Recycling at Mercia Marina

Mercia Marina has just brought in recycling bins.  A small gesture, but an important one I think.

The bins were being used straight away when they arrived last week, but I rustled up a few people on Sunday lunchtime for a 'photo opportunity' and we took out and put stuff back just for the camera!  

Bins being lonely things and not the brightest of subjects, I wanted to show a lot of people - all at once - keeping the bins company and having fun chucking in their recyclables.

(I know it looks contrived, but, hey.  You try photographing rubbish without it looking, er, rubbish.)

Recycling is the new Victorian churchgoing, the virtuous lipservice that people criticise other people for not doing, but don't themselves practice. 

One of the problems is that there's little incentive for businesses to introduce it.  It's an expensive extra that people often are unwilling to have added to their bills.  Mercia has put its recycling bins on the way out of the main marina exit, so there's little excuse for us to avoid it now!  Everyone leaving their boats will encounter it. It won't take much effort.

I rang to find out what other marinas in the area are doing about recycling.  Sawley Marina says it's got a separate bin for paper and cardboard, but otherwise it's just the single landfill bin. 

Another lady at Barton Marina said they have a bottle bank and again a paper collection, but not for cans, cardboard or plastic.

Of the official BW facilities, only the one at Fradley Junction, a full day's cruising away, has some limited recycling, says the regional BW office at Newark.  BW's public sanitary station at Willington (just around the corner from the marina) only has single landfill bins, but I'm told that the BW contractor (Biffa) claims to try and recycle stuff from those.  (With compostables in the same bin, that isn't easy.)

Mercia's recycling bins have only two sections - one for glass, and the other for combined card/plastic/cans/polythene - which does make it a bit easier when you are gathering your waste on board your narrowboat.

 

One thing I'd like to see is perhaps a separate box for smaller electricals like lightbulbs and batteries (AA torch cells, not necessarily the full lead-acid boat batteries).  Batteries are a serious problem.  Not least, improperly-disposed batteries can be a serious problem - even a fire hazard.

For instance, there are numerous reports of fires at waste disposal plants (e.g. a fire at a Veolia plant in Derby two years ago, one at Birmingham earlier this year and reports worldwide via UKWIN).  Many of these have been blamed on old and decomposing batteries, improperly disposed.

[I got this info from someone at Veolia, but it's too contentious as Halfie points out in the comments; sorry I put it in]

I called Veolia's head office, who pointed me to their website's Battery Compliance page and the Electrical Collection Service.  All this is early days - I've yet to see a single battery collection box anywhere - but every business is going to have to introduce these services soon. 

Meantime, kudos to Mercia Marina for the most complete recycling I've yet seen at a marina.  Let's hope we boaters do our bit too. 

[Declaration: Granny B is advising Mercia Marina with its own PR here and there.  I'm giving this disclaimer now, but I will always try to be impartial in my posts here and this represents my own genuine view.]

Comments

[Tony Islander]

Good to see this happening.

Couple of points without wanting to be a spoil sport! Coloured (Coded) bins are useful... there are still many people around, so we are told, who can't read!

My other point is their being abused by yobs who can defeat the whole object of them being put out in the first place. Probably down to everyone keeping an eye out for possible potential offenders.

[Andrew Denny]

Well spotted, Alan!  Yes, hover your pointer over the picture and you'll see that the main guy is Mike Shaw, a manager at the marina.   It was my idea to do the photo (I wanted to visit the subject of recycling, but they were of course willing to help - all good publicity for them.  However, the other two were a bit more reluctant...

 

[alan Glass]

The second photo has three people all wearing what looks like the same brand top/fleece. I wonder if there Marina staff?

[Andrew Denny]

OK you win. I was told it by the people at Veolia, and I swallowed it whole!

Sent from my iPhone

[Halfie]

Andrew, not one of the waste fire reports suggests that discarded batteries were to blame. Where is your evidence that "improperly-disposed batteries can be a serious problem - even a fire hazard"?