Household Recycling

Cartus

Cartus

Messages
1,874
Name
Tim
Edit My Images
Yes
My local council has recently changed its recycling requirements. Instead of all recyclable material going into the same container, householders are required to sort waste into three categories: paper/glass, cans/plastics and cardboard. We are supplied with small boxes with clip on lids to use and a blue nylon 'bag' for the cardboard. This of course is in addition to the food waste bin and the wheelie bin for landfill and the brown bin for garden waste, a minimum of six bins or in my case eight different bins!

At my last house all recyclable waste went into one wheelie bin and another wheelie bin for landfill, (I didn’t have a garden waste bin there).

To recycle ‘properly' takes quite a bit of time and diligence I find with all the washing and sorting etc but I wonder how many people don’t have the time or inclination to do it under the new 'regime' we have here? The boxes we’re given have lids which become lost leaving the contents to get blown around the neighbourhood. The operatives collecting the waste leave a trail of it on the street behind them. It’s all a confusing mess.

There must be a better way surely? Deposits on bottles for a start maybe?
 
Four wheelie bins here. A small grey landfill bin half the size of the other three. Paper/card, food/garden and plastic/cans. Aside from the massive volume they take up, it’s quite simple just a pain trying to ‘hide’ them.
 
This is the way it's been for years around here (Bristol - South Glos). We don't use the lids anymore and plastics, cans and glass go into the respective boxes as soon as we are done with them. This saves the sorting out on bin day. Cardboard in a green bag and paper waste in a blue bag. Food waste in a separate bin.

You get used to it.
 
Our council is swapping from mostly sorted to mostly unsorted.
 
I am quite jealous of the one bin recyclers, but we are quite good at it (family of 5) and would need a cavernous skip if we had a single receptacle.

My biggest gripe is that my in laws don’t use their bins and just fill mine. The 125L grey landfill bin is not enough for 7 people’s waste.
 
Put it all in the land fill bin. It's the only way these silly councils will learn. I just pull out cardboard as it is the biggest item and fills the landfill bin too quickly otherwise. When they make the system more convenient then recycle a bit more. If they make it less so stop doing it.

Mine had about 9 different bins, bags and boxes. They were all over the news as being complete berks. They can't even recycle half the plastic anyway. They were paying to store these plastic bottles at one point as there was no market for them. I had a good go at them for using non recycled plastic for all the stupid bags they were handing out. Rolls of hundreds. They couldn't even recycle their non recycled plastic bags! Totally wasteful. Then they changed it a bit and added a box but removed the plastic bags.

They've consulted again and I've said again they need to reduce the containers as it also means the rounds take much longer if they're faffing about emptying several containers instead of one or two so if recyclables are classed as clean or dirty eg paper/card/plastic bottles and tins/food waste then it's much faster and more logical anyway. Glass needs to be in a separate container for safety reasons not mixed in with paper or cardboard. Mine have made such a hash of collections whole streets have had no recycling collected for weeks on end because it takes so long. Plus they also made the bin lorries too big to get up some streets. The level of utter stupidity they have displayed is just mind boggling.
 
Cartus said:
To recycle ‘properly' takes quite a bit of time and diligence I find with all the washing and sorting etc but I wonder how many people don’t have the time or inclination to do it under the new 'regime' we have here?
Click to expand...

I think quite a lot of people do recycle well but I can see the regime you have being more difficult.

The only way to have a higher rate of recycling is to provide an incentive -

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-42953038

This would take a lot to set up, though I have seen a similar scheme in even small stores in the Netherlands, but it depends how committed the Government (of any hue) is to increasing our recycling.

Dave
 
We have a single recycling bin. All gets sorted at the depot. Our neighbour shares her brown (garden waste) bin with us in return for a few odd jobs (which we'd do for her anyway.) Collections alternate between the grey and the green/brown. Seems to work well. If I time it badly, I can get stuck behind the recycling lorry near the golf course - Teignbridge have several separate boxes for each household so it takes the "operatives" an age to empty them all into the relevant compartments of the truck.
 
We have had 6 bins for some years now, it just seems normal to sort it and we do not find it a bother, I do wonder how smaller houses or flats cope though. Our council also have streetside recycling points but one of these had to be closed because people were putting the stuff in the wrong bin.
 
