Bins

[ptlike]

Hi all, well my council decided we should have two boxes to recycle, one for glass the other plastic and tins. Ok except on a windy day. I just saved my boxes before they became serious contenders for the grand prix. My neighbour's did go emptying their content's along the road. Is this helping the environment I have to ask myself????

Winge over ha

[Marina]

Don’t get me started on bins!

 

We’ve been lucky enough not to have had problems with wind, unless the bin men chuck the box lids any old where after emptying. Maybe our boxes are stronger and heavier?

 

It’s not the wind that’s a bother for us, but foxes and wildlife...

 

We’ve had two types of bins for recycling for 3 or 4 years now, one for paper and cardboard and the other for plastics and glass. The paper and cardboard goes into hard plastic boxes with a lid. The plastics and glass normally goes into a wheelie bin just for recycling stuff but, as I’m on an “assisted” list as I’m disabled, I don’t have any wheelie bins (I could do but I can’t handle them), so I have two blue, reusable, open plastic bags the size of shopping bags (but hold less than a wheelie bin) - which, I must say, are strong and well made - and I use black bin bags for general rubbish. We also have the pleasure of a food bin (yuck!), which is collected weekly.

 

The council will no longer let you use bin liners for the recycling bags, so it has to go into the blue bags loose.

 

The food bin has a “lockable” lid, where bringing up the handle of the bin locks it.

 

We’re supposed to not put the rubbish out before 7am and it must be put out by 7am - how they expect anyone to go and put the rubbish out within 1 minute (and at that of the morning) is beyond me. Nobody pays attention to that and we all used to put the rubbish out the night before - until the foxes started to ravage it. They would come and tear open the black bin bags, scattering the contents all over the driveways and road. The foxes also learnt how to “unlock” the food bins by simply knocking over and lowering the handle. You can imagine the almighty mess any of this would leave.

 

There’s no way on this earth that I can be up and about and mobile enough at 7am to put the rubbish out (apart from my being a night owl too), so I now tend to put it out at about 9am, as do many of my neighbours, although I can safely leave paper and cardboard out the night before as the foxes aren’t interested in it (no whiffs of food).

 

As for the blue recycling bags, they’re open, so there’s no way they can be left out the night before. If it rains whilst waiting for collection, which might not be till the afternoon, then water risks collecting inside open plastics and in the bag itself, leaving a nice stinky dirty “soup” in it. If they think I’m going to stand at the kitchen sink all day thoroughly washing up the rubbish so that there's not an inkling of food left, and then finding where to dry it all - all of which would cause me additional pain - they have another think coming! I’m all for recycling, I truly am, but I’m afraid I now only put bottles and anything with lids in the recycling, everything else goes into the general rubbish.

 

But for the last two recycling collections, they came at 7.30am, which they'd never done before, so I was left with mine not being collected...

 

I am NOT a happy bunny!!! It's also a health hazard.

 

I’m very grateful to be able to have “assisted” non-kerbside collection (by my front door), and to not have to contend with wheelie bins, but I sometimes wonder how well thought out any of it has been.

[ptlike]

Haha marina well I live in the country but Foxes don't seem to be a problem. Drunk youths yes.I wonder is it true some of our recyelling is shipped to India so they get black mark and us the big green tick. I believe in India some plastic is burnt for fuel. Is this really helping the environment beat wishes Peter

[Marina]

I've no idea where our recycling goes. From the little I've seen about it, quite a bit gets processed here in the UK?

 

My council don't allow bin liners for the plastics recycling (like I said above) but now allow bin liners and plastic bags for the food bin... go figure (as they say in America)! Apparently, the bin liners and plastic bags from food bins are used to create "energy" in a plant in the UK.

[ptlike]

Don't you think we could start to build bridges with all the rubbish, maybe help with Brexit lol.

Best wishes

Peter

[Nindancer]

We have 2 wheelies now, so relatively easy. Whereas before, the recycling was in an open box, so the blue bag would go on top and the paper waste didn't fly down the road.

