September’s Dustbin Demon

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This month’s dustbin demon is another of those little items that many of us throw away without a second thought.

As Jen over at Clean Bin pointed out during our zero waste week, the majority of our waste was made up of food packaging.

But this month we’ve been discovering some other delights such as the leftovers from a declutter of your child’s bedroom, an old electrical socket that is made from Bakelite and bulk bags for builders sand.

You might remember that a few weeks ago I bought a yogurt maker. Yogurt pots, along with margarine pots are one of the most difficult plastics to recycle. Although I have now found a company that will now take them for recycling.

Ok, so the yogurt maker is plastic and I’ve now learned that ‘in the olden days’, as Little Miss Green likes to refer to my childhood, a stainless steel flask sitting near the Aga was all that was required. But it’s hard enough for me to get my head around yogurt making at the best of times, so I needed all the mod cons I could get; hence the yogurt maker.

However, the plug was a legend unto itself, because each prong was covered in a sheath of plastic.

Since when has an electrical plug needed to wear a plastic bonnet? I know we’re getting a lot of flooding at the moment, but surely wellies for a plug were over and beyond the call of duty.

I asked Lakeland that very question. I mean, plugs are made from metal; they are robust, designed to last, to travel half way across the world and arrive in perfect condition. They’ve been doing it for decades. So why now, do they have their own fashionable plastic outerwear?

My question was as follows:

Dear Lakeland,

I wanted to ask about the piece of plastic that was over the prongs of the plug when I bought the product.
Can you tell me what purpose it serves and
what I can do with it please? Can it be recycled?

Many thanks
Mrs Green

My first response was this:

Dear Mrs Green

Thank you for taking the time to get in touch with us.

I have had a look into this for you and the plastic on the plug is there to protect the plug while packaged. This can be recycled with your other plastics.

Kind regards

Lorna Kent
Customer Services

“With my other plastics” WTF does that mean?
Hmmm, well experience tells me that you have to make a bit of a nuisance of yourself before you get any real answers to your queries, so I tried again with this:

Hi Lorna,

Thank you for that – can you tell me, specifically, how the plastic protects the plug and what sort of plastic it is please?
Around here, we can only recycle plastic milk bottles; is it ok to put it in with this?

Thank you!
Mrs Green

Lorna, evidantally passed on this obnoxious woman who was asking too many questions on to Mike at the Product Query department

Dear Mrs Green,
Thank you for your email regarding the plastic plug protector. The plug needs protecting for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, the edges of the prongs are quite sharp and if the plug pierces the packaging during the delivery process, may cause injury to the courier or packer or the customer.
Secondly, the prongs are an integral part of the plug. If they are bent in any way they will not fit the plug socket correctly and may therefore cause an electrical problem.
Also, modern plugs are enclosed, so the complete item would have to be replaced if the plug was damaged.
The plastic used in the plug protector is OK to recycle along with plastic bottles.
Hope this is enough info for you.
With best wishes.
Mike

Now, not being one to take things at face value, I wanted to know exactly what my little plastic friend was made from. I’ve heard too many times ‘it’s ok to recycle along with………’ but without any exact information to refer to.

So I wrote back to my friend Mike to ask him what sort of plastic it was with this:

Thank you Mike for that information.
I’m still not hearing what sort of plastic this plug protector is made from.

Other than that I have all the information I need – thank you!
Mrs Green

19 days later I received this:

Thank you for your email regarding the type of plastic used on plug covers. It is BPA 5 (Polypropylene) and is safe to recycle.
Hope this is sufficient info.
Regards
Mike

Erm, no actually, Code number 5 is NOT safe to recycle with plastic bottles; it will containate the load. Plastic bottles are codes number 1 & 2.

So, a month after my initial query I learn that plugs have suddenly become sharp, packers and gadgets need protecting from the back-stabbing little blighters and that number 5 can be put in with plastic bottles. Not.

Oh well, that will teach me to buy a new gadget.

I wonder how many of these get put into the landfill every year. I understand the need for protecting things in transit so that there is minimal damage, but I would love to see some figures on how many plugs these plastic protectors have actually saved.
Can anyone enlighten me?

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