We have 2 wheelie bins, 1 small foodstuff carrier box with secure lid, and 1 box for glassware.

One of the wheelie bins is larger and is for all recyclables such as plastics and cardboard. The other wheelie bin is for bagged rubbish which isn't recyclable or perishable. They are collected once a week but only one of them per week and alternating. The foodstuffs carrier (with bagged contents) can be put out for collection every week. The glassware box is collected by a separate truck and somewhat irregularly.

It seems to me that the whole subject is just a massive trial and error experiment and the variation between local authority decisions is absolutely ridiculous!

The whole scheme nationally is further badly let down by the fact that so many plastic materials are marked as not recyclable at all. This has been going on for years and people still throw rubbish into the local environment - Too many people are ignorant and their kids (brats!) the same.
 
We used to have to sort ours, a few years ago.
Now ( and for some years since) its a pink bag ( soon to be white) for recyclables, excluding glass, that goes into a blue box,

Other "Rubbish" goes into a black bag ( that we now have to buy)
Garden & food waste goes into a green wheelie bin.
All of the above are collected weekly through the year.
The Green bin used to just be the summer months as it was "Garden waste" only.
Since they added food to that, its now 52/weeks/year.
 
Recycling here goes into one blue bin. Emptying once a fortnight.
Landfill waste into another.
Food waste to another.
Food waste into a small bin.

Job done.
 
I've seen those boxes in other areas and always thought, what a pile of crap they must be....lol
I predicted the lid thing, and the thought that we'd fill a box in a day and then run out of re-cycling capacity for the rest of the week.
The box areas have been issued with cargo nets now to go on the box because nobody has a lid, which they wouldn't have put on anyway cos the things are only big enough for 2 milk cartons.
Jebus, don't we have some complete dingbats stealing a living in local government.
We've only got 2 bins, household and recycle, no garden waste so.....I don't make any..:)
I think the fix for all this begins with the idiots making packaging...

wait.....no, it begins with legislation, so that'll be the other bunch of idiots

we're surrounded by bunches of idiots, it'll never get sorted
 
  • Like
Reactions: MDR
I just burn everyting in the wood burner even tyres
 
We have

a green bin for stuff that doesn't fit into any other category - emptied every two weeks
a blue bin for paper and card - emptied monthly
a grey bin - glass and cans but not light bulbs - emptied monthly alternately with the blue bin
a burgundy bin - for food waste and garden waste - emptied every two weeks with the grey and blue bins

It took a while to settle into the routine once that started - now it's automatic - blue and burgundy this week , green next , following week grey and burgundy etc etc.

We used to have black bags in wire cages but the urban foxes enjoyed those :( At least this way rubbish is not strewn down the street except in very high winds and most of my neighbours have found a way of securing their bins from the wind :0
 
  • Like
Reactions: MDR
We have a grey wheelie bin for general waste a green wheelie for garden waste (which they will start charging for soon), a blue box for bottles and cans and a blue bag for card and paper. The blue bag has often dissapeared when I get in from work. Plastics aren't recycled by our council and we are expected to take them to the landfill site ourselves. The countryside roads around here are strewn with rubbish dumped by the lazy and ignorant.
 
We have landfill, garden waste, glass, plastic and paper bins/boxes. The problem we have is that on a regular basis the glass recycling results in lots of broken glass down the road, causing a hazard for children and car tyres. I have told the council but it keeps happening.
 
Brown wheely bin - garden waste and food peelings etc.
Blue bag - card and paper
White bag - plastic and tins
Black sack - all other stuff including cooked food waste. This bag always gets attacked by foxes and magpies:(
 
Mr Bump said:
I just burn everyting in the wood burner even tyres
Click to expand...

Tyres? Don’t they stink? Bet your neighbours love you.

We’ve got three wheelie bins. Big one for recycling things like paper, cardboard and plastic, a smaller one for non recyclable stuff, another big one for garden waste. The first two are emptied every week, the garden stuff goes once a fortnight. Then there’s smaller bins for food waste and for glass, both emptied once a week. Doesn’t take much time to sort things.
 
