Chris Maclean: What to do with all that glass

Today my recycling bins arrived.

I haven't just become an eco-warrior but I am under pressure to account for my conduct in these matters. Our chef is highly motivated by issues of local, sustainable, ethical consideration. It underpins the thinking behind what he is doing in the restaurant. Its about sourcing produce locally. Its about being nice to the world. It gives you a lovely warm feeling. Smug and self-righteous.

But he has pricked my concience. His enthusiasm for such matters is causing me discomfort. I need to consider what and how I am doing things.

He has installed compost bins. He's converted his motorbike to run on chicken manure. Everything he has is low energy, cheap to run, made without harming animals and produced by gentle co-operatives of economically disadvantaged communities in Guatamala or elsewhere.

So he's asking questions. Uncomfortable questions. About my waste.

Hitherto everything went into the general waste bin. Everything. At one point we were sneakily disposing of bottles in the public bottle banks, but this isn't allowed. We did it under cover of darkness.

It isn't permitted for two reasons; the bottle banks are for residential users only and also we need to have a special licence to transfer waste. A ridiculous piece of legislation to prevent factories transporting dangerous chemicals in open buckets but which outlaws licensees from putting a bin bag full of paper into the boot of their car.

So everything went into the wheelie bin together.

Until my chef started interfering.

"What about a recycling bin?"

"Where are you putting your cardboard?"

I was thinking of a rude alternative.

My children have all grown up so that the issue of nagging eco-issues favoured by children are a distant memory. In those days I could bat those away with ease. This chef was less easily distracted.

The irony is that the majority of my waste is either glass or cardboard; two infinitely recyclable products. Inert and safe.

In an ideal world the supplier of this material ~ in my case the brewery ~ would take away any packaging. Its done in Germany. But instead I am left with a large volume of waste I must attend to. Most of this material is from comparatively recent developments. Because of the emergence of national and multi-national distribution it is no longer viable to recycle by collecting, washing and refilling bottles. Instead it is cheaper to smash them and reform them.

Now this week Bill Bryson, the author, is calling for a return to the returnable deposit bottles. Bottles you pay a deposit on. I agree with him.

Do any of you, old enough ,remember with fondness nicking the empty Idris pop bottles from the yard in the back of the off -licence, walking them around into the shop and collecting the deposit? Everyone I mention this to, who are of my age, seem to have the same memories. We cannot all have done that. Surely the off-licence owners weren't all that stupid? But it is a nice memory and I remember spending the money in the shop.

But I'd like to see a return to a bottle sourced from a local supplier that is used and then returned to the supplier. Disposable bottles are the invention of companies who wish to market nationally (and internationally) without the responsibility of collecting them.

I liked the returnable bottles in their cases stacked in the cellar. The deposits on them weren't huge but it felt like money in the bank. It was good to collect them and sort them. The same sort of warm feeling I mentioned earlier.

But, then, they sustained a local producer. Now the disposable bottle is driven by the major companies and small producers are compelled to follow. There is universal acceptance of the use-it-and-chuck-it process.

Changing back would be difficult. More difficult that adapting to the recyclable age we now live in.

So I guess I'll get used to the new bins ~ but remember with fondness that off-licence fence.