88. The truth behind ‘lost parcel’ reselling - scam or goldmine?

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Hello, welcome to Talking Rubbish, a weekly podcast delving deep into the world of recycling and discussing the truth behind snappy headlines and one sided stories. In this episode, we will discuss whether returned parcel sellers are actually scammers. Our floss picks, rubbish or not, and I have a question about whether we should squash our packaging. I'm James Piper, author of the Rubbish Book, and I'm joined by Robby Standerforth. Far from Rubbish friend.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Good morning, Robbie. Hey James. How are you today? Yeah, very good, thank you. Excited to talk about blind boxes part two. Oh yes.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Yes, this is gonna be great. Uh the booboo episode, people really liked that, and it appeared in lots of places. Lots of people discussing labu boos and blind boxes. This is worse, I think. This is way worse, this returned parcel sellers. Anyway, we'll come on to that very shortly. First, I just wanted to say, straight after this recording, you and I are being filmed for ZDF.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

ZDF, which I had never heard of before, I must say.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

Neither have I, but for our German contingent, this will mean something because apparently it's the equivalent of the BBC over in Germany, and we're being filmed for fly tipping. I don't think this is a coincidence that this request came in shortly after me demonstrating my skills with the German language in episode 82. Can I take my blazer off, wasn't it? Can I take my jacket off? Darf ich mein Jachan? They heard it, they thought, as long as this fly tipping discussion is purely about the removal of clothes, this is the man for the job.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

How many discarded jackets can there be out there? By the way, they're filming us to talk about fly tipping, just to clarify, not because we were caught fly tipping, just in case there's any confusion there. Over in Germany, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

Our question today, and there is an environmental aspect to this, but the first question is is reselling unclaimed or undelivered parcels a scam? With the slight environmental twang of and does it cause us to buy more? The same as the question we asked in Villa Boo-Boo blind box episode, the same as the question that we've asked about the Friends McDonald's Happy Meal toy. When we've got the element of chance and risk and surprise in our purchases, does it cause us to overconsume? And on this podcast, we care about anything that makes people buy more than they perhaps should. And the reason we talk about this is because this particular venture, the reselling of unclaimed and undelivered parcels, came to Bristol just a few weeks ago. And I walked past it and thought, there's lots of packaging going on there, there's lots of parcel wrapping, it looks a bit shady. I'm gonna look into it. And I actually came across this when it first came out. It came out um it this idea came from this company that we're gonna talk about today, which is they're called King Colis, C-O-L-I-S. So I'm assuming it's Colis or Collis. It was started in France in 2023, and I was actually in France at the time that this just started, and my friend said to me, Oh, this this amazing thing has just come about where they're buying these parcels from that haven't been delivered, that haven't got the correct addresses on, they're buying these parcels. We should get some. And so we did, and I was super fascinated by it, and we'd sort of uh uh the podcast hadn't even started at this point. Had I had a podcast then, I would have thought we need to do an episode on this.

SPEAKER_00 3:33

So have you heard of this, Robbie? Is this something you're familiar with? I saw it in Bristol. It was sort of right in the middle of Cabot Circus, and they were making quite a hoo-ha about it, weren't they? You know, it was hard to avoid that. I often walk through uh Cabot Circus, which is a sort of open shopping centre right in the middle of Bristol, uh, on my way to work. And so, yes, I did see it, although I didn't go in and inquire. I thought it was quite interesting that they had this sort of mock entrance, like a sort of archway or doorway that they had sort of erected for you to go into this cordoned off area where people were madly sort of frantically rifling through parcels and picking them up and stuff. But um, I must say I only sort of looked on from afar. I didn't go investigate like you did.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

And I did. And Robbie, this is probably the moment for me to say that I have bought us both a parcel. You have yours right now. I gave it to you this morning. I have mine, we don't know what's in them. I'm ready to apologize if I'm completely wrong about this company, and actually we both open iPads. I think we will re-record this trash talk and I will apologize. But assuming we don't both open iPads, then I suspect this will be quite critical of this practice that I think is not great for the planet or the public, and so worth us discussing. And I guess it's worth noting that these this organization sort of feels a bit like a circus in that it turns up to a town for one or two weekends and then disappears. I think they were here for two weekends in Bristol, they're in Greece at the moment, they're then in Sweden, Italy, Finland, the Czech Republic, and they literally are like, we're here for a weekend, we find a place to be, we do our dealings, and then we disappear and we go to another country. It feels a bit odd to me. Very, very, you know, circus-like.

SPEAKER_00 5:21

Yeah, that's amazing. I imagine for a young person, it might be quite a cool job to be a sales assistant that's in a different, cool city every week. But I suppose when it comes down to it, you're probably dealing with a lot of people miffed about their parcels.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

So when you look on their website, the pitch is really simple. Every year, millions of parcels go undelivered. Traditionally, these were destroyed, but not anymore. Now they are, in quotation marks, rescued and sold back to the unsuspecting public. And their argument they don't say unsuspecting. Their argument you've added that. Yeah, absolutely. That's not the marketing pitch. Their argument is that they are saving waste and helping the planet because these parcels would have been destroyed if not for them rescuing them. And then the obvious next step is maybe you'll get something amazing. Maybe hidden in the parcel is an iPad or a designer bag, a treasure, or as my evidence has suggested, a nasal dilator. Is that what you got when you're in France? Uh I can't remember what I got in France, but there is certainly someone who, I think, in the reviews or the TikTok videos I saw had received a nasal dilator to reduce their snoring.

SPEAKER_02 6:39

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

So on their website, they say by reclaiming lost packages from platforms, they give them a second life and contribute to an eco-friendly approach that promotes the circular economy while helping to reduce the carbon footprint associated with waste.

