Friday, August 16, 2013

Sorting Out The Trash


Okay, sorting out the trash here is serious business. But apparently the UK is lagging behind the recycling league table which ranks countries on their recycling rates for Municipal Solid Waste (MSW). Wah. Okay. Not that I've lived those countries to understand how their recycling works for residents.

While we've always had a habit of recycling at home in Singapore, it's a very simple platform split across a number of categories- plastics, paper and cardboard, glass, metals, and e-waste. Then we lug all the sorted stuff to the recycling bins at the corner of the estate and chuck them into the huge (labelled) wheelie bins at any time of the day at our choosing. Not difficult. Many other items also go into the general waste bin and eventually get bagged and thrown down the rubbish chute of the flat. But in UK (and probably Germany, Norway and Sweden), it gets a bit more complicated (relative to perceptions) since there're specific color-coded bags for the respective items, and to only put out recycling bags and boxes at a designated timing prior to collection times.

In the London flat, I stared at the color-coded recycling bags, frowned and decided not to be a smart-ass. I've forgotten which's for what. Went online to find out the items required to go into the green recycling box, the white recycling tall bag, wheelie bin and landfill waste. The pale yellow trash bag pictured above is for food waste. Only food. Please don't place the take-out containers with it. One could only use up to three bags a week. Three. Which means if I've food waste, it goes into another air-tight box before being scrapped out into this pale yellow bag. Fine. Seriously, if I can get my hands on more bags, how would they know if I've maxed out the quota of three somehow?! Now you know why gloves are my best friends. In Singapore, two sets of gloves will suffice. London, I've about five sets of kitchen gloves for every conceivable reason. 

Before we go to bed every night, the trash must be sorted. Or if we don't really have trash, then it's done every two days. Can't just leave it be. We don't want the flat to stink. But it does call up all my OCD tendencies. Instead of blowing my nose into a tissue to be thrown into a bin to unhygienically sit for days, I ermm hunch over a sink, then wash my hands, nose and face assiduously after. Sorting out trash isn't tedious lah. It can be rather therapeutic, like the washing of dishes by hand (which I love) instead of turning on the dishwasher. Still, it's a household chore. YAWN.

7 comments:

D said...

a chore indeed. we even have to sort out soft plastic from hard plastic. but i've gotten used to recycling by now. so much so that it IRKS me whenever the housekeeping staff at our service apartment threw ALL my painstakingly separated trash in the different colour-coded bins (provided inside the apartment) into their general trash bin!

imp said...

what??! how can they be so inconsiderate. all that effort of yours. i'd have morphed into this OCD monster and tell them NEVER to touch my trash again. Except it might piss them off and they retaliate by not cleaning at all. Grrrr. won't that mean they have to sort out the trash later? or they just don't care?

kikare said...

Waste sorting in Sweden seems to be very similar to Singapore. We take paper, plastic, glass (separate clear from coloured), metal and batteries to the recycling station or just downstairs and put them in marked bins. Food waste is to be put in a special paper bag (when you're out then just go down to the basemen to get more) and then in a brown bin downstairs. Non-recyclables are then the last bit, to be put to the bins, then sent to burn for energy recovery.
The English system sounds clumsy. They could have at least print some information on the coloured bags, like we have here for food waste. On the paper bag you can read about what should/ should not go in it.
We don't take out our trash on a daily basis (it could be us only, but I doubt that). We fill the trash bag full to the brim before we tie it up and take it downstairs. Food waste, max two bags per week. By sorting as much as possible it actually takes more than a week to fill up the household trash bag. And because what goes in it are not wet or organic waste (it's mostly envelopes, paper & plastic mixed materials, paper & metal mixed materials etc) it hardly smell.

imp said...

kikare: the swedish system seems coherent. I think the greatest difference will be the food waste bit if SG ever does it. People are going to faint from the sheer smells in the humidity. Currently, our food waste goes into the general waste bin that's cleared every day. Similar to HK I think.

kikare said...

There are moulds and there are maggots in summer, in the food waste bins. But summer is so short here so it's not a real problem. In Singapore it will be a different story. Even here, the older generation was skeptical about sorting food waste at home because they're afraid that will invite rats into the house!

D said...

the housekeeping staff (mostly immigrants) don't care lah! :( they don't even bother to vacuum the tiny apartment properly, missing under tables/chairs completely as though they were immovable (unless i request for it every now and then). sigh.

imp said...

kikare: oh, i forgot about rats. Ugh.

D: aiyoh. Tsk. One would have thought it's common sense, but i guess whatever takes least effort works for them.