Why don't we use milk floats to pick up bottles for recycling ?

Question

I often see 4x4s parked up to drop a carrier bag of bottles in recycling banks and think about all that fuel being used. Why can't milk floats do an afternoon pick-up door-to-door and increase recycling rates? Are they on charge all day?

OK international friends: In the U.K. many people still have their milk and some other groceries delivered by electric powered vehicles. They cover practically every street in the early hours. I assume they are unused from noon - 4am. I think they should shedule in an afternoons recycling pick-up of all recycled glass products.

Answer 1

what is a "milk float"?

Answer 2

this is a progressive town, we have done recycling long before it became popular. in the seventies several guys started recycle businesses. they put recycling bins all over town. in the eighties they got really business like and expanded. in the early ninties the powers that be saw dollars in those bins and pushed the hippies out. today our regular refuse contractor has full recycling trucks and everyone has bins with regular pickups.

someone above said you'd be scared if you saw where this stuff ends up. they are so right. because of economics the only glass worth anything is brown glass. it's crushed and added to asphalt. all the rest is really just garbage, there is no market for it. so the taxpaer pays more taxes for regular pickup. and you'd be scared to see where it ends up.

Answer 3

I never heard of "milk floats", but my city has curbside recycling of plastic bottles, cans and paper. They get picked up as part of the regular trash pickup. Of course they get picked up by a special separate truck so as not to mix up the regular trash and the recyclables. And that truck is bigger than any 4x4 and burns more fuel than a Hummer.

Answer 4

We do he is the milkman.Or are you one of the many increasing milk bottle horders? And another thing I like driving the 2 miles to the bottle bank in my 12mpg Bentley I am pushing for them to build me a air strip so I can use my jet(Its called Carbon foot print by the way) to drop my bottle off.Must dash the suns out and I am just topping up my tan.....................

Answer 5

4X4's don't necessarily use more fuel than other vehicles, my neighbour has a 4X4 which uses less fuel (diesel) than his wife's Ford focus (petrol), so that is another myth conjured up to discredit people who have vehicles that some people are envious of.

Answer 6

Isn't that what they do? they always take my empty milk bottles away!