SPEAKER_00 6:52

It's got all the right buzzwords in circular economy reducing waste. And sort of, you can see they've got a point to a small degree, but it is quite a small degree given their business model.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

I believe it ends up in the bin. Maybe straight away you look at it, you go, God, I don't need that. It wasn't worth it. I can't resell it because I only spent a fiver on it. I'll just put it in the bin. Maybe it goes to a charity shop. I'm not sure. It depends what the item is, obviously. But I just think you're just adding in a few extra steps to something becoming waste because you've picked up something you didn't ask for, you probably didn't want, hoping that it might be a Rolex watch.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

So that's your hot take is this business model just creates an extra consumer in the middle who doesn't keep it for very long and it ends up as waste anyway. I mean, it's a fair point.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

Of course, this is assuming this is genuine. I think this episode we need to discuss are these actually returns? And if they are actually returns, what does that mean? What are the issues with this business model? And we'll open our parcels at the end, Rob Basically at the end, we will find out what we got. And I'm looking forward to that. I'm so excited.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

The size of my parcel here on the desk looks about the same size box as my podcast microphone. But I've already got a podcast microphone. So we're gonna have to get a third presenter. It'd be quite useful for our interviews to post the podcast mic then.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

Send it out, yeah. Okay, so let's hope for a podcast mic. And King Colis on their website say uh you never know what you're gonna receive. And here's the things they suggest you might receive: something high-tech, jewelry, clothes, shoes, handbags, gadgets, video games, collector's items. Every unboxing is a new adventure. Again, not my words, the words of their marketing team. So I scrolled through some TikToks of people who had ordered mystery boxes to see how many people got those various items, things that I found on TikTok, and to be honest, it reads like the conveyor belt on the generation game, a wig, a wig, an air vent for an extractor fan, gloves for your feet, tools to help you move furniture, and the previously mentioned nasal dilator.

SPEAKER_00 8:59

Gloves for your feet, isn't that just socks?

SPEAKER_01 9:03

No, no, because they've got toe bits.

SPEAKER_00 9:05

Okay, but they're still socks, aren't they?

SPEAKER_01 9:08

Yeah, but your socks don't have five toe bits.

SPEAKER_00 9:12

Oh, gloves for your feet. Feet gloves. I've never heard of that before.

SPEAKER_01 9:19

Oh, stickle me. As I mentioned at the start, this is like labu boos, but in my opinion, worse, because at least with laboo boos, printed on the packaging is the odds of getting a rare and valuable doll. There it is on the side, one in 72 or whatever it was. Here, the odds of getting something you both want and is worth the money you paid, to me, feel really low. I mean, unless you want feet gloves, which we might, who knows, maybe in our parcels of feet gloves.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

I would actually quite like that. I mean, that would at least have some sort of use. I don't think this like furniture moving tools, it's gonna come two weeks too late, James. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

Tell you what, if I do have feet gloves, I'll wear them for German TV. I'll won't tell anyone, but I'll be wearing them for that interview. So I'm not saying you're not gonna get something that's more valuable than you the money you paid. I suspect that is probably true. You know, they're buying things in bulk, they're buying things at auctions, so they don't need to make as much money back as the value of the item. But because you don't know what you're getting and the likelihood of needing the item is low, I just think it drives consumerism and waste.

SPEAKER_00 10:35

And this for me is a bit like that secret centre you get, where sometimes the secret centre is you just give a present in and they all go into the pot, and then you don't know who you're buying for effectively. You're just buying a generic five to ten pound gift, it goes into the pot and then they get sort of divvied out, and it's luck of the draw, but mostly there is no luck involved. You just end up with something that you don't want, and this is seemingly inevitable with this business model, but we'll wait and see when we do the unwrapping.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

The first question we have to ask ourselves is are these genuine parcel returns? Or are these things they've just bought on AliExpress or Teamy and just wrapped in envelopes that look like return to parcels? I'm not sure is the truth. I can't find out. Most of them talk about the Royal Mail, because there's more companies than King Collis, they're just the ones who started it. But the Royal Mail themselves has said they do not resell undelivered items. If an item is undeliverable, their policy is to return it to the sender or the retailer. Now, this has not always been the case. In 2011, the BBC had a news story that stated the Royal Mail had made a million pounds in 2010-2011 by selling items that could not be delivered and had no return address. So they had been running auctions for the post, but they no longer do this. The Royal Mail does say some retailers may appoint a third-party company to manage returns. And if that happens, the Royal Mail will deliver the returned items to the company, and the company may then go on to sell the items. Now, I think that is what is happening here because both of our parcels look, or certainly mine, looks like a Royal Mail parcel. It's got Royal Mail written on it with a tick saying address incomplete. It looks like Royal Mail, but on it is the name of a logistics company called Yun Express. And I think you have the same company as Yun Express. So I suspect this organization, if it is genuine, what's happening is King Cole have a partnership with Yun Express who get loads of returns from loads and loads of people, loads and loads of retailers, and they then put them in a box and say, we're auctioning these off. However, if companies do this and this is a genuine return, the Royal Mail states that all address labels must be removed before anything is sold. Robbie, I'm looking at my parcel, and you're looking at your parcel. I have an address label.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

Yeah, me too. I'm just Googling it and I can find exactly where this person's address apparently is, uh, which is somewhere in London. I'm not going to obviously read it out. And the I can see the person's name, I can see the street name.

SPEAKER_01 13:20

Their name before you reveal it. Bear in mind this is a company called King Colis. What is the surname on your parcel? King. I did think it was a bit on the nose. I'm not sure. I mean, it could be genuine. It's just a complete coincidence.

SPEAKER_00 13:33

Can you see a surname on yours and it's not king? I can, and mine is not King. Okay, fine.

SPEAKER_01 13:38

But I did think on what a coincidence that yours is King. Um I did think about reaching out to these people, then I thought, no, that might be a bit creepy. Okay, I'm gonna talk now about GDPR. And I just would like it made very clear that I am not a GDPR expert. Disclaimer. And I'm certainly not a lawyer. So everything I'm about to say is my view as a customer, how I feel about this. And then we'll let the lawyers write to us and do additions and corrections on whether I was right or not. So my understanding of GDPR is that companies take our data and identifying information. So in the case of a parcel courier company, they have our name and address, and we're giving that to them to deliver us a parcel. So when we order something on Amazon, we're saying you can have my name and address. They then pass that to someone delivering it to us who says, I will make sure I deliver it to that person, and they have to be careful with it. You know, yes, mistakes can happen, they deliver it to the wrong house. That's sort of accepted. But en masse, if things were going to the wrong houses, I think that might be slightly different. What I haven't done is given permission for my identifying information, so my name and address to be used in the sale of the product later down the line to someone else. I have not given permission for my identifying information to be sold to a random stranger. So, Robbie, you know, in the course of this podcast, you've given us authorization to say your name is Robbie Staniforth, and I give authorization for my name to be James Piper, but I wouldn't be on this podcast sharing your address.

