Recycling is very much at the fore and some brilliant ideas and community interaction are taking place all over the country/world.

This I thought is an excellent idea. So far as I know, it seems to be in the are of Kent, but if any of the supermarkets in Wirral would engage, it could be an amazing result. Sainsbury's, Tesco, and Waitrose are collection points in Kent and East Sussex .



Charity coffee pod & crisp packet recycling

Whilst our main focus and indeed fundraiser has been Tassimo drinks pods over the last few years we have recently started collecting your used crisp packets.

We take all sizes, brands and multi bag outer packaging.

Crisp packets take over 30 years to break down. Over 100 million are eaten in the UK daily!

You drop them off and we sort them before sending off to the recycler. Every 3kg (approx 400/500 packets) is enough to wrap 3 patients in bubble wrap whilst being flown to a major trauma centre by Air Ambulance Kent Surrey Sussex. This simple yet effective measure allows for patients to maintain their core body temperature and is key in the chain of survival.

Who would have thought eating something so yummy would do so much good for not only sick and seriously injured patients but our environment?

If you are a company/school/club/scout group etc and want to start your own collection then please send us a message. We pay for the postage and all money you raise goes directly to Air Ambulance Kent Surrey Sussex.

Only half understand the logic in this one granny . We need to recycle , so that part is good, but equally we need to move away from plastics . Bubble wrap used with sick or injured people is single use, and they do use it liberally in all sorts of medical situations! . When other products are available to do a job , even if a bit more costly , surely that's the way we must go. There must be fluffed up paperbased products or something which could be used instead even if they still have to have a little bit of plastic to seal and make them flexible/fit for purpose . Promoting this recycling as a way for the Air ambulances to be able to buy shedloads of single use 100% plastic seems a backwards step to me . Even if its biodegradable, the validity of that is still questionable as the minute pieces remain.

I agree, Venice. Plastics should be something of the past very soon. What they are doing with the crisp packets ? I'm not sure, but it has to be a good option to collect them and use them for something else, rather than them ending up in the general waste when they are put in landfill.

A baker in Cheshire has stopped using polythene loaf wrappings. That was on the news this am. so things are moving in the right direction.

It begs the question of what is the weight and volume of the polythene is on a loaf (and the same goes for a crisp packet)?

Using waxed paper could be just as much if not more of a problem.

There are numerous other industries that haven't been looked at like Pizza Parlours.

What are the downsides of waxed paper DD?

Waxed paper a lot heavier than the low density polythene equivalent and can't be recycled easily, its not supposed to be put in the recycle bin, its waterproof so when they try and make pulp it doesn't break up properly. The wax is usually oil based.

It didn't say if this company was using waxed paper, or what they would be using. Loaves used to be wrapped in tissue paper when we went to the bakers. That's before we got lazy and everything was pre-sliced !

Thinking about it, they don't use waxed paper for the long bread rolls in the supermarkets (damn it I can't think what they're called) The long sausage shaped sticks of bread that come in paper bags. I think they are paper but not waxed. !

French stick ! Hmm Never was good at French .

But to freeze bread it has to be in a waterproof bag. I also think (an assumption) any soft crust bread goes off quite fast without an air seal.

As crusts are carcinogenic I avoid bread with thicker crusts.

WHAAAAT ???

Most foods once they get to the sear point (usually browning) produce acrylamide which is a carcinogen. Toasting bread is of course the worst thing you can do, the high starch levels in bread make it produce quite a bit of acrylamide.

Boiling, microwaving and steaming are safe but frying, grilling, roasting, toasting and baking are a problem.

Acrylamide is known to produce cancer in animals but it is too difficult to isolate its carcinogenic affect on humans because it affects so many food types (even roasted coffee).

The bread industry are looking at ways to reduce the amount of acrylamide, there are certain things that can be added which help (I've forgotten what, I'm sure I've mentioned it before, something like basil or similar) and iirc there are some different yeasts that can help.