury’s are not there any more. And the ones in the Sainbsurys at Bell Green are always full. I tend to put bagged textiles in the boot of the car where they lurk until I happen to be passing the Waitrose in Beckenham. They have several textile bins, always with spare capacity.
For our street the leaflets the council were probably referring to were just tucked under the lids of the green bids on a pouring wet Wednesday collection day so by the time those that work would have got home there probably wasn’t a legible leaflet left! Luckily I was home that morning and managed to rescue one that wasn’t too badly damaged and photocopied for the other residents in our small block of flats. However it seems that the contractor is constantly changing their minds. The council website now says not to even put plastic bags in the green bins which were always allowed,
Shows the extent of confusion. I was always under the impression that you could not recycle plastic bags.
One other issue which causes me angst is the clear film often used over plastic trays. We’re supposed to fully remove that from the trays before we recycle, throwing the film away. Sometimes that film never NEVER comes off.
Some ‘plastic’ film is actually cellophane and not plastic. Cellophane is made from cellulose (ie it’s plant-based) and, according to Wikipedia, is 100% biodegradable. Not sure I’d want to put it in my compost heap though.
Just been looking at Lewisham’s recycling page and see that polystyrene is no longer accepted either (not that I ever had much of that to put in!). So that’s plastic bags, clothing and polystyrene that are no longer accepted. As Lewisham don’t seem to promote this information, surely that has increased the amount of contaminated recycling?
And I didn’t see the Mayor’s letter that was supposed to have been delivered in July (fortunately there’s a copy online). Was it sent in an envelope or just posted loose through the letterbox?
@armadillo + 2! But it explains why I saw a pile of clothes pulled out of a green bin
by the refuse people a while back. I regularly check the bin lid for dos and don’ts.
I wonder if it will all go to make compost which the council can sell on. I admit I haven’t looked in to it at all but some councils do make and sell their own from local waste.
Just checking Lewisham Web site and the changes to what can and can’t go in the green bins is vast. Prior to leaving FH we also followed the guidelines of the stickers on the bins, obviously now wrong. There seems to be very little thought gone into recycling and informing residents. We did not receive ANY new info prior to leaving in April this year and we were quite fanatical about recycling. Lewisham needs to have a long hard look at its bin policy.
Lewisham Environmental services could also do far more on social media. Simply posting on here would reach tens of thousands of local people. I’ve reached out to them about this - perhaps worth others doing so too?