SPEAKER_00 15:15

Yeah, that's because you don't know where I live now, though.

SPEAKER_01 15:18

Yeah, that's true. You haven't given me your new address yet. But that's exactly it, right? So I give my name and address to someone in good faith, and I do not expect them then to pass it on to a random stranger in the middle of Cabot Circus as part of a business model. And yes, there's an argument to say, yeah, but these addresses might be wrong, that's why I don't get delivered. But equally it might not have been delivered because I wasn't home on the three occasions they attempted to do so. So I do think some of the time these addresses are probably correct and linked to the name of the person. And as you said, you can Google this person's name, you can Google the address in London, and you could you now know where that person lives. Feels very odd to me. And considering these companies all say they're GDPR compliant, I'd be very interested to hear from a specialist in GDPR on how that is possible when they are managing data, in my view, incorrectly, because I do not want my data being used in this way.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

Yeah, it's very hard to see how they get around it.

SPEAKER_01 16:09

And another disclaimer, because I'm about to talk about their business model, which I definitely don't understand and can't find out enough about. So again, this is just speculation. This is my view. A lot is made of the sellers not knowing what is in the parcels. Okay, so you go to these websites, they say it's a complete mystery. We have no idea what is in these parcels. I'm not sure, I believe that. I think someone in the supply chain does know what's in the parcels. For and there's a couple of reasons I think that. So these are my views, my my thoughts about why I think they might know. So the first thing is people can obviously post alcohol or knives or things that could be quite hazardous, you know, hazardous um substances, chemicals, all sorts of things can go around in the post, right? Legally. But you sort of don't want to resell them to people without people knowing that's what they're buying. Particularly like I'll take alcohol as an example. You have to have an alcohol license to sell alcohol. So the idea of selling a parcel where you're like, I have no idea what's in this suggests that you might be breaching something. And again, I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not entirely sure what you're preaching, but from an alcohol perspective, like it's logical you go into a store and it says, We're allowed to sell alcohol, here's our license. And I'm pretty confident, having looked through their website, looked through the store itself, as in the pop-up itself, there's nowhere there that displays a license or says they're allowed to sell alcohol. So I did reach out to Jessica from their customer service team, and I apologise, Jessica, because I did ask quite quite a few questions about this business model. And I did ask how how can this be? How can you sell, you know, unknown parcels, uh, for example, where that where alcohol might be in it? And she said, these are the specifications we have provided to our suppliers when they anonymize parcels on our behalf. So what she is suggesting is their suppliers, the suppliers of the parcels to King Colis, do know what's in them and have checked them. And I guess this comes back to the business model of okay, so somebody does know what's in them, and we're expected to believe that they've opened it, looked at it, thought that's a high value item, I'll wrap it up and put it back rather than we'll sell it on eBay ourselves. So that's one thought. Could those suppliers actually be taking the expensive stuff and selling that on eBay? I think another likely hypothesis, and this is just a hypothesis, just to be legally clear, is that expensive items, suppliers will want them back. So if your Apple iPad, we keep using iPad as an example, but if your Apple iPad can't be delivered, well, Apple want that back. Yeah. So it's very unlikely that it's going to go back to a distribution center where Apple goes, oh, just destroy the iPad. We don't want it back. It is my hypothesis and only my hypothesis, and I'd love to know the truth. So King Collis, if you're listening to this and there is a different version of events, feel free to share it with me and I will do an addition and correction. But it is my hypothesis that expensive items get sent back to the supplier without entering this process, this auction process, if it is legit, and cheap items that people, the suppliers are like, well, it's cheaper for you to dispose of that than it is for me to pay to have it shipped back to China or wherever it's manufactured. They are the ones that are likely to enter this auction process.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

It's one of those things where I'm already, being the policy guy, I'm already thinking that this needs to be heavily regulated, just like, you know, those phone-in quizzes and things where you genuinely need to have a substantial prize, otherwise you're profiting from people having these expensive phone calls. It feels like the same thing, that it's actually a sort of malpractice, if you like, and to a degree false advertising. And someone needs to, you know, trading standards needs to go in and check that someone somewhere once at least got an iPad, which I, you know, don't see many people celebrating on these threads by the sounds of it.

SPEAKER_01 20:09

There is another clue that they might have actually opened the parcels first, because they do sometimes run competitions where you can find a golden ticket hidden in the parcels. How did they get the golden ticket in there? Oh God. This is crazy. There was a great comment on Reddit about this, which was someone saying it reminds me of the scam going on last year in the Christmas market. So this was in Bristol. Genuinely unopened mystery lost parcels. We have no idea what's inside, except the blue ones are for boys and the pink ones are for girls.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

I saw that actually this Christmas. I think it was there again, and I thought, this is absolutely crazy. That's an obvious one. You know they've opened that.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

