'Which bin?' waste quandary addressed by Dara

A very interested audience at Kilcullen Library yesterday heard an instructive and entertaining presentation on sorting waste, writes Brian Byrne.

Given by Kildare County Council's Environmental Education Officer, Dara Wyer, the afternoon talk was one of a series of similar presentations in the Council's programme of increasing awareness of how to recycle home waste.

A key element of the talk was to ensure that no residual food contamination should be left on any otherwise recyclable containers. "The bottom line, if there's food in it, it doesn't go into the recycle bin," Dara emphasised.

A simple tip on disposing of plastic bottles is to squash them into a compact form and then put the stoppers back on so they will keep that status and not take up more space in bins.

He outlined the changes in overseas countries, especially in Asia, which have changed their previous willingness to accept the world's waste, which makes it more important to reduce such waste here at home.

Cutting back on the use of foil in the home was another tip, with the addendum that any balled up foil, even if completely clean, should not be put in the recycle bin.

He also noted the common plastic bottles of cleaning agents with trigger tops. "The bottles can be recycled, but not the triggers, which contain metal and are too complicated to work with. But keep the trigger tops, you may be able to use them with other bottles."

His pet problem product is the tube of crisps, 'very effectively marketed, but it's essentially just a bag of crisps, with no less than four elements in its packaging'. These include plastic wrapping, non-recyclable; foil; the cardboard tube, and a metal base. "About 85pc recyclable, but it can go into the recycle bin." Without the top plastic wrapping.

Metal is generally fine, and rigid plastics are suitable too. All plastic wrapping should go in the domestic waste bin.

All recyclable materials must be clean and dry, and running plastic food trays and containers through the dishwasher should clear them of any food contamination.

"Any kind of paper can be recycled, but it must be dry," he warned. The pre-wrapped sandwich is another bugbear, 'apart from the fact that it's about three days old, but that's your choice'. It can't be separated into recyclable and non-recyclable. Dara suggested always getting the deli counter to make up your sandwich fresh, and then have it wrapped in paper.

There was much more. Including a reminder of the scary new lifestyle trend which resulted in 300 million single use coffee takeaway containers being dumped in Ireland last year. But at the end, despite the complexities, all present did go away with a better handle on the 'which bin' quandary.



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