Sonia x

[Nick]

One of the most extraordinary things about the "British Way' of dealing with the rubbish problem is the lack of continuity between councils. Not only is there a variety of methods to segregate waste, but also the different types of waste containers provided. This is also compounded by a lack of understanding as to what colour our recycling containers should be. In my own area we have three different adjacent councils using different colours for the recycling bins. We lag behind many other countries (including some so called third world countries ) in standardising and thus simplifying the problem.

My own (town) council uses a green bin for specified recyclable items and a black bin for 'garbage' This works well except for properties where there is no space for wheelie bins, then its back to black plastic sacks!

Unlike some councils there is no scheme for larger items, except by taking them to the local waste disposal site. This causes a lot of problems with fly tipping. One positive note is that the council does advertise its record on the percentages of things actually recycled.

[Mal]

We have three wheelie bins , blue for cardboard , paper , tins and jars , green for ordinary rubbish or rubbish you dont put in the blue

bin ........another green bin which is the Green Bin for garden waste , which we pay extra for

 

Gone are the days when you just threw everything into one tin bin and extra rubbish into a black

plastic bag and they come into the garden lifted and carried them to the garbage truck to be emptied and

then carried them back and put them back in your garden .......these days when the lid isn't fully closed

they sometimes refuse to empty it !...........just scroll on by if ya think im talking rubbish

 

Mal

[Marina]

We have a blue wheelie (or blue reusable bags) for plastics and glass, a black box (or old green boxes which were previously for glass only) for paper and cardboard, a small brown bin for food (eugh!), a black wheelie bin for "general rubbish" (or transparent purple bin bags, but using your own black ones is no problem) and a green wheelie for garden stuff which you also pay extra for. Food is collected weekly, recycling is fortnightly alternating with general rubbish. We also have transparent red bin bags for recycling clothes, and a small bag for batteries, both of which are collected with the recycling; I think these are a good idea.

 

In my area, they've just done away with all the recycling bins in car parks or elsewhere near to town, with the excuse being that everybody's recycling at home now, so there's no need for them anymore! If you need to take extra recycling (because it exceeds the weekly amount they'll collect or whatever), then you have to drive it all the way to the nearest tip. I can see this encouraging fly-tipping... I despair...

 

In France (my second home), rubbish isn't collected fortnightly, it's not collected weekly - it's collected twice a week, which has recently been reduced from 3 times a week, with recycling collected once a week, having been reduced from twice a week. How much more civilised!

[Nick]

Oh the excitement ! a discussion on bins! Thanks Pete, it probably portrays the age group here, but hey ho I'm just about to add to it.........oh what a give away.

A number of years ago when wheelie bins were being introduced it felt like the last place on earth to get them was going to be my own home town. We still had metal bins and black sacks. It came to a head while working in Aberdeen (who had long had their own wheelie bins) when the crew working with me were laughing over the fact that a newly arrived Russian ship had, on deck, a beautiful set of coloured bins, while they knew that at home I was still chucking it all in black sacks. The crew themselves, who were from Portugal had already told me that their bins were emptied daily!

In Scotland I had long been familiar with commercial waste transfer notes (SEPA) and was impressed by the system whose origins lie with EU legislation. The whole UK had adopted this method and on the face of it you would imagine that little complication would arise.

Yet oh boy does it! From the domestic point of view it’s crazy that none of us have any concept of a uniform standard colour code for waste bins.............I don’t think there is one!

We now have wheelie bins at home with three colours. Brown for garden waste, green for specified recycling, which in our case includes , glass, plastic, paper and metal..and last a black bin for ‘garbage’ or shall we simply say, domestic land fill waste.

The UK lags behind the developed european countries, with Germany and Sweden leading the way. Each one of us, on average, across Europe, dispose of six tonnes of waste each year!