Anyway, there is a suspicious lack of recognized brands in profile posts. Because if you search this on like TikTok, it's a TikTok thing that's very much, you know, it's for young people and their modus operandi is we come to a city, we put videos up, we flood TikTok with videos of people opening expensive, in quotation mark, items, and that will drive people to our stand. And it's incredible how many people have returned a very specific drone or a very specific TV monitor. And those are the pictures that go up. Well, look, you know, little Timmy's opened up a drone, the same as this lady over here and this guy over here. You're just thinking, wow, loads of people are returning the TL16 drone. No, not the DJI drone, the TL16 drone, or the R36S games console, or the iProda screen. I mean, everything is just that little bit off brand that makes you think I'm not convinced these are genuine returns. I think these are things people bought from Timu or AliExpress, these very cheap importers that sound very Expensive, but when you actually look at the prices, so I went onto AliExpress last night, the iProda screen is £80, the TL16 drone is £41.27, the games console was £24. The cost for these parcels is £2.50 per 100 grams. So if we just take the drone, I had a look at the weight of the DJI Mini and its packaging. That weighs one and a half kilos. That would be about, with them, £37.50, which is about the same price as the £41.27 drone on AliExpress. So even the expensive items that they put on social media, but they say, this person got a drone. If you work out the weight of that item and how much they charge, which is £2.50 per 100 grams, it's about retail price. When you're buying it in bulk, they're going to get it cheaper than I can buy one. This is absolutely crazy. On their FAQs on King Cole's website, there was a question around, can it be profitable to buy lost parcels? And they said, yes, buying lost parcels can be very profitable. Indeed, you have the opportunity to acquire items worth more than you pay while enjoying the excitement of opening surprises. The treasures in quotation marks. I mean, they put the quotation marks in. The treasures you can find range from the latest connected devices, laptops, tablets, smartwatches, to clothing or accessories from top brands as well as household appliances. I mean, it just goes on. It then does end with note, not all lost parcels necessarily contain treasure. There is an element of chance. And I stood in this queue, you know, when I went to go and buy our parcels, Robbie, I stood in the queue listening to the people around me. And just to add to this, you could pay £15 to skip the queue. So these people, these people really love money. And people were saying things like, Imagine if you get something really good. It's fun. I can just sell it if I don't like the item. You know, and I I watched someone who'd been in the queue saying, Oh, maybe I'll get a whatever the brand was, I can't even remember, but it was like branded clothing. And I watched them open socks and Christmas decorations. Just look so upset.

SPEAKER_00 24:02

Hey, listen, they could have got the foot gloves, so they should be happy with the socks.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

I still think the foot gloves are one of the treasures that I'm aiming for. Now, before entry, there was a QR code. Before I got in, there was a QR code. And I didn't really want to fill it out because I was giving them loads of information I didn't want to give them, considering their lax attitude to GDPR. I didn't particularly want to give them all this information. Anyway, I asked them at the front, I said, look, I don't want to fill this form out. Why do I need to fill it out? And they said, because you need to accept the terms and conditions. I said, okay, but what what is the term and condition that you need me to accept? And they said, we just need you to be very aware that there are no refunds. What a surprise. Now I think this is another layer to add into this because all of them on their websites, for obvious reasons, have no refund policies. Every single reseller of unopened parcels has a no refund policy. I don't think they're allowed to say no refunds if you buy online. So in the UK we have distance seller regulations which require anyone to offer a refund 14 days after the product has been delivered. The law has some exemptions. So personalized items, if you've got something made up with your name on it, perishable goods, or sealed items that have health and hygiene reasons as to why they can't be returned. There is nothing in the law that says, oh, you bought a mystery box, part of the mystery box is you don't know what's in it, so therefore when you find out what's in it, you're not allowed to return it. That doesn't exist. So I am pretty confident if you buy one of these boxes online, have a look at the items, decide you don't want them. I think you could justifiably return it within 14 days. And I don't think it matters what their policy says. I don't advise anyone actually does this, as I imagine it will be an extremely long, angry, drawn-out process. But I did ask Jessica from Customer Services. Sorry again, Jessica, I said I was planning on doing this. I was going to buy a box and get a refund because that's what the law allows me to do. And I would love to know what part of the law they were relying on that would allow them not to give me a refund. And she responded to say, This is a contract. You are free to decline it. We don't force anyone to buy. We are not accepting returned parcels that you have opened. We have no control over the contents, so you cannot hold us responsible for them. If this doesn't suit you, don't go ahead with it. So uh I haven't gone ahead with it, don't worry, Jessica. But I I am pretty confident that they can't just say no refunds because you're not actually opening the product. Yes, you're opening the bag that tells you what the product is, but that's just packaging. I do not think they can refuse a refund. If any lawyers are listening who feel otherwise, I would love to add this as an additions and corrections. Now, Cabot Circus hosted this uh pop-up, should we say? And I did ask Cabot Circus why they decided to allow these guys to trade in the shopping center. I felt it was a bit, to be honest, damaging to their brand. They came back to say KingColis is highly popular across Europe, with the surprise element perhaps its greatest appeal with customers. They have a trust pilot score of four, and we have had lots of positive feedback on the day. The sources of their packages and KingColis's overall business approach are fully outlined. From an environmental perspective, the argument is that the innovative business model limits waste because it's an effective use of otherwise returned products. I'm gonna come on to the environmental bit, but before we do, let's have a look at those trust pilot reviews. So they do indeed have a rating of four with 2,000 reviews. Uh, 67% of those are five-star and 24% are one star. I am gonna be careful here and not say anything about whether there's fake reviews or anything like that, not suggesting that. But what I will say is um some of the five-star reviews are a bit odd. Um, there's people who said they got free items, even though the business model is definitely you pay for a parcel. There's people who name checked uh sales assistants, so like Paulina and Michael were mentioned a lot. But having been through this pop-up, this shop, which is essentially just a quartered off bit of a shopping centre, there's no one to talk to except the guy who told me that he needed all my information and the person taking the money. It's not like I got to know anyone in that shop. There's no one there. You're just rifling through a pallet. And when you go into the one-star reviews, generally people have left a lot more words and talked a lot more about their experience. So I'll just read some of them because I think they validate some of the thoughts I have. There was one review that said there is no doubt these people know the low value of these packages because mine was obviously repackaged. I was very disappointed with the surprise package I received. Lots of random, cheap rubbish and a waste of time and money. I paid 25 euros in cork for two boxed packages. One was a shower hose with a head, and the other was a plug-in soap dispenser. Who has a plug by their sink to plug in a soap dispenser? Bonkers. Let's go back to that environmental comment that Cabot Circus made, because it's an interesting point. Hey, this is reselling things that we're going to get disposed of. We're saving things that would be thrown away. Okay, I can buy into that, but in our Laboo Boo episode, we talked about the fact that blind boxes are a form of gambling, and I think this is really a form of just go and stand in a queue of one of these places and listen to people. Everyone is talking about what they might get. We as humans are geared to buy more if there is a chance for a win. And there was that Chinese study that found 60% of blind box purchases were motivated by the thrill of discovering new items. I do not believe anyone gets up in the morning and goes, I'm going to go to that King Cola's place because I'm looking forward to getting a shower head. They go, I'm going to go there because I think I'm going to get something worth a grand and I'm going to pay a pound for it. This is gambling where the odds are stacked against you. The dealer knows the cards, and I believe it drives overconsumption and is dressed up with an environmental justification. So it's perfect for this podcast because that's the kind of thing we like to debunk. You go through all these websites, it's always framed as part of the circular economy. We're reducing waste, we're lowering emissions, we're doing something positive. I mean, that argument just falls apart so quickly. This is not about redistributing useful goods to people who need them. It is about selling randomness. You are not buying something because you need it. Buying something because it might be valuable completely changes the environmental impact. Instead of reducing waste, it risks creating more of it because people are far more likely to end up with items they didn't want in the first place.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

