Will the pink electrical recycling scheme turn you green?

Seems a good idea and a special colour sack must make recycling easier at the depot.
The only doorstep recycling my council provides is a fortnightly paper bin collection so I’m jealous.

However I would urge consumers to recycle through reuse as much as possible especially for electricals, use Freecycle, charity shops and charity furniture recyclers where possible

Now THAT’S a good idea! We could do with that in our area (though allegedly we now have on-street recycling for electrical items, but they’re not exactly convenient).

My biggest bug bear about the dump – or refuse and recycling centres as they call them where I live – is they are pretty much inaccessible without a car, either because they’re not near any public transport, or because they won’t let you in without a car. I appreciate planning requirements mean the locations are pretty limited, but they should be more accessible for people who don’t have cars. I’m about to move to a car-free development so couldn’t have a car even if I wanted, so would have to hire one to go to the dump. We will do a pre-move trip, but for those little things that accumulate over the years, being able to chuck them in a bag to be collected would be much appreciated!

I live in a very touristy area with a large number of holiday homes.
As these are “business properties” they dont get free refuse collection and have to pay for their different colour wheely bin to be emptied – fair enough.

However they cant get a separate paper bin for recycling unlike other houses, which seems ridiculous !

Having just moved to a new borough where the recycling collections are significantly worse than in my previous borough, you’re making me very jealous Charlotte!

I do think this is a good idea, especially for batteries etc that kick around the house and often end up getting chucked away out of frustration. Do agree with rarrar about reusing and using services like Freecycle wherever possible though. I’ve given lots of stuff away on freecycle – if it still works you’ll nearly always find someone who wants it and will keep using it, which has to be preferable to recycling. Unfortunately, charity shops very rarely take electrical goods anymore though.

It is bizarre that they should give out pink bags only the first time round and not again after that. This dilutes the message to the point of its being non-existent. It is only through reinforcement that a lot of people recycle nowadays, through seeing more and more recycling bins in streets and at airports for example, so people should regularly see filled pink bags in the street ready for collection for the message to get through. The local authority should give out a roll of these pink bags to each household or provide reusable pink plastic bins (but then maybe some of us would keep them for something else if they are too pretty…).

In Edinburgh there is no such collection scheme as yet. We have to haul our small recyclable good to the recycling centre ourselves, which are few and inconveniently placed for most people, but they’re there.

I have been told by at least half a dozen charity shops that they don’t accept electrical goods, full stop, so Freecycle would be the only other solution for me, or carboot sales, eBay etc.