Environ...mental

In the news recently - a pensioner prosecuted (and fined) for putting a tea bag in her regular bin, instead of with the garden waste.

This madness isn't restricted to the home. Here in my office we've had our bins taken away. Another "good corporate citizen" initiative that looks good while achieving very little, and making everyday life just that little bit harder. We now have to march halfway across the office to the "recycling point" and decide which of two bins to put our rubbish in - recyclable material or landfill. So off I stroll with my little parcel of lunch detritus. Two apple cores, two Babybel cheese skins (purple wax) and a banana skin. All into landfill. Yet the majority of it could be composted, so where's the "green" in that? And after the above incident with the tea bag we're told we shouldn't throw food waste into landfill because it gives off methane (a Very Bad Greenhouse Gas, children), so where's the "green" in THAT?

The bins are clearly marked, but on the evidence to date people are clearly confused as to what's recyclable and what isn't. Even with the help of the little pictures on the bin lids (God help us…it's like being back in primary school), folk are still tossing their recyclable plastic cups from the drinks machine into the landfill bin.

Now I know this might sound elitist and snobby, but the people who work here are supposed to be of above average intelligence. We only recruit graduates, and everyone is busy designing high-powered systems for use by central and local government and key financial institutions. And yet, even with the aid of pictures, some of these geniuses still can't work out whether a plastic cup should go left, or right.

I give up and return to my desk. Via the gents, since having carried my parcel over to the bins my hands are rather damp and sticky. Still it could be worse. I could be the one sifting the contents of the bins into the right piles for different recycling plants. Or searching through the landfill bin for misplaced cups. Someone MUST be doing this, right? They can't simply be chucking the bags into a skip. Can they?