Yeah, and that's the problem. It's the mismatch between ordering this specific item that you want to use and this mystery box full of unrelated, low-value things that will just end up in the bin. And to be honest, I've already got things that I bought and thought I would use and then haven't used. I've got enough of those at home. I don't want to load more random ones.

SPEAKER_01 30:51

I think now's the time for us to open our parcels, Robbie. I spent say the weight of these, two parcels, I spent £21.75. On two. Okay, in total. Um on two, £21.75, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:08

I've got to be very careful with mine because I don't want to show you the label just in case this poor person's name and address uh gets revealed. Okay, we're just going for it, are we? Yeah, let me know what you got. Right. Oh flow pure, it says on the label. One refreshing moment at a time. What do you think that is? What is it? Engineering to upgrade tap water. Flow pure, healthier life.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

What is it? Like a water filter thing.

SPEAKER_00 31:38

Oh my gosh. Yeah, it is. It's like a water filter thing. So this goes in the middle of your plumbing before it gets to your kitchen tap to somehow filter the water.

SPEAKER_01 31:52

Which it's amazing. I mean, to be fair, better than a nasal dilator. Better than a nasal dilator.

SPEAKER_00 31:59

I definitely don't personally have the plumbing skills to put it in, so it had cost me at least 100 quid to get a plumber in to fit it for me.

SPEAKER_01 32:07

But it's called flow pure. I'm just googling it. I think it's worth it. It looks like you could probably get it for about 40 pounds, so I'm up.

SPEAKER_00 32:14

Activated carbon and ultra filtration, it says, down to 0.1 micron. Uh, that's a thousand times finer than typical water jugs. This actually could be really good for your new house, Ruby. Wow, okay. This is ultra precise water filtering technology. Okay, and I've got an envelope that says holster on it.

SPEAKER_01 32:35

Oh, that looks trendy. I I think it is. It might be too trendy for me. I have received a belt. Oh gosh. Like a utility belt. It's pretty cool. I've got a belt. Um I've got a wood filter. I've got a water filter as well. But you know, I love it. There we are.

SPEAKER_00 32:57

I I I trust Bristol Water to filter my water enough for me to drink it, if I'm honest.

SPEAKER_01 33:03

It's not an iPad, so we don't need to re-record this trash talk. So to wrap this trash talk up, at the end of the day, this is not about saving parcels or helping the environment. It's about selling you the illusion of a win. If you like to gamble, enjoy a bit of chaos as we've just experienced, and you don't mind spending money on things you didn't ask for and probably don't need, maybe this is for you. But if you actually want value or something you'll genuinely use, you're probably better off just buying the thing that you wanted in the first place. Additions and corrections. Robbie, a couple of weeks ago you talked about moving house and you mentioned your Posata jars. Well, thank goodness we've got influencers listening because they all had quite a few suggestions for your Posata jars. Oh, okay. So we had Sara was Zero S-E-R-O in Aberiswith on Instagram, who I think they're a zero waste shop, but it's spelt zero seer, and they've been a long time influencer, so thank you so much for commenting, who said there's lots of zero waste refill shops in Bristol. Why doesn't Robbie donate to one of those? His Posata jars. And we also had Sylvia on Instagram saying, has Robbie tried listing them on a sharing site like Olio Free Cycle or Trash Nothing? So, Robbie, are there any of those suggestions going to work for you?

SPEAKER_00 34:24

Great suggestions. What I ended up doing because where I moved from has got a very lively community-based WhatsApp group. I let my neighbours know that I was moving and put it all on my front wall and the jars were gone. Because people make sort of jams and things like that on the road. I I knew that. So that's where they ended up going.

SPEAKER_01 34:44

Okay, so that's basically Sylvia's suggestion that using a garden wall instead of booster.

SPEAKER_00 34:50

Yeah, I had to be really careful what I put on my front wall at my old house because if I just store it there for a minute, people think it's uh it's a freebie. That seems to be the culture in Bristol. If you want to pass on something, you just stick it on your front wall. Technically fly tipping. Um is that how your bike got nicked?

SPEAKER_01 35:11

It was near my front wall, actually. You just put it up against the front wall and people went. Lovely. Free bike. Uh we also had Ian who was talking about episode 86 as well. Specifically, this was our review of the plastic detox on Netflix. Thank you all for your lovely feedback on that. That was very nice to read. Um, Ian helpfully came in with some corrections. So specifically, we mentioned, uh, because they mentioned it in a documentary, that BPA can be found in till receipts. That has been banned in the UK and EU, um, with most retailers moving completely to phenol-free receipts. Um, some may still be using BPS, he was saying, which is chemically similar to BPA, but most are not doing that. Just an interesting observation that he said phenol free paper is more expensive. And this is why retailers started asking customers whether they wanted a receipt because it saved their money. So it was so expensive to print receipts. So I wish everyone adopted that approach, because I'd love to not have receipts. But here we are. And a significant vector, a significant place for BPA to gather is cigarette filters, and that's something we didn't discuss. So smokers, according to Ian, do tend to have a higher exposure to BPA than non-smokers, which I thought was quite interesting. So I wonder whether any of the couples were smokers and when asked not to smoke during the experiment. We'll have to find out. Bit of a spoiler for episode 19. We might be able to find out sooner than we expected, because uh one of the couples got in contact and we're hoping to have them on for our interview for episode 90, because we do have questions, don't we, about how they gave up plastic and how it all worked. So in a couple of episodes' time, we're really hoping to get to interview one of the people who was actually in the documentary. The thing we do definitely agree with Ian on is the documentary is very USA focused, and he felt that it shouldn't be screened anywhere else because the context is missing and you will be misled basically because viewers will not understand. And I think that's a really interesting point. The role a documentary has to play in educating citizens and how specific a documentary is to the location that it's being filmed in is a really important thing for companies like Netflix to have to consider. We'd like to take a moment to thank our sponsor, EcoSurety, who are on a mission to rid the world of unnecessary packaging. They help brands navigate the tricky world of extended producer responsibility, but that is not all. They also collaborate on some incredible recycling projects and consumer awareness campaigns for those tough to recycle materials. If you're an organization looking to make smarter packaging choices, check them out at ecosurity.com. Best thing you can do to help our podcast to grow is to tell your friends and family about it, and also to leave us a review. And if you leave us a review, you can be Robbie's review of the week.

