Recycling madness

[Littlepeahead]

RANT WARNING!

Now I'm all for doing my bit and recycling as much household waste as possible but where I live things have now gone beyond a joke with how we have to recycle. I now have:

Green box: Cans, glass bottles, jars

Black box: Compostables, tea bags, veg peelings

Bag 1: Paper, newspapers, magazines

Bag 2: Folded cardboard

Bag 3: Plastic bottles

Bag 4: Clothing and fabrics

Brown bin: Grass cuttings, hedge clippings, but not soil or cat litter which has to be taken to the council dump.

Grey bin: Household waste that cannot be recycled

They all have to be put out on different days of different weeks, and not even the same day of the week just to add to the confusion. So this week it'll be cardboard and cans on Tuesday but next time around it'll be cardboard and paper on a Thursday and cans on a Wednesday! My kitchen, conservatory and garage are all filled with different bags and boxes so I hate to think what it's like if you only have a small kitchen.

I'm getting tempted just to put everything in the grey bin and say $od it.

Anyone else have a council as ridiculous as the one in Chelmsford?

[Bluefish]

no sorry, ours is simple, friday green bin garden waste, paper cardboard in whatever you put it in, and bottles cans plastics in a brown bin, next friday, grey bin non recyclable, and repeat ;)

[metalangel]

Caerphilly Council give us:

Green Wheelie Bin for household waste every two weeks
Brown Wheelie Bin for recycling (subject to a variety of restrictions, but it's all mixed in together)
Green Bag for garden waste
Little Green bin for food waste.

I throw out tons of envelopes as you're not allowed to recycle those. No broken glass is allowed, but I don't know how you're meant to put glass into the empty bin without there being a risk of it breaking.

Both my green bags have gone missing as once they've been emptied by the collectors, the wind will blow them away (the council's advice is to 'put something heavy inside to hold it'... what, give chavs a nice brick to play with?)

No way am I keeping a bin full of rotting food around. I have a composter out back anyway if they want to make a fuss.

Prior to the introduction of the brown recycling bin, everyone had a tiny little open tub thing to put their recyclables in. It never all fit, but it didn't matter as ours had (surprise!) gone missing! We even had a threatening note through from the council's 'waste management warden' advising us we weren't recycling enough. If they ignore my requests for a new recycling tub, and I'm forced to cart a carload of leaking carrier bags stuff with cans and jars to the public recycling and wasp farm outside Asda, you can eff off, 'waste management warden'.

[maviczap]

same here
grey bin on monday for non re-cycleable stuff

following week
brown bin - compostable stuff
blue bin - cardboard, paper,tins, aluminium foil, plastics

I take my glass & tetra packs to my local recycling site once a month & usually return with someone elses junk :p

[timwilky]

We have

Green bin for non recyclable
Brown bin for compostable
blue bin for glass and plastic with an inner box for paper
Green box for cardboard.

Green bin one week, the rest the next. so green bin stinks with food waste in the height of summer. I had to ask for a bigger bin as they would not take it if the lid is not completely closed. sorry sir you need 5 adults in the family. Yes look at the electoral register. Sorry sir we haven't got any, well get some.

sorted it by dumping excess waste in brown compost bin.

[DarrenSV650S]

We just have a green box that you chuck anything recyclable in and they sort it out

[dizzyblonde]

Black box -glass and tins
White bag- plastic bottles
Green bag-paper (not big enough)
Brown bin(with compostable bags) -food waste.

black box, green bag, food waste collected one week in the fortnight
White bag, green bag and wheelie bin collected the other


Or I think thats how it goes. I gave up filling the food waste, and the other stuff goes to the tip where we sort it out there, as I can't stand the mess hanging around with wasps and flies for a fortnight.

[MisterTommyH]

This is one of the things Cannock Chase actually do right.

Green wheelie bin = Non-recyclable
Blue wheelie bin = bottles, paper, card + anything else recyclable
brown wheelie bin = garden waste.

They do the rest, and as i have no garden, I've let them recycle that brown bin.

[Sir Trev]

It's amazing how different the colour schemes are!

Green wheelie bin - compostables and food waste
Black box - metals and plastics
Green box - paper and cardboard
Grey wheelie bin - everything else

First three are out same day one week, the "everything else" bin same day the next week.