Thanks everyone for your responses. It seems to me that the business of household recycling is too 'piecemeal' and fragmented with different local authorities having quite different approaches.

I think the manufacturers of the products we buy need to make more of an effort to make it easier for the consumer - more cardboard and less plastic, clearer labelling regarding what can and can't be recycled would be helpful. Also we have to regard recyclable 'waste' as a 'resource' rather than just 'rubbish'. Everything has a commercial monetary value whether it's gold or plastic milk carton tops....burning it doesn't make sense at all I don't think.
 
Cartus said:
Thanks everyone for your responses. It seems to me that the business of household recycling is too 'piecemeal' and fragmented with different local authorities having quite different approaches.

I think the manufacturers of the products we buy need to make more of an effort to make it easier for the consumer - more cardboard and less plastic, clearer labelling regarding what can and can't be recycled would be helpful. Also we have to regard recyclable 'waste' as a 'resource' rather than just 'rubbish'. Everything has a commercial monetary value whether it's gold or plastic milk carton tops....burning it doesn't make sense at all I don't think.
Click to expand...

I think Councils also need to get their act in order. For example, my Sister in Law lives in East Devon and her council doesn't collect cardboard for recycling!

Every Council seems to have a different approach and confusing rules. Needs to be simplified.

When I was a kid, a few years back, OK a lot of years ago, The rubbish bin was known as the ash bin and that is largely what it contained. We had a pig bin for food waste and a sack for waste paper. We didn't have plastic but mainly we didn't have a throw away society.
 
We have 3 boxes and a bag, gave up with the lids years ago just put the glass box on top of the paper box to stop the paper blowing around
 
camerassassin said:
my neighbours have found a way of securing their bins from the wind :0
Click to expand...
I got bored picking mine up from the bottom of the garden, 2 bricks in there soon sorted that out (y)
 
Rubbish bin is bungeed to the side of the house and the recycling one lives in the meter cupboard. Depending on weather, whichever bin is out for collection might have a bungee over the lid to stop it blowing open or opening if it's blown over. So far, the bin men haven't nicked that bungee...
 
Nikon Ken said:
I think Councils also need to get their act in order. For example, my Sister in Law lives in East Devon and her council doesn't collect cardboard for recycling!

Every Council seems to have a different approach and confusing rules. Needs to be simplified.

.
Click to expand...

How do they get away with that? I thought it was a legal requirement for councils to provide recycling wherever possible? Especially something as simple and common as cardboard.

I agree, there needs to be a nationwide common policy on this. Manufacturers also need to cut down on using plastic for wrapping everything too. I wouldn't object to a penny or two on the price of a product if it meant using cardboard or paper packaging instead of plastic. We need to do something now about the huge amount of plastic that's ending up in the oceans. :(
 
Cobra said:
I got bored picking mine up from the bottom of the garden, 2 bricks in there soon sorted that out (y)
Click to expand...

What happens when the bricks fall out of the bin into the lorry ?
 
camerassassin said:
What happens when the bricks fall out of the bin into the lorry ?
Click to expand...
"We" have bin liners, ( black sacks) and only they get left out. not the bins.
 
I find the exceptions list baffling too.
For instance, we can't recycle shredded paper, it has to go in household waste.....amazing.
Cards, birthdays, Christmas greetings whatever, can't go in the paper recycling.
I understand there are different materials in greetings cards, like glitter, metal badges, plastic and whatnot, but there must already be god knows how much sellotape, staples, bonding material and whatever in cardboard boxes, but they get the nod.
I think they're all taking the p155 a bit expecting joe public to spend their evenings analyzing and separating packaging material in to a dozen different piles, this crap needs sorting at source, if we don't get it, we can't chuck it away.
And don't get me started with the coffee cup thing....
 
We have two big plastic boxes, one big bag, one small caddy, one bigger caddy to empty the small caddy and two wheelie bins.

Like the hardened criminals we are, we put one box out full of glass bottles, we carefully placed a single empty, clean tin on the top to save having to carry a huge box with one tin in it all the way up the lane.
The council then left the lot and left a smarmy letter in it telling us how we should go to hell and burn for our heinous crime.

