Hey grocer that rhymes with Mains… berry (I tried). I’m not buying mushrooms from you anymore. Nor scallions, cucumbers, apples, tomatoes, or red onions. You recently discontinued loose mushrooms. Now, my only choice is mushrooms in plastic punnets wrapped in more plastic.
Oh yes, people of York, this is going to be one of those columns. Buckle up.
If I want scallions, I have to buy a plastic net bag stuffed with enough to feed my entire street. Cucumbers are all wrapped in plastic, the apples that are a reasonable size (read: not the size of my child’s head) and price are similarly pre-packaged. The opposite goes for the red onions: you need to buy three loose onions to make up the size of the pre-packed ones. And your loose tomatoes? Don’t call those cardboard, flavourless red orbs tomatoes. I have taste buds, you know. To add insult to injury, the loose produce is almost always more expensive. Added bonus – they come with non-recyclable, non-compostable stickers. Thanks. It’s like you’ve seen into my soul, and decided, meh, wasn’t that bothered with her anyway.
I PMed the grocer in question to enquire about this mushroom fiasco. They replied:
We’ve recently joined the UK Plastic Pact. The pact aims to change the plastic packaging system in the UK and help tackle plastic waste and keep it out of the ocean. As part of this commitment, we’ve agreed to hit a series of ambitious targets by 2025, including making 100% of our plastic reusable, recyclable or compostable. The good news is, we’re already well on our way to meeting many of those targets.
Right. But first… you’re going to make things worse? I’m not following.
And speaking of not following. HAVE YOU TRIED TO RECYCLE IN THIS CITY? The local council has made it more convoluted and inconvenient than buying a house or filing for divorce? I don’t know, I’ve never done either of those in this country, but I imagine they’re not fun, and certainly not something you’d volunteer to do fortnightly.
Sure, we all sort our recycling. But what, I ask you, are you putting into those sorted recycling bins? Guess what? In York properties, you really can’t recycle much at the kerbside. Here’s what the council website says about plastics: We only collect plastic bottles (with or without lids) with your kerbside recycling. You can recycle any size or colour of plastic bottle.
Fair enough. That seems clear, if limited. That means NO: tubs or pots. None. No yogurt pots, no margarine tubs, nadda. It also means, no fruit punnets. No meats trays. No plastic wrap, bags or bubble wrap.
As for metal, they state: You can recycle all metal food and drinks cans (steel and aluminium). You don’t need to remove labels, but please wash them out before recycling. (Side note: I guess I can stop arguing with my husband about removing labels. Oops!)
However, the list of what you can’t recycle is as important as what you can; NO aluminium foil or foil trays, baking trays, metal utensils, coat hangers, cutlery or paint tins.
Paint tins? Cutlery? Honestly, do these things need saying? I guess they do, because, well, they’ve said it.
Paper seems a given though, right? I mean, just… recycle all your paper stuff. Wrong.
Staples must be removed from brochures and flyers. Plastic windows removed from envelopes. And – here’s the kicker – no cartons. Most of your cartons will be Tetra paks or Ital packs. They’ll be lined in some kind of foil, wax or plastic. Also, please hold onto your take-away coffee cups. Same deal; they’re lined in a wax or plastic to make them waterproof. They’re evil anyway, why aren’t you bringing along your own travel mug? (Although admittedly the world of travel mugs is full of its own environmental pit falls – avoid the plastic even if you’re reusing it; the ceramic and glass ones are lovely, costly and breakable; the metal ones could have silly bits of plastic on them, making them highly complicated to recycle…)
But hey, folks of York, it’s all good, because you can haul the rest of your recycling to your closest recycling depot, often found in car parks of larger grocers, or at the Hazel Court Household Waste Recycling Centre. (Wait. Doesn’t the council run Hazel Court? So, if you can drive your extra recycling bits there, why doesn’t the council just take them kerbside? Where does the Tip recycling go? Is anyone as confused as me?) Toss them into your boot along with those bags for the charity shop, and eventually, once every blue blood wolf moon (seriously, I thought blue moons were rare, thus the phrase, but in the past twelve months, haven’t we had about 15?) you’ll remember to unload your additional recyclables.
Also, if you have Tetra paks, you’ll have to go to one of only four locations in York, found here. (Note, the Tetra pak recycling at Asda has been discontinued, so thanks for that, Tetra.)
And if you want to compost but don’t have space for a bin, you’re out of luck. There’s not even a central compost point that takes household compost, never mind doing it kerbside.
It’s all a bit much to remember what can be recycled, and my household is very integrated with the zero-waste philosophy. We pay attention, and we make choices that avoid single use plastics (see opening rant) and still, I find it overwhelming. Right now, I have my three kerbside bins. I have bags of plastic and foil to walk over to the closest recycling depot. I have a bag of bags and miscellaneous allowable stretchy plastic packaging that can be recycled at most large grocers. Another bag of Tetra paks. I also managed to find myself a compost buddy, and about once a month, I haul my kitchen scraps (Remember, no dairy or meat!) across the ‘hood to a compost bin in the garden of a generous person I’ve never actually met. And recently, I’ve started yet another bag of miscellaneous bits and bobs (crisp packages, biscuit wrappers, lids, toothpaste tubes, and contact lens containers) to bring to either St. Nick’s, or for those of you on the other side of town, to the new bulk food and zero waste shop on Bishopthorpe Road called The Bishy Weigh.
Oh. And then there’s the ecobricks we’ve started making. Endless cutting and stuffing.
My house is basically just a constant state of sorting recycling. It’s ridiculous. And here’s the thing. It’s totally worth it to me. This is my thing. Some people are vegan evangelists. Some people are pro-Brexit evangelists. Some people are even Evangelical evangelists. I’m a zero-waste, fix this planet evangelist. And yet the state of what, where and how to recycle in this city does my head in. I mean, okay, there’s an extensive online list of what can be recycled where. It’s actually really handy. But how many of you knew about it? York residents don’t know how to recycle, and local authorities aren’t doing enough to advertise and simplify the process.
In closing, Mainsberry’s and all other grocers, you’re not impressing with your 2025 goals. You don’t need to take ten steps back before heading in the right direction.
Local councils: do better.
York residents: keep trying. It’s frustrating. It’s time consuming. And it’s annoying. But it’s worth it. Someone has to fix the excess living of the 80s and 90s. One. Recyclable. At. A. Time.
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