I would like to start by talking about the recycling of DVD and CD cases, discs and paper material as this relates most closely to my industry but I have a further and more important discussion point to make later in the article. With the billions of both CD and DVD cases out there their recycling has now become big business - but most people are still disposing of these materials in their normal bins and not specifically recycling.

There are many companies in the UK now that specialise in plastic reclaimation - normally grinding the waste materials into flakes, pellets or scraps and sending the resultant plastics to China, normally for use in the automotive and building materials industries.

The trouble with the types of plastic contained in DVD and CD cases is that they refuse to break down when in landfill sites meaning they will never bio-degrade. When asked in a survey if they had thrown away broken DVD or CD cases in the last year 72% of customers surveyed had done so (something that can only increase with the demise of these technologies over the next 5 years) but when the same group were asked if they had recycled these types of plastics a surprising 32% said that they had done. However that said, recycling services across the UK vary greatly in the different materials they accept in peoples green bins for recycling - overwhelmingly the people surveyed which said that they had not recycled regularly had not done so because 'it was inconvenient and not easy enough to understand', some sited the fact that collections were 'not regular enough' mainly being every two weeks and that often items which they expected to be recycled were rejected at the point of sorting their recycling bin.

In the last year recycling rates have risen for all areas of the UK and in some cases are rocketing up - but are these figures to be believed? Apparently according to government figures the national average is around 20% of rubbish is recycled, I don't know about you but I don't think my green bin would equate to 20% of the volume of my standard wheelie bin and seeing as its only collected once every other week it tends to fill up quickly with a lot of dead space this means items that would normally go into it often end up in the normal bins.

Many respondents to our survey cited the fact that their kitchen wasn't big enough for recycling! - We took this answer to mean that they just didn't have enough room for a couple of extra bins. Or does this come back to the fact there is no 'real' incentive to recycle for most people.

So what is the answer? I personally believe that people cannot be bothered on the whole with recycling, does this mean we should introduce fines for people who don't recycle enough, or should there be a monetary incentive / reduction on council tax for those that meet quotas? And how on earth would such a scheme work? Who knows what the future is for recycling but there definitely needs to be some greater new initiatives and not just by local councils to justify their 'eco policy compliance'! A national scheme is what is required to break the back of the 'can't be bothered' attitude.