- glass
- cans
- paper/magazines
- textiles

... so no cardboard or plastics. OK, no plastics is to be expected since we've all now got more fleece jumpers and coats than we'll ever need but - no cardboard?

The second leaflet explains all. We can put cardboard out for recycling provided it's either:

- tied up in a bundle with string or
- placed in a cardboard box
- is cardboard ONLY, no paper and certainly no packaging with plastic windows

... and it'll be collected on the same day as the recycle box - albeit by a separate contractor with a separate vehicle.

Hmmm, well, maybe they'll be in a pedal car rather than a second enormous diesel truck (oink, flap, oink, flap).

I called our local council to ask if I could - rather than going to the bother of finding string or a suitably large cardboard box each fortnight - make use of one of my own plastic boxes and put the cardboard out in that?

Sorry, no, I can't. Apparently that would cause a problem with the contractors having to leave my box out on the street having emptied it. Their way, they can just pick up my bundle and chuck it in the truck.

OK, rules is rules I suppose. Let's forget that my official recycling box will be being left in the street anyway, and I could probably contrive to find a box for my cardboard that would fit inside it when empty - we're not looking for solutions here.

I then asked what kind of cardboard box was acceptable to put my cardboard recycling out in.

Would it be it OK, for instance, to use one which is held together with plastic parcel tape or metal staples? Or should I seek out only those boxes which use paper parcel tape?

Turns out this is a tricky question.

As is my subsequent question about what sort of string might be acceptable for typing up a bundle which wouldn't cross-contaminate the cardboard material.

Hemp twine? Home-made nettlefibre rope? Deer sinew?

Obviously plastic garden rafia string is right out - not that the leaflet appears to care, string is string is string it seems to assume.

"Ha ha, yes, I see your point. We hadn't really thought about it. Erm, please don't mention that."

I understand why people who aren't particularly eco-aware think recycling is a faff. It IS a faff, and not made any easier when so little thought to the practicalities is given by the people making the rules.

I'm prepared to jump through the hoops, but I bet lots of other perfectly reasonable folk aren't.

By the way, anyone happen to know what specific kind of string might be preferred in the cardboard recyling industry? Answers on a postcard, written only in 2B pencil and posted in the next-but-one postbox to where you live.
--
Simon