They can go kfc themselves now. It’s all going in the wheelie bin.
 
TCR4x4 said:
The council then left the lot and left a smarmy letter in it telling us how we should go to hell and burn for our heinous crime.
Click to expand...
I heard somewhere recently, may have been the local news, that the council will be employing "Rubbish inspectors" to see what is in what bin / sack.
Those that get it wrong will be fined...
Strapped for cash local authorities? I guess they are..

We shall be getting clear recycle bags instead of the pink translucent ones that we have now, so they can "see" what is in the bag ...
Did I say the pink ones are translucent?

And of course you know what happens to the recycling bags / bins?
( and some of the household waste for the matter, depending on area)
They end up at transfer stations, where they get sorted mechanically at first, and then off to recycling centers, and then sorted again, manually from a conveyor belt, yes by hand.

So ultimately, it all ends up at the same place(s)
 
srichards said:
Put it all in the land fill bin. It's the only way these silly councils will learn. I just pull out cardboard as it is the biggest item and fills the landfill bin too quickly otherwise. When they make the system more convenient then recycle a bit more. If they make it less so stop doing it.
.
Click to expand...

I pretty much do that. I put grass cuttings and garden stuff in the green bin but the rest all in the black/grey one, although the wife's better and she does put some house stuff in the blue and green bins.

While I get that we want to reduce landfill, make it simple and easy to do, why does each council do something different - why not a central policy?

On a related topic, I can see why fly-tipping is on the up. Last time i took stuff to the tip they were like little Hitlers about what went in general waste!
 
boogie man said:
How do they get away with that? I thought it was a legal requirement for councils to provide recycling wherever possible? Especially something as simple and common as cardboard.
Click to expand...

Not sure - I was surprised. They take paper but not cardboard unless they've changed - I'm a couple of years out of date.

I know media reports are sometimes suspect but have seen a number that blamed most sea plastics on a couple of rivers. Think one was in India. Not sure how that is addressed.

I am also suspect about cruise ships and the like discarding in the oceans.

Not sure we will entirely remove packaging and therefor think the development of bio-degradable is the way to go.
 
I’m often in the local recycling centres for my job and see how our carefully separated waste is treated.

I’ve also seen on multiple occasions the vehicle operatives chucking everything in the same compartment of the lorry cos they can’t be arsed to do it properly.
I contacted the council and they just replied with some rubbish about how much they recycle a year and didn’t actually answer the point.
 
Point proven. Currently sat in cheltenham recycling centre watching a forklift pull out the various sections of a kerbside recycling truck and tipping each one into a large skip. Glass, paper, plastic, cardboard.. all going in the same place after being carefully sorted by householders.
 
TCR4x4 said:
Point proven. Currently sat in cheltenham recycling centre watching a forklift pull out the various sections of a kerbside recycling truck and tipping each one into a large skip. Glass, paper, plastic, cardboard.. all going in the same place after being carefully sorted by householders.
Click to expand...
Some of that could well be mine!
 
cambsno said:
On a related topic, I can see why fly-tipping is on the up. Last time i took stuff to the tip they were like little Hitlers about what went in general waste!
Click to expand...
Landfill tax is the main reason, plus if you go to a HWRC ( tidy tip) with a van, they will charge you if they suspect that its
1) trade waste
2) the van is registered to a company ( even if you borrowed it from "Someone / somewhere" to clear out your loft etc.
 
Here we go we have
Black bin for general waste
Blue open box for glass
Green small bin for food waste
Large blue sack for paper and card
Large white sack for plastic
Large white sack for tins and cans
Brown bin for garden waste ( which they now want to charge us £30 a year to empty)

Amid all this you have to make sure the right bins are put out on the proper day ,our collection day is a Friday and living on the coast you can guarantee that every thurs night a bloody hooley is blowing spreading the crap all over the town . I am not sure whether to pay the brown bin charge or build a compost heap ,pain in the butt with 3 large gardens . And like cobra they are going to be sending round bin checkers to make sure it’s all sorted correctly on peril of a £75 fine ,and there employing kingdom the corrupt fag police to enforce it .
I already have a garden burner bin might get a couple more and just burn all the crap grrrrrr
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top