Easier recycling

SIR – The problem with recycling (Letters, December 4) is not the availability of smelters, technology or even public goodwill. It is the inconsistency of policies from council to council, the inappropriate design of items and packaging, and the burden on the public when it comes to more complex items.

I am no believer in excessive legislation, but when a single drink container can be made up of three different integrated plastics – one “generally recycled”, one “not recyclable”, and one “check locally whether recyclable” – the situation is a nonsense. Add to this some councils recycling things which others do not, and you can see why people give up and chuck it all into landfill.

No packaging should be unrecyclable; councils should accept all basic recyclables; and all complex or multi-material recyclables (such as televisions) should be the responsibility of the manufacturer, not the buyer – to include collection and shipping. It would not take much effort for manufacturers and importers to set up an industry-wide organisation to handle this.

As long as the responsibility for sorting is placed on shoppers – rather than professional designers, profitable manufacturers and taxpayer-funded bureaucrats – little will improve. Victor Launert Matlock Bath, Derbyshire SIR – Rick Hindley (Letters, December 4) is very informative about aluminium recycling, although it is surprising that there is enough money in it to make it commercial.

Just recently our aluminium loft ladder broke. I decided to take it to a local scrapyard. They weighed it at 0.004 tons, and I received the grand sum of £2.50.

This just about covered the cost of driving to the scrapyard and back. Add to that the process of proving my identity – a measure imposed to avoid metal theft – and the trip, although interesting, was not worth the trouble. I would have been as well off to leave the ladder on the footpath for collection by the local scavengers. B W Jervis Sheffield