SPEAKER_00 38:00

And this one comes in via Apple five stars again, but this is a genuine one, James, okay? Uh shiny4 who comes in on Apple says, very informative. I've been listening to this podcast for a while and find the latest episode very informative, and I learned many new facts. James mentioned that some listeners may not appreciate so many details, but I, for one, do. Many thanks for the hard work that obviously goes into making the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 38:31

Now we have a stack of reviews, right? We just they build up and we only get to do one a week. So sometimes they're relating to older things. And this review was related to episode 79, and that specific thing that this person is mentioning, where it said James mentioned, some listeners may not appreciate so many details, was completely about my Asda shop where I walked around ASDA.

SPEAKER_00 38:53

And by some listeners, or BI influencers, they actually meant Robbie didn't appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 39:01

I must admit, I was surprised how many BIMFluencers because we did packaging innovation shortly after that, didn't we? The live show. And people were coming up to me going, I really enjoyed your ASDA shop. Carry on doing that. Don't worry about it being boring. It's never boring. So thank you, BIMFluencers, for giving me feedback and showing that we literally can do anything on this podcast. And as long as it's about recycling, you guys will find it interesting. And don't forget, in our show notes, I've included a form to fill in to let us know what bins your counsel provides. And you can follow us at rubbishpodcast. You can email talkingrubbishpodcast at gmail.com or you can WhatsApp us. Also join our Discord, it's the easiest way to engage with us and listeners of the show. The link to all of those things is in the show notes. On Discord, Eats Runs shared a story a few weeks ago from the Metro with the title, What's with all the used floss picks appearing all over Britain Streets? Now they are not the first person to ask this, has come up time and time and time again. People have asked about these little floss picks. I mean, in terms of litter, for me, these are the new vapes, I think. I see them everywhere. Do you, Robbie? Uh uh just to explain what we're talking about. It's like that Y-shaped stick with then some floss between the gap.

SPEAKER_00 40:21

Yeah, the little string between them. And I know they seem very disposable and cheap to me. I've never used them. I always buy the sort of, you know, the roll where you kind of rip off a piece yourself. So I've never actually used one of these. But I have absolutely no idea why so many of them seem to be appearing on pavements, just sort of the odd ones scattered and littered. It's very strange. But surely these things are are not necessary, are they?

SPEAKER_01 40:49

Yes, let's come on to that. I think we'll start by saying rubby, are they rubbish or not?

SPEAKER_00 40:54

Gosh, they've got to be rubbish, don't they? They're sort of tiny and flimsy, and there's not really anything you can do with them. I'm gonna go 100% rubbish.

SPEAKER_01 41:04

I agree. Too small to recycle, mixed material, they've got a plastic handle with a nylon floss that's hard to separate. Uh another thing to note is one end of the floss stick is pointy, so you can use it as a toothpick, and that might rip holes in bin bags. And that's one of the thoughts about maybe why they're littered somewhere. I mean, I don't agree. I think they're just littered because people throw them on the street. I don't think they're ripping out of bin bags and then making their way down the street somehow. I think people are just littering them.

SPEAKER_00 41:30

Yeah, but I've never seen someone flossing in public using one of those tools. So what? Are they doing it in the dark of night, under the cover of night, they're flossing out on the street and then just chucking it on the curb, aren't they?

SPEAKER_01 41:42

I think lots of people are doing it. I've seen people doing it, just walking along, flossing, yeah. According to the Marlabone Smile Clinic, there has been a noticeable increase in awareness around interdental cleaning. If we think about rise in social media, which itself leads to people being on camera a lot more, people more focused on their looks, and we think about things like turkey teeth that have become quite popular. It is not hard to imagine why people now care more about things like their teeth and why they're flossing more. But in public on the streets, and then just throwing it on the floor, I think it's ridiculous. The last thing I would do is advise people to buy a product like this. And if people are buying it, please don't litter it. Instead of using these, you should use incidental brushes. So those are the plastic handles with the brush at the end. I think the ones you're talking about, the ribbon, my dentist doesn't recommend those. My dentist recommends proper incidental brushes. So if your dentist is recommending that, I would use the ones that you can reuse that don't have the pointy end that aren't disposable, that you're not going to use on the go, because they're a bit harder to carry around, and just put them in the general bin at the end. Rubbish news. A couple of weeks ago I talked about litter enforcement improving with responsibility coming back to councils. This has just got stronger with DEFRA recently releasing the waste crime action plan. Local authorities in England will now have powers to force fly tippers to clean up the waste they have dumped and pay fines without having to go to court. Now I think this is just going to be for small fly tips, because I think the limit is 20 hours of cleanup and a 300 pound fine. So you have to have done a fly tip that you can clean up in 20 hours, which I guess it's quite a lot actually, but it's not going to be one of the massive fly tips. And they have added to that news that we talked about a couple of weeks ago because they've said that drivers could now get points on their license for fly tipping. I mean, this is all good news. There has been so much pressure to do something following these massive fly tips that have been uncovered. And we've been quite critical of the EA in that discussion. Well, they might become a bit more useful too, because they are now getting power sort of similar to the ones police have to search premises without a warrant and arrest fly tippers. And they're receiving a £45 million funding boost. So hopefully that will give the EA a bit more strength to deal with this. If you dig into the detail on this waste crime action plan, they've agreed to clean up three major fly tips. I'd love to know how they decided just to clean up these three, but the government will now take on the cost for the one in Wigan, where there were it was 18,000 tons dumped, Heinburn, where 10,000 tons of waste was dumped, and an industrial site in Sheffield where 20,000 tons of waste was dumped. And right in the detail in the small print was a really interesting point that they are looking at a landfill tax rebate for local authorities. And this is, I think reading between the lines, what they're suggesting is when you come to do a cleanup, the landfill tax is a barrier, which it is, because you're being charged per ton the stuff you're having to clean up and dispose of. They are looking at a rebate scheme so that local authorities, I presume, can claim back the landfill tax costs for any cleanup of a fly tip, which I think will really help because that will stop local authorities pausing and waiting for it to get to government level because they don't want to pick up the costs.

