We're now being forced to recycle our rubbish in London, does it really make any difference?

Answer 1

To you personally, it is a choice of recycling or paying higher taxes. It costs the council less recycling, even if the feedstock is shipped to China, than it does to put it in a landfill or incinerator.

And yes it makes a positive difference from an environmental perspective as well.

Answer 2

It is really unbelievable how much of our "rubbish" is salvageable! Not only can we reuse a lot of glass bottles, we can also recycle the rest of the glass into other uses. Not only can we reuse many of the plastic bottles, but the plastic can be melted down and reused in hundreds, thousands of other items - even the plastic bag you take your groceries home in and the plastic fork picked up at the fast food. But besides these 2 things we also have to remember there is cardboard and paper items recycled - think of all the trees we DON'T have to cut down that continue to give us oxygen!
How about the rubber, the metal cans and all the aluminum that is recycled?!! So much can be reused to help save what the Earth has provided us.

In answer to your question----YES, YES, YES, it really does make a difference.

Answer 3

Of course it makes a difference. We don't use as much new resource when the product goes back into the recycling chain.
It would make a bigger difference if no one recycled because we would run out of our precious resources much sooner.
" Doncaster are sending their plastic bottles to China for recycling. How daft is that? "
And then we buy something from the Chinese made out of recycled plastic bottles. How clever is that?
Pity it has to travel so far, maybe we should invest more and encourage use of recycled materials.
We all make a difference.
John.

Answer 4

if everyone does ther bit of course it makes a difference!i cant believe that you feel you are being 'forced' to recycle when ultimitly it will benefit generations in the fututre who otherwise would be living on top of rubbish heaps!Obviously there is a problem in London for them to 'force' you to recycle and think that this alone is enough of a reason to take note and do the right thing.

Answer 5

I think it will make more difference then in suburbs- because if you think of it - people who recycle stuff mostly live in suburbs, hwere council provides recycling bins, and they drive to recycling centers fo rthe items that council don't take(often near big supermarkets, that combines shopping with recycling).
A tipical city dweller would rarelly recycle anything, because there is no special bins, and surely most of them are public transpost users and would not drive to any recycling centres ever.
And if you compare desity of the population in the cities and suburbs - hell, yes - this will make the difference even if 1/3 of city people will start to recycle. This would be a huge impact!
As for Del Piero answer above - why does he care where they recycle? this provides peple with work, and it takes 1/3 of the energy to make something out of recycled glass or plastic (if not less) then making it from the raw source!

Answer 6

of course it makes a difference, I cant believe your saying your being FORCED!! you should recycle as second nature, we're a family of four and have got our rubbish down to 3/4's of a dustbin bag per week, not bad concidering our neighbours are the same and they have upto 6 bags per week, every little helps with recycling :-)

Answer 7

None whatsoever. Doncaster are sending their plastic bottles to China for recycling. How daft is that?

Answer 8

YES - it reduces the amount of waste and creates jobs while supplying a plethora of resources to be returned into the production stream.

Answer 9

Well, why want to throw away things that are still good and can be used again ? Glass bottles after washed can be used many times over.

Answer 10

it makes some difference, especially with a whole city. it helps the environment!