So what's going to happen to the firewood market?

[SbTVF]

Farm assurance requires empty chemical containers to be recycled but silage wrap, net wrap and be twine is very hard to get anyone to take it away because it’s hopeless to process. I bet most goes to landfill or is burnt on farm.

I suppose you’d end up with micro beads of plastic in the watercourse eventually from the incinerator ash but the ash in it that was from everything but plastic would probably do more good than harm for a long time first.

There’s a company up north turning plastic into a granule that is mixed in tarmac for roads now, that’s an excellent use for it.

We should recycle more as a nation. And properly. Not just shot it all in one tub and expect w council worker to do it at a facility. We should be provided with more specific recycling bins to separate the useful stuff!

[arboriculturist]

41 minutes ago, SbTVF said:

Farm assurance requires empty chemical containers to be recycled but silage wrap, net wrap and be twine is very hard to get anyone to take it away because it’s hopeless to process. I bet most goes to landfill or is burnt on farm.

I suppose you’d end up with micro beads of plastic in the watercourse eventually from the incinerator ash but the ash in it that was from everything but plastic would probably do more good than harm for a long time first.

There’s a company up north turning plastic into a granule that is mixed in tarmac for roads now, that’s an excellent use for it.

We should recycle more as a nation. And properly. Not just shot it all in one tub and expect w council worker to do it at a facility. We should be provided with more specific recycling bins to separate the useful stuff!

We have more bins in our house than the council facility ! - I'm all for it though. ?

[neiln]

Croydon (where I am) had just shrunk everybody's landfill wheelie, and replaced the recycling crates with wheelies (one for paper, another for glass, tin, plastic).  It's clearly aimed at making it harder to just send to landfill and encouraging households to use the existing recycling more.  Which is good.

While I'd happily separate a bit more at home.... With my garden waste wheelie it's hard enough to store 4, let alone 5 or 6!

[nepia]

I like that, especially the bit about landfill:  I mean wtf in this day and age?! 

 

The whole of waste management in this country is being done just so badly; it's turned into a moneymaking exercise for those that want it and has nothing to do with reusing/recycling, reducing waste etc.  It gets harder to lose domestically produced waste because of it and bureaucracy (more than half an old wardrobe = trade waste!) rather than being made an easier and more eco friendly (horrible expression!) experience.

 

Without condoning it I do understand why some flytipping occurs.

[drinksloe]

5 hours ago, Squaredy said:

Yes ash from waste incinerators is  apparently very nasty indeed. Even pure wood ash is not good in the long run as it is highly alkali.

 

Mibee different soils etc down ur way, but generally in my area soils tend to be acidic so no bad thing spreading ash.

Infact spreading lime is back in fashion again too, all the old timers done it in past but seemed to go out of fashion (or too expensive?)

lot of pot ash from local burning pants being sspread on fields now  (althou i can imgine burning plastice etc would not prodce good ash)

[openspaceman]

13 hours ago, arboriculturist said:

When I did my  PA1 / PA6 the recommendation was to burn all empty plastic Herbicide/Pesticide containers on the farm !

That was a while back then, last I heard it was to triple rinse into the sprayer and then dispose as normal commercial waste. Mind not many do it even though it is sensible and practicable.

[openspaceman]

15 hours ago, Woodworks said:

Ash from incinerating plastic must be full of all sorts of nasties. 

Why? If we are talking about a municipal incineration plant it will have high temperatures to make sure everything burns cleanly and filters/scrubbers on the exhaust to pick up heavy metals and and such.

 

Most plastics are simple, even PVC when burned  properly only gives off H2O, CO2 and HCL. It is however difficult to burn in a simple device because the flame is too short for a clean burnout so PICs including dioxins are given off. You can tell if its burning cleanly because a cloud forms abouve the exhaust, this is because the HCl gas given off is so hydrophylic it grabs any moisture out of the air and condences as hydrochlric acid. An incineration plant will absorb this before it is released IF it is run well (most are not).

 

Whilst I think it would be great to recycle plastics to make bottles and containers again this does not seem practical and we have made a mess of collecting and separating them. As we still burn oil for electricity and plastics are essentially just polymers (long chains) of CH2 as are most mineral oils and they only account for a very small portion of oil products consumed then why not use them for heat?

[difflock]

Our bins only goes out the lane about every 6 months, one filled with misc unburnable stuff, the other purely full of empty steel/tin cans.

All else goes up the flue, the cardboard and paper help light the fire and minimal quantity of plastics, mostly bottles,  being added after the fire is well established.

marcus

[openspaceman]

1 hour ago, difflock said:

Our bins only goes out the lane about every 6 months, one filled with misc unburnable stuff, the other purely full of empty steel/tin cans.

All else goes up the flue, the cardboard and paper help light the fire and minimal quantity of plastics, mostly bottles,  being added after the fire is well established.

marcus

I'm not so sure about advocating this, I was more making the point that dirty plastic was better burned in  a dedicated power station (not an incinerator taking all residual rubbish ) rather than exported or lnd filled.

[Big J]

9 minutes ago, openspaceman said:

I'm not so sure about advocating this, I was more making the point that dirty plastic was better burned in  a dedicated power station (not an incinerator taking all residual rubbish ) rather than exported or lnd filled.

I agree that burning plastic isn't ideal, but I read recently that around 70% of plastic packaging in the UK is not presently recyclable. Between it going to landfill and being incinerated in a (hot) home stove, I'm not sure which is worst. 

 

At our old house, we found that once summer started in earnest (and we didn't have the fire on), we were easily filling our 240l recycling bin every 2 weeks, with it sometimes being a squeeze. When the fire was on and anything combustible was burnt, it was once every 6-8 weeks, rather than once every fortnight. Quite a difference. 

 

We lived (and luckily still do) by ourselves with no neighbours, so any particulate emissions wouldn't be of direct concern to anyone in our vicinity, but I do acknowledge that it's not ideal.