SPEAKER_00 44:58

Yeah, all sounds like good news on fly tipping. I've also got some good news, or at least I think it's good news, because most councils plan to launch flexible plastic recycling collections ahead of 2027. That's the deadline. So data came from Recoup who surveyed all these councils. And of those who aren't currently collecting flexible plastics, 78% of them says, yep, we're going to be ready on the deadline. So most of the BIM influencers out there who are currently bagging up and taking their flexible plastics to the supermarket, by 1st of April next year, you won't have to be doing that anymore. Uh, we explained lots about this on episode uh 59, where we talked about the flexible plastic initiatives that we were involved in. But currently, only 16% of councils are collecting it. So, what this is telling us in this survey that Recoup launched is that there's a lot of work to be done for all of these councils to suddenly turn on um these services. And now most of those councils, two-thirds of them who say they'll be ready, plan to launch in early 2027. So that's when you'll start to see these new services uh come online. But almost half of them who are going to be launching are targeting the deadline day itself. So it's gonna be right to the wire to see whether everybody gets all of their um services by the first of April next year. However, the bad news is four in five say they're ready to do it. That means that one in five local authorities who don't currently do it are not going to make the date. So this is kind of similar to our worries about food waste um and and derogations that mean local authorities don't have to do it in time. So influencers out there, get ready with your strongly worded letter to your council if you happen to be one of the unlucky ones who don't get the service on time uh and we'll wait and see.

SPEAKER_01 47:04

If you told me when we were doing flexible plastic, you know, all those years ago, that in 2027 two-thirds of councils would collect flexible plastic, I would not believe you. I see only the positive in this story. It is genuinely amazing that that many councils are going to be collecting up flexible plastic. Which I thought was a really good question, about confusion that we have perhaps caused, I'm not sure. Um, on the vans that collect her recycling, it says the sentence, wash, squash, and separate. And she understood from us that we should not squash because of the tech used at Murph's, and she's been passing that message around. Were we wrong? Why would a van say squash when we have previously said do not squash your recycling?

SPEAKER_00 48:04

Okay, fine. So it depends what they're talking about, doesn't it? They're just saying to squash everything, we're assuming, are they?

SPEAKER_01 48:12

Well, we're thinking about crushing up cans, squishing bottles, yeah, exactly, that sort of stuff. And and the key to answering this question, Robbie, is not the word squash. That is a red herring. It is the next word in that list, which is separate. So the line was wash, squash, separate. And Elaine is based in Wales. What ranking do they have in the world again, Robbie? They are third. Is that right? No. Damn it. Are you joking? Second in the world. Um and they are Wales are the masters of source-separated recycling. They have lots of bins. I don't think we've ever told this story on the podcast, but um I did an hour on Radio 4, didn't I? Like, uh when was that? A year ago? Yeah, last year. It's a long time ago. I did an hour on Radio 4 where people were ringing in about bins. And the whole thing was just people in England ringing up complaining. I can't have three bins, I can't have four bins, I hate bins, why can't I put everything in one bin? And then the last call was a guy in Wales, wasn't it? It just went, Why don't all these English people just shut up and accept we're gonna have loads of bins? It's amazing. Yeah, it was so good, I remember. It was brilliant. Yeah. It's fine, you're all gonna be okay. We'll work it out, you know, but it's good for us to separate our waste. And that's very much the Welsh attitude, which I love. What this means is if you're separating all your waste, and we have this in Bristol with curbside sort, it is less likely that your waste will need to go to a Murph. Why would you spend the money sorting waste that's already been sorted? So the reason we say don't squash things is because a Murph is partly relying on shape to sort packaging. It's looking for an aluminium can, piece of paper, a bottle. So in areas where you are doing the sorting, or there's curbside sort, you can squash. It creates more space in the bin, it's good. It's not a bad thing to do. The reason we tend to not go to that detail is because the majority of waste in England is sent to a Murph and we don't want to confuse people. We just tend to say, do the thing that can't affect anything. You know, if you squash it and you it's going to a Murph, it affects the Murph. If you squash it and it's not going to a Murph, it has no impact whatsoever because it's just going to get bailed up anyway. So we always tend to advise the thing that won't cause damage to both processes, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 50:33

Yeah, it's kind of a lowest common denominator type thing, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 50:36

I once had a phone call with uh Small, the uh handlers people we've mentioned a few times, and they were preparing a reel on Instagram to advise people how to recycle correctly, and I gave them some tips. And one of those tips was don't crush bottles and cans. And that got so many comments from people saying that makes them a death trap for animals. You know, animals burrow into a can, like a stainless steel can and sleep, and then it goes in the truck, and yeah, didn't sound very nice. I'd never considered it. You know, I was purely coming from the recycling angle, not the animal welfare one. So my renewed advice is to cover up your bins, so either with a lid, or I tend to stack my bins, so I will put my glass bin into my plastic bin and metal bin so that animals can't get into the metal and plastic bin, but they could technically get into the glass bin, but there's nothing for them to get trapped in there.

SPEAKER_00 51:27

Yeah, great idea. I'm gonna be doing exactly that.