Glass goes into the everything else bin as Bucks CC have not got a facility to handle it! Unless like us you box it and go to the bottle bank yourself. I have a huge multi comparrtment compost bin I built myself so the green bin only normally has the small amount of cooked kitchen waste I don't want to recylce myself (it attracts rats and foxes).

LPH you have my sympathy.

[Teejayexc]

It's amazing how different the colour schemes are!




Isn't it?

Here;

Black wheely bin - general household rubbish.

Blue wheely bin - recyclables - paper/cardboard/plastics/glass/metals etc.

Green wheely bin - garden waste/compostable materials.

Black bin emptied every 2 weeks alternating with Blue and Green bins.

Simples.

[Kenzie]

Black bin here for general waste, blue for paper, card and plastic.

[DJFridge]

In our sunny bit of West Sussex we have:

Green wheelie for recyclables (paper, card, glass, metals, plastic bottles) - collected every other week
Brown bin for compostable (which they charge for so we don't have one) - collected the other every other week
Grey wheelie for everything else - collected every week

We don't produce a lot of stuff for the grey one, usually only or two bags full a week, but most of the food waste goes in the muncher (sink waste thingy that came with the house) so that helps a bit

My folks are up in west London and they have about the same arrangement as LPH, although I bet the colours are different!

[The Idle Biker]

Surrey council, or at least my bit, only recycle Glass, Tins and Plastic bottles. Recycling once a fortnight, Dustbins with everything else once a fortnight. If you want to do anything else you have to take it to the dump yourself.

I think the Council think that Surrey people don't have to recycle and the rest of the country will just have to do a bit extra to make up for the Surrey toffs.

[cdtrim]

In Belfast it's:

Black bin for general household waste
Brown bin for garden waste and food waste
Blue bin for newspapers and magazines
Red boxes for tins, glass, cardboard etc but they insist we separate everything into separate boxes, we have 3 in the garden now and I won't accept any more!
And we have a smaller basket type box we keep in the kitchen for food waste, the council supplies bio-degradable bags for this, when full (or smelly) these go into the large brown bin.

I'm on the outskirts of Belfast and i know from friends in different council districts that their rules are different to mine.

[cdtrim]

Oh yeah, the collection days are a nightmare to remember so we wait til the neighbours put the right ones out and we follow suit :)

[tigersaw]

Shove it all in the black bin. Job done.

[454697819]

(on/synical) all goes to landfill anyway its all BS illusion to make us feel good (off/synical)

[orose]

Isn't it?

Here;

Black wheely bin - general household rubbish.

Blue wheely bin - recyclables - paper/cardboard/plastics/glass/metals etc.

Green wheely bin - garden waste/compostable materials.

Black bin emptied every 2 weeks alternating with Blue and Green bins.

Simples.

Although there is some amusement in the differences across the country, ours are the same as this (but with a box in place of the blue bin - still blue though). All on the same day as well.

[Sally]

I live in a complex of 7 buildings, minimum of 16 flats per building, so a minimum of 112 flats, but i know some buildings have more, some double.

NO RECYCLING FACILITY.

Everything gets thrown in black industrial bins and taken away every week.

Easy for me :)

[Ed]

Our hens are our recycling facility:D

[Sid Squid]

Camden, North London, (possibly the worst behaved LA in the country, despite serious competition for that honour).

Blue bag: Paper and card.
Brown box: Food waste.
White bags: Green waste.
Green bag and/or box: All other recyclable.
Bin: Anything that doesn't go in the above.

[chrisinflight]

Not many burgandy bins mentioned yet! Our general waste collected on mondays in this burgandy mini-wheelie-bin. Our large black bin gets collected fortnightly and in here goes paper, cardboard, tins, bottles and plastic. Simple system. I more or less fill the black bin and the smaller bin is about 2/3rds full.
Blackburn and Darwen Coucil, Lancashire.

[Bicastf]

I'm lucky ours is simply:D

Belfast:
Black BIN - general and household etc
Black BOX - recycling stuff - paper, cardboard, old tools and stuff, glass, PET, etc

box 1 a week
bin still don't know been there 5month just leave it out for while or dump it all in the big bins

Ards council:
Black- household
blue - recycling
brown - compost
also got a small green box to keep inside for compost

black & blue alternating wed
brown every other week tue