A Manchester resident who has attended stag weekends in Prague, Budapest and Kraków since February is struggling to understand why his household recycling rates remain stubbornly high despite his conscientious approach to waste management.
James Hendry, 34, expressed concern that his green bin continues to fill up each fortnight even though he has been carefully separating his plastics, rinsing his tins, and avoiding single-use coffee cups wherever possible. The marketing consultant, who is due to fly to Amsterdam next month for a friend’s birthday and then to Alicante in August for another stag do, said he was disappointed that government recycling targets were not being met.
“I do everything I’m supposed to do,” Hendry explained whilst folding a cardboard Deliveroo box into his recycling caddy. “I’ve even switched to oat milk. But you look at the statistics and apparently household waste is still a massive problem in this country. It makes you wonder where it’s all coming from.”
Hendry, who owns three different types of reusable water bottle and recently signed an online petition to ban plastic straws, said he found the UK’s environmental record “quite embarrassing” compared to other European nations. He made this observation from his living room, where a framed photograph of him and seven friends in matching T-shirts outside a Berlin beer hall occupies pride of place on the mantelpiece.
“The government needs to do more,” he continued. “People are trying their best but we need systematic change, don’t we. You can’t put all the responsibility on individuals.”
His fiancée, Sophie Bartlett, 32, said the couple had made significant lifestyle adjustments over the past year to reduce their environmental impact. These include switching their energy supplier to a green tariff, buying a bag for life, and driving to the big Waitrose instead of the local one because it stocks more organic vegetables.
“We’re very conscious of our carbon footprint,” said Bartlett, a primary school teacher who flew to Ibiza twice last summer and is planning a hen weekend in Dublin. “We’ve even started composting. Well, we bought the bin. We’re just waiting for the right moment to actually start using it.”
Hendry acknowledged that “everyone needs to do their bit” and suggested that the council should perhaps collect recycling weekly rather than fortnightly, as his bin was often overflowing. He added that they had considered installing solar panels but were concerned about how they might look from the street.
“It’s frustrating because we really do care about this stuff,” he said, scrolling through Ryanair’s weekend deals on his phone. “Sometimes I think the only solution is to just buy less packaging. Although obviously you can’t control what Amazon puts things in.”
When asked about his travel habits, Hendry pointed out that he always pays the optional two pounds to offset his carbon emissions when booking flights. “So that’s covered,” he said.