SPEAKER_01 51:34

Residual rubbish. Something that has happened to us this week that has made us feel like an emoji. Uh forgive me, Robbie, for I have sinned. It has been a few hours since my last environmental confession. I lost my Yeti reusable cup. Oh, sounds like a face palm emoji. It really is. And the true confession is I lost it a few months ago and I have not replaced it. The reason I've not replaced it, so I just want to really I'm sharing this as a both a confession but also a call for the influencers, because I'm intrigued to know if anyone else feels this. The reason I've not replaced it is because I know you need to use a reusable cup somewhere between 20 and 100 times for it to be better than single use. And Yeti specifically is a stainless steel cup. So I actually think they're in the higher end of that estimate. I think it's about 100 times I would need to use it. And I just know, because this is how lost things work, right? The second I buy a new one, the old one will turn up. And that indecision has led me to have single-use cups in the meantime because I'm like, I can't bring myself to buy a new one knowing that the old one is out there somewhere. That it's kind of been too long now. I'm getting to the point where I would have overtaken, you know, the new one's environmental impact. I would have overtaken it. So I've now got to make a decision. So I've checked my notes and I appear to have bought the Yeti Cup around episode 38, because that's when I mentioned it. And I reckon it went missing around episode 60, so I make that 22 weeks. I was using it whenever I came into the office, because that's when I get a coffee on my walk-in. So I'm gonna say two times a week. So I don't think my Yeti cup achieved its full potential. I think I used it about 50 times. I think I need to use it about 100 times. I don't think that first one was better than single use. And that's my confession. But before you tell me what to do here, Robbie, my biggest concern now is I've got a bit of baby brain going on and like everything's gone to mush a little bit. And I'm starting to realise that I forget things a bit more.

SPEAKER_00 53:32

Oh no, that's unfortunate.

SPEAKER_01 53:33

Can I tell you about my day yesterday? Would you like to hear this? Okay, yeah, go on it. Okay. So I dropped my son off at nursery. I somehow, in that relatively short walk, forgot that I'd put my keys in the pram with my bag, but the keys were separate to the bag. So I grabbed the bag out of the pram, folded the pram up, put it in the storage shed, and then went to the gym, walked home, realized I didn't have my keys, and I'd folded them up into the pram to go back to nursery to get the keys out. While I was at the gym, the lockers that the gym uses, you bring your own padlock, and the gym provides padlock. You know, they sell them. So everyone has the same padlock. And I use one of two lockers, depending on which one's free, at either side of the changing room. Okay. And so I went for a swim, you know, half-hour swim, come back to the locker, and there's a guy stood next to my padlock, naked. And I have to squeeze past him to get to this locker to start unlocking it. And I just hear, that's my locker, mate. I was like, oh my god, I'm I'm on the other side of the change. I'm at the wrong, I'm at the wrong of the two lockers. So I had to walk across the change room and try and lock. And as I was unlocking this locker on the other side of a change room, just realizing it's mine, thinking, God, that was so embarrassing. That was it was at that moment I thought, I should not re-buy a reusable cup because I'm gonna I've left my keys in a I've left my keys in a pran. In a half-hour swim, I've completely forgotten which locker, which end of the changing room I was in, I should not buy a reusable cup. So, Robbie, what do I do? Do I continue using single use or do I buy a reusable cup?

SPEAKER_00 55:05

You gotta go reusable, James. You've got to like grasp the nettle, uh, as they say. But I think maybe we need to find you one. You know, these these reusable cups, they like, they seem to just be out there, you know. You just need to lay your hands on one. Certainly in the the office cupboards or whatever, there might be one in there that you can just ask, politely ask if it's anybody's, and it probably isn't. Uh, they seem to accumulate. And could be my yeti. It could be your well, it's not going to be your Yeti, see. That's too premium a product you bought there. That's highly desirable. I don't want to cast any aspersions here, but I think it's more likely that someone's conveniently started to use your mug, someone out there somewhere, than necessarily uh you've lost it.

SPEAKER_01 55:51

But that is a really good point. If I do lose it, someone's gonna use it. Someone is using it right now. Maybe it is achieving its full potential.

SPEAKER_00 56:00

Well, that's true. I reckon that is more likely than it just being sat somewhere uh lost.

SPEAKER_01 56:06

I just had a thought, by the way. Guess what? I've just been given a belt. I can use this belt to attach the cup to me. I can I can tie the cup to this belt and attach it to my person. Thank you, King Colis.

SPEAKER_00 56:28

Okay, well, good that I'm laughing going into this one because my emotion this week was smiling ear to ear. And we're going back to flexible plastics again after my news because the flex collect project that Gareth Morton uh talked about in episode 60, we had an interview with uh a colleague of ours, won a very prestigious industry ED award. Now, the reason why I was smiling ear to ear about this is because these awards are really broad sustainability awards. It's not just for like good packaging initiative or recycling, it's very broad, takes in, you know, carbon metrics, all sorts of things, the world of environmentalism, uh, energy, etc. I could not believe it when I heard that we had won this award, this Flex Collect Award. But when I was thinking about it, and linked to our discussion in episode 83 when we talked about collaboration, that's the key to why this was such a successful project that effectively trialled the curbside collection of these flexible plastics. And now, as you said earlier, we're gonna get loads of them by 2027. And the reason it won the award is because of that collaboration. Firstly, there was the private sector involved, so there are 20 plus brands all collaborating to fund this alongside a private waste management company and the sorters and recyclers who are all in the private sector. Secondly, there was the public sector, so local authorities actually running the trials themselves, but also central government who were part of the steering committee and also co-funded it with a minor funding partner. So UKRI, Innovate UK, DEFRA, and some of the devolved administrations involved there. And then finally, the uh thirdly, the third sector itself, uh, charity sector, because Recoup and RAP helped with some of the activations, the communications, and the tracking and monitoring of the project. So this week I was absolutely smiling ear to ear that Flex Collects and a recycling project won an award at ED.

SPEAKER_01 58:36

Well done to you and your team. It's an amazing achievement. Congratulations. And as always, thank you all for listening. Thank you for the reviews and engagement. We absolutely love getting the opportunity to do this podcast. Join our Discord, follow us on social media at rubbishpodcast. You can email talkingrubbishpodcast at gmail.com or you can WhatsApp us. And everything we have discussed today can also be found on our link tree. The details of all those things can be found in our show notes. There is nothing left for me to say other than see you next bindy. Bye. Bye.