We have a UK policy on waste https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/228536/7086.pdf

Should you really be interested

In the meantime we shall all have to get used to increasing restrictions and increased recycling, along with the increase in illegal fly-tipping that comes from the necessity of dealing with our rubbish

[Marina]

Sweden, to my knowledge recycles about 95% of its rubbish. Knowing the way the Swedes do things, it’s probably 100 times better organised and more efficient than here.

 

What I really have a bee in my bonnet about - which hugely contributes to having to recycle so much of it - is plastic packaging. So much of it is so unnecessary. One of many examples: a pack of 2 lemons which used to be in a net bag now comes on a plastic shaped tray in a plastic bag... why, especially when it’s not a fruit that’s going to bruise or get squashed? Yet a pack of 6 lemons (from the same supermarket) still comes in a net bag! Does a biro that’s not a cheap throw-away really need to be in a hard plastic case? Etc, etc, etc...

 

Years ago, we had much less rubbish to throw out as far fewer things were packed in so many plastic containers, trays and bags.

 

Bring back the days of loose fruit and veg in paper bags! Or, at the very least, they should use biodegradable plastic bags.

 

And bring back being able to buy all (not just a basic choice) fruit and veg loose rather than in family-sized packets, which are too much for meon my own and which consequently additionally contribute to food wastage as I can’t eat that quantity before it starts to go mouldy or rot!

[Nick]

I so agree! On a recent trip to Germany I noted that a lot of people were buying their beer in glass bottles, with a deposit and return system. Over here we have at last got rid of the basic plastic disposable supermarket bag and are now using our own re-usable bag........However as you say, why on earth are we so addicted to buying fruit and veg in plastic containers!!! Another thing that is not as prevalent when you travel abroad.

It's all very well saying that we can choose where and how we shop, but in reality we all tend towards Supermarkets. That said Kay and I do frequently use a local farm shop, good but more expensive.

 

When you think back, how things have changed!!! Not that I want to go back in time............In the 60's in our small town we still had plenty of local choice. The green grocer was a market gardener, the butcher sourced his meat from the town abattoir, and the Baker sourced his flour from local mills. No chance of buying a mango, or a kiwi fruit, No chance of having baguettes or Brie, nor could you buy the likes of Pama ham!

 

The World today is a wonderful thing when it comes to logistics! We just need to improve the way we live when it comes to waste..........

[ptlike]

Haha Nick I'm pleased you appreciate the topic.

I brought up after listening to tins blowing up and down my road.

There was a local soft drinks maker close to me that offered deposits on bottles but has now gone. I guess they couldn't compete with the 24p supermarket fizzy soft drinks.

Wouldn't it be so much better to burn the plastic to generate electricity with filters to remove the hazardous elements, or exchange for glass and brown paper at the shops. Another thought would be to increase our land mass by tipping in the sea.

Well our green wheelie bin is for household waste marina lol. We are well colour coded ha.

Best wishes Peter

 

 

[Nick]

Thanks Peter,

 

The NIMBY's around me recently scuppered a plan to build a waste powered, power station incinerator, latest technology, all singing, all dancing. What can you do! Not a good idea using waste into the sea, this was done until fairly recently and the seabed has never recovered, even when incorporating it into new land it would prove very damaging.

 

Nick

[Scully]

Sorry to be late to the party as it were.

 

Ok, I have just 2 wheelie bins.

One for landfill, anything that cannot be recycled.

The second if for recycling waste...glass, paper, cardboard, tin etc....it all goes into the same bin....apparently our local council has a super efficient machine.....like a huge tumble drier, that sorts all the stuff out and jettisons all the different elements into the correct containers..

 

I would be mortified, to have a bin for paper, bin for glass, bin for tin, bin for food waste etc.. where on earth ( no pun intended ) do you keep all these bins???

