Does your local council have a shop selling unwanted goods for recycling?

Question

If not, perhaps you would be so kind as to email the Chief Executive and the Strategic Planning Officer

asking them to open a shop.

Every day mountains of waste are crushed and burnt - a vast amount should be given a second life. EG. old desks, doors, chairs, tables, rugs, crockery, books. The stuff people chuck out is often reusuable.

A community shop, with sorters / collectors helps to provide employment and space could be found within existing recycling sites.

The cost to purchase items should be reasonably low.

More info. here:

http://www.the-alternative.org.uk (FREE downloads)

Chapter 9: Waste

Answer 1

no, but, we're trying to get one

Answer 2

I agree with all of the answers

Answer 3

Yes it does.  There are also many charity shops too.

Answer 4

Do you mean to recycle or re-use? Yours is a good idea; it is surprising how difficult it can be to convince council workers to let you take useful stuff back from the tip.

Answer 5

This is a great idea tho' you might have some concerns voiced by local stores that such a scheme would be undercutting their businesses.

I had to use our local recycling facility quite a lot recently and I was shocked at the number of almost good items which were just being junked. There was no facility for recycling useful products such as carpets and underlay and they were just being sent to the landfill site. Polystyrene, too seems not to be recycled yet.

Freecycle is excellent but I suspect a lot of people just can't be bothered.

Here the council wants to implement an "energy from waste" plant - basically an incinerator - which seems to me to be a short-sighted solution as these things just throw the pollutants high into the atmosphere. There is still a toxic fallout - but I don't know enough about that yet. It isn't Combined Heat and Power and it isn't all that environmentally friendly.

I suspect that the main problem with your proposal is that it isn't all that economic (i.e. no-one makes money from it!) Nevertheless, given the critical state of our environment maybe we should just be finding money to run such schemes.

I'd also like to see more pressure put on manufacturers to use recycleable, bio-degradable and long-lasting materials and to take some responsibility for their packaging. On my trips to the dump I saw loads of consumer goods which were last years "thing", broken but unrepairable and therefore dumped.  One man brought several plastic suitcases which had just cracked through the body. Such "instant landfill" should be regulated out of existence!

Answer 6

It's a good idea! Sheffield is really bad at any form of recycling so I won't get my hopes up.

As an example of what can be done at a dump its also worth checking out what the dumps and landfills are doing recycling wise in Plymouth in Devon.

http://www.plymouth.gov.uk/homepage/envi...

It's quite impressive (OK, it doesn't have a shop) and includes recycling furniture etc and way ahead of most other city dumps. (I used to work for the guy who got this recycling of dump waste going in the early 1990s.) Even garden cuttings are turned into compost.

Worth suggesting this to local authorities too. They can go visit to find out more.

By the way, food waste makes excellent compost if you have a garden. Worth having a bin for plate scrapings etc at home and a decent compost box in the garden. Adding torn/crumpled up card and paper lets air circulate, speeds up composting and adds to the compost. Britons chuck away one third of the food they buy. Talk about waste [of money]!

http://www.biggreenswitch.co.uk/waste_re...

Answer 7

how about freecycle. co.uk? you advertise on a local site stuff you want to get rid of. people email you if they want it, you arrange collection/delivery and it is done. All free, all reused, no landfill.

Also no cost of hiring people to sort the stuff, no storage etc.

Answer 8

You are joking!  I have asked for items at our local tip and the guys there says keep off it`s going to land fill. If they care that much about recycling. they should give it not charge they did not pay for it. councils make enough money. they make me sick it`s always money money. money.