S*T*U*F*F* Reloaded

Correct me if I’m wrong, but we’re all led to believe that this symbol means “recyclable” - am I right?

Well, it doesn’t. And I was shocked to find that out. Check this out - from the site Valpak which controls the “Green Dot” symbol in the UK:

“The UK Green Dot® is not a recycling symbol it is a trademark agreement only; therefore, it is not mandatory to display it on packaging in the UK. For information about recycling symbols please visit our recycle-more website at www.recycle-more.co.uk.

The UK Green Dot® licence does not represent compliance with the UK Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations 2005.”

So, if you’ll excuse my French, seeing this symbol on a package means precisely fuck all. Well, it does mean that the company have forked out some money to get the symbol… I did visit the “recycle-more” website to see what they had to say about ye olde green dot… and got much the same, ie. all this symbol means on packaging in the UK is that the company that made it paid us £235 per year to use the symbol, but doesn’t mean that the package can be recycled in any shape or form… see it for yourself.

In my opinion that’s verging on misleading, as this symbol is the “leading brand” of recognisable “recycling” symbols.

When I did discover this (thanks to my mum), I started looking more closely at packaging to see how easily one can tell if a thing is recyclable or not - and its a complete minefield. Of course we are never really told what symbols mean, but I actually think it should be made EXPLICITLY clear that packaging can or cannot be recycled using, perhaps (BRAIN WAVE) a short sentence like “THIS PACKAGE CANNOT BE RECYCLED” like you tend to see on most plastic from Sainsbury’s (yet another reason not to go near the place).