 

Scully

[Nick]

Kay and I have been keen on recycling for a long time. We now have the same two bin system as Scully. We also have two composting bins where nearly all our food waste goes, these work really well. Gumtree comes next, then Freecycle. and last but not least the local tip which has recently been updated. The only thing which is hard to get rid of is paint!!! All this said, We live in an urban environment in an area where people are on low incomes and flytipping is a big problem that effects me directly as I have a narrow public passage that runs alongside my property....................a great place for some to dump stuff!!! I am virtually on talking terms with the local waste manager in charge of this problem and it just takes an e-mail to sort it out...but it really really annoys me that the local authorities have to spend so much money on a problem that is simply down to peoples laziness and ignorance.

[Mal]

Just curious if anyone decorates their bins ?

 

at my last house i had floral design sticker on my bins , at the moment in my new home

the bins are not decorated so maybe ill look to jazzing them up a bit

 

Mal

[ptlike]

Haha scully we have box for tin and plastic, bag for paper and wheelie for household waste. We can pay for garden waste wheelie too. As for storage well we just have to arrange attractively in our gardens or yards assuming the wind hasn't taken off. My council is not quick to embrace technology lol but our household wheelie has shrunk to about half the size and collection every two weeks.

As for decorating Mal I got told off for putting my number on and reminded it was council property.

Best wishes Peter

[Happymama]

Here in Co Durham we have a green bin for landfill, and a blue lidded bin for paper and plastic.  The glass goes in a box.  I could easily go to 3-week emptying with the landfill bin, but the recycling sometimes I have to get one of the kids to jump up and down on the contents so I can get it to last two weeks.  

 

Anyone with a kid in 'disposable' nappies is filling a wheelie bin every two weeks, almost.  Those things that take 500 years to start to break down ...  I used terries on my kids.  

 

I can't understand why food production companies haven't been told (perhaps it will take legislation) to stop putting food products in black plastic.  The sorting machines use optical systems and can't see the black against the background of the conveyor belts so can't be recycled.  Why are toothbrushes still plastic?  

 

We as a species need to learn to live more sustainably.  To Nature, we are both small and exceedingly biodegradable.  Why wouldn't mankind be the next apex species extinction?   

[Nick]

Yep, its a huge problem.

Kay and I are in the process of moving, clearing out 'stuff' reveals the scale of the amount of waste we have generated.  We are both of a generation where people were taught from their more frugal parents the meaning of thrift. Having saved stuff for a rainy day, or simply the fact that it could be useful. We now discover that parting with it, without recourse to the tip is harder than you would imagine.  We are taking great care, sorting wood suitable for a friends wood burner, collecting metal for recycling, and of course, 'freecycle' and charity shops.  Our younger generation seem to shun useful things and look at it as 'hoarding' , preferring instead to buy the same item new, and then discard it five years later.  

As an example, everyday you will see old furniture dumped, despite the fact that in some cases the woods used may be rare and unobtainable today due to deforestation. In the meantime folk seem happy to buy  modern chipboard furniture with a short life expectancy.    The process of sustainability is much more than simply recycling stuff.  To be sustainable we need to somehow get away from the consumer economy and regard things as having much greater longevity and value.

Edited 17 Aug 2018, 9:14 am by Nick

[Scully]

I was definitely from the generation who would use, reuse, repair, and recycle anything we could.  

I hate waste of any kind and try as far as possible not to.  

 

My landfill bin is rarely more than half full, my recycling fairs a little better. But I am stunned when I see neighbours bins bulging with waste and recycling......how do 2 adult people create so much 'rubbish'..

 

I taught my children, who are now well into adulthood, the same principles, but I still hear them say sometimes, " oh I’ll just get another one"...

 

Most things, even electronics, mobiles, laptops, books, cd's etc can be recycled or sold/ donated to places, mainly online, who will take these things off your hands and recycle them, even if only for some components.

 

Dont approve of this 'throw away' society we seem to live in now....and I fear, that the upcoming generations, will be just that, without the guidance from us 'oldies'.

 

Scully