The Lemon Fool

The council provides us with two wheelie bins: green for recyclables, black for everything else. Starting 2023, we are to have three wheelie bins. Green for cardboard and paper, green for other recyclables, black for everything else. The black bin collection will be every 3 weeks.

I used to keep the bins in the garden but having to wheel them in and out on collection days became a chore (a wet one too whenever it was raining, etc) so now they are on display close to the street. The space available is enough for two bins. I guess the advance notice of just over a year is to give me time to work out where best to keep the third bin.

Usually we fill the black bin within 2 weeks. The prospect of a third week fills me with thought of transporting some of the content to the rubbish dump myself. As I suspect will hundreds of others in which case the rubbish dump on-line booking system for available slots is likely to become more of an advance booking system than now. Usually if I want to book for a Sunday afternoon, for example, I can book on Sunday morning.

Considering anyone who gives their recyclables away to a council is providing that council's recycling partners with free raw materials, i do think that we should start charging the council. Apparently, people not chucking out cardboard boxes is contributing to a shortage of cardboard for recycling.

I recall having mentioned this before (or on TMF). A German friend told me that when recycling was introduced in Germany, householders became so efficient at re-using for themselves it that the volume of stuff thrown away was below the level at which the council had contracted with the recycling company which led to the council having to pay out under a penalty clause in the agreement.

Where my father lived, they have 4 wheelie bins; Black, Blue, Brown and Green. Luckily he had the space to accommodate them, but said he should be charging the Council rent on the storage.

Only three Bins - your council seems to be well behind the times!
For many years we have had:-
Grey Caddy for food waste - collected weekly
Brown Wheelie Bin for Glass, Cans and Plastic - collected every two weeks
Blue Wheelie Bin for Paper and Cardboard - collected every two weeks along with the Brown Wheelie Bin
Black Wheelie Bin for general waste - collected every two weeks - interposed between the Blue and Brown Bin collections.
Green Wheelie Bin for garden waste - collected every two weeks (March to November) along with the Black Bin
And if your garden requires it (as our's does) - a second Green Bin, which accompanies the first Green Bin.
The curse of the fortnightly collection is that if you miss a collection (e.g. off on holiday), then its a four week wait. And in your case a 3-week wait extends to 6 weeks.

Three bins here, but not too bad as what can be put in each is quite sensible.

- Blue bin for all recycled items; glass, cardboard, etc. Collected fortnightly.

- Green bin for garden waste, but also importantly, also for ALL kitchen waste. So not just peelings but also raw meat and cooked waste food. Collected fortnightly, the same week as the blue bin.

- Black bin for everything else, including kitchen waste if you don’t want to put it in the green bin. Collected fortnightly but the opposite week to the green/blue bins.

The collection pattern and what you can put in the bins means that during the summer there is always a weekly collection for food waste.

brightncheerful wrote:Green for cardboard and paper, green for other recyclables, black for everything else.

That's going to be confusing...

Scott.

Green ..recycling
Black..non recyclable
Brown...garden waste....£52 per Yr plus £20 sign on fee.

Collection alternates bi-weekly....never know which bin to put out. Leave it to Mrs M.

Black bin - general non-recyclable, every 2 weeks
Blue bin (small) - Food waste, every week
Red plastic bag -paper etc, every week
Purple plastic bag - plastics, metal etc, every week
Green box - glass, every 2 weeks

Collected regularly as clockwork so it works well. However, I lost faith in recycling a couple of years ago when reports showed UK plastic waste being dumped and burned in Indonesia. The presenter was pulling out Tesco & Sainsburys (and others) plastic bags out of the huge mounds of smouldering waste.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/environment ... uthorised/

Indonesia and China may have banned the imports but the crooks (sorry, licenced recycling companies) have probably found another poor country to dump our crap in.

I do feel sorry for those whose frontage is spoilt by these ugly things.

We have no wheely bins
The dustcart can't get up our narrow lane.

So for rubbish we have plastic bags which between collections live in our galvanised dustbin.
Recyclables, we have a small bin for cardboard/paper and a sack for plastic/glass.

We do have a food caddy but as we have scarcely any food waste we don't use it.

And as for garden waste.... there is no such thing. There is compostables and there is burnables, no waste.

V8

Wow
posters on here have FIVE bins
reminds of seeing Jack Dee on TV saying
I don't want to file my rubbish, I just want to throw it out

Two green bins for garden waste, the second bought by previous owners we discovered soon after buying to obviously deal with all the damn leaves at this time of year. Fast forward a decade and now only one bin is permitted every fortnight dropping to one collection in January.

moorfield wrote:....all the damn leaves at this time of year.

Leaves make bootiful compost, although they take a while.
Put them in black plastic bags and tuck them away for a year.
Can't have too many leaves.

V8

The packaging that supermarkets use is a real pain, though I'm pleased to see that less plastic packaging is being used. We made a point of avoiding veg and fruit in plastic boxes.

I'm sure I remember years ago about people who simply removed goods from the packaging and into their trolleys while at the till. Not sure what happened or if the supermarket could legally do anything to stop it. Be interesting to find out.

.... though maybe not in Lidl just after schools finish and with a long queue of exhausted mums and screaming kids waiting!

Steve

moorfield wrote:Two green bins for garden waste, the second bought by previous owners we discovered soon after buying to obviously deal with all the damn leaves at this time of year. Fast forward a decade and now only one bin is permitted every fortnight dropping to one collection in January.

Our green bin was emptied on Thursday.

So far since then our only green waste has been a 50ft conifer

We have a blue sack for paper, black boxes for glass/plastic/metal, and brown bin for general. We tend to empty the kitchen bin once a fortnight, so at this time of year I put the black bin out once a month, more in summer.

Apparently we are getting a black wheelie bin instread of the boxes, which makes sense as most people haven't worked out you can stack them and put the plastic in the bottom box and glass/tins in the other, then your plastic doesn't end up in the neighbours garden.

Paul

Personally I'm not happy with a three week collection of "black bin rubbish" colours may vary. That's a long time in summer to have stuff rotting. I'm sure flies and maggots will be the order of the day.

As for filling your bin, hopefully you can recycle more and need less black bin storage.

Councils should adopt a national standard as its confusing what goes in what bin if you move around a lot. Some accept glass other don't etc. Packaging says recyclable but council says no etc.

I think it's not very empathetic keeping your bin on view cos you sound little bit lazy or don't have a rain coat but maybe you are elderly and frail so struggle. Maybe a kind neighbour might help.

I suppose in an ideal world, yes there would be much less waste.

I am quite lucky, my 85 year old neighbour puts all the bins away 30s after the bin men have visited. I did beat him once as I arrived back in the car at said time and was able to return the favor. Not much of a return but I'll clear his path of snow as he doesn't drive.

It would be interesting to see who thinks their council is doing a good job. Oxfordshire was good compared to others I've used. Kirklees was at the other end of the scale.

Devons recycle team told me to put cardboard in landfill if I had more than two pieces or it was bigger than the bag that kept blowing away. The local councillors couldn't believe that their own council were issuing those instructions when they came around on a keep Britain Tidy event and view me not recycling cardboard.

The OP might have only a 3 week pickup of the "black" bin, but there'll be a weekly food waste bin pickup so no danger of stuff rotting.

Scott.

Blimey, that's a lot of talk about regional bin distribution patterns. It must be a quiet week on the news front, I guess?

BJ

Well, as you asked...

West Berks
Green bag (large, not Little) - cans, plastic bottles (not trays etc, annoyingly)
Green box #1 -paper
Green box #2 - glass
Black wheelie - general rubbish
Green wheelie - food waste, garden waste, for composting


Alternates black and green weekly

Why don't we have specific wheelie bins for old masks?

They would have to be of hospital-waste standard, the men trained in correct handling techniques, council staff sent on a 2-week fact-finding visit to the Seychelles and our council tax increased by 200%.

But all in a good cause.


Steve

bungeejumper wrote:Blimey, that's a lot of talk about regional bin distribution patterns. It must be a quiet week on the news front, I guess?

BJ

Until someone reports a new bin variant? Pink with purple dots, and 5 wheels?

On the matter of recycling, how many of you are aware that soft plastics such as crisp packets and cellophane now be recycled at Coop stores?

Details here: https://www.coop.co.uk/environment/soft-plastics

Once you start collecting this waste, you'll be amazed at how quickly you accumulate a large bag of the stuff! You then take it to the Coop store and hope there is room in their wheelie bins for your contribution.

HTH,

Watis