The Bins

[Chislenko]

Since the recent restructure of our bin service we now have three mahoosive plastic wheelie bins (could be four but we opted out of the garden waste one and built a compost bin)

At the moment they are sitting down the passage between the house and the garage but space is limited.

I feel my next project coming on, digging up the bit of garden behind the shed and concrete over to house said bins.

On one hand I see it as counter productive as I am replacing green space with concrete but there it is.

I suppose I am fortunate that I have this option but I do wonder / worry for people without a garden.

Just where are these people expected to store all these bins?

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

When I lived in Conwy county we had one wheelie bin but several different recycling containers.
Most of them were fabric - such as a big fabric bag for plastic bottle and metal cans - and so couldn't be kept outside or they would blow away when empty

Apparently on Anglesey they had 14 different containers - some for indoor use then a bigger version for it to be emptied into every few days

It does vary rather a lot

 

[Electric_Andy]

I've got 3 wheely bins (garden waste, landfill, recycling). It is a pain, but I do have a drive to keep them on. The road opposite me has no driveways so the bins are kept out on the pavement. I suppose there's not much else you can do. I considered making a little shed for them but it would obscure the view from my front window. I think fabric or plastic bags don't achieve much, as when left outside you lose most of the rubbish to the wind

 

[presta]

I have a semi with a shared drive, and they go on the patio at the back, so they're not too much bother.

We have:
A green bucket for food waste, collected weekly.
A green wheelie bin for garden refuse, collected fortnightly.
Poly bags for recylables, collected with the garden waste.
A grey wheelie bin for everything else not listed above, collected fortnightly on the weeks in between the green.

It seems to work ok, but it was our (Braintree District Council) bags of recyclables that Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall found on a fly-tip out in the Far East somewhere. We have a waste separating plant on the edge of town, but it seems that either they aren't using it, or it's not big enough.

It astonishes me where all the waste comes from, I counted 20 sacks outside my neighbour's, compared with half a sack outside mine. Even accounting for four people in the house, that's still 10 times the waste per person. Indicative of the amount people are consuming, I think.

 

[presta]

several different recycling containers

Ours all goes in together, then to a separating plant. Convenient for us, but I've heard the plants produce low-grade material that's not separated properly.

 

[biggs682]

We have 3 bins as well .
Garden and recycling bins live in front of the garage door whilst the normal bin is kept in the shade on the patio

 

[Dogtrousers]

Three PLUS garden waste? What are they for? Two different flavours of recycling?

Three bins here, including garden waste. Plus a little food waste caddy. Brown for garden waste, green for recycling, black for landfill.

I do have a compost heap for green kitchen waste, plus grass clippings and other bits and bobs that will compost, but I use the garden waste bin for hedge trimmings, shrubby things and other woody things that wouldn't rot down on the compost. We have to pay for it but I share the cost with next door, as I only use it about 1 week in four.

Yes, they get in the way. And they are also a security risk as they would make handy steps to climb over my side gate.

 

[Alex321]

No wheely bins at all in Vale of Glamorgan. Nor were there any in Rhondda Cynon Taff where we were for 6 months before here. We had one wheely bin for the non-recyclable waste in Merthyr Tydfil before that.

Here, we have a Blue plastic canvas style bag for plastic & metal, and orange one for cardboard, a white one for paper, a large-ish caddy for glass, and a smaller caddy for food waste.

And alternate weeks, we have green bags for garden waste, or general waste just out out in black bags (max 2 per household).

 

[MontyVeda]

My council is slightly more sensible than some; glass, plastic and metal goes in one recycling box, paper and card in another, then one grey wheelie bin for the tip waste and a green wheelie bin for the garden stuff.

A friend in Manchester has thee huge wheelie bins... which must be annoying since it takes me about a year to fill the small paper/card box. If it was a wheelie bin it's be a once a decade outing.

 

[bruce1530]

Here (Ayrshire) we have black bin for general waste, blue paper/cardboard, purple glass/plastic recycling, brown garden/kitchen waste.

I reckon if you were to analyse people's bin colour scheme, and also the collection days, you'd be pretty close to being able to identify their location.

"Hmm.... you have a purple bin for recycling, collected every 3rd Wednesday, a green one for general waste collected fortnightly, and you're not allowed to put wood in your garden rubbish - that means you're in the north side of Glasgow..."

Who needs "what 3 words" - this is "what 3 bins"

 

[fossyant]

Four bins here, we've got space at the side of the house fortunately. Unfortunately, my neighbours who have shared drives, and no access round the back of their houses, have eight mahoosive bins in the middle of their drives.

 

[annedonnelly]

We have the option to have half size versions of our bins. Which I requested years ago. I think it should be the default for anyone with a single person council tax discount. It means my bins take up much less space than others.

I realize that some people generate a lot of rubbish but it generally takes me about 8 weeks to fill my small ones.

 

[Electric_Andy]

it generally takes me about 8 weeks to fill my small ones

Yes I have a small size landfill bin, which takes me a month to fill. But there was no option for the recycling bin so I do have a big one of those, but that's usually full after 2 weeks and it's fortnightly collection for both

 

[Chislenko]

We have the option to have half size versions of our bins. Which I requested years ago. I think it should be the default for anyone with a single person council tax discount. It means my bins take up much less space than others.

That's a jolly good idea, obviously your council is more forward thinking than some others.

The reason our council (and many others I suspect) are going for bigger recycling bins is that they now only collect them fortnightly instead of weekly so saving them money.

I can however see some people getting fed up with all these bins in front of their houses, doing away with them and going back to lobbing everything in the main bin which obviously will be a recycling backfire.

I have just had a walk around our village and the town houses (80's word for terraced) look an eyesore with four bins under their front window.

 

[Reynard]

Just two wheelie bins here in East Cambs - a blue one for recycling, a green one for garden and food waste, plus a black plastic sack for non-recyclables. I just keep the bins on a bit of path behind the house that's out of the way.

The blue wheelie bin takes almost everything that's recyclable (cardboard, paper, glass, cans, rigid plastics) and gets collected once a fortnight. There's only two of us here, plus two cats, so it usually takes at least a month to fill up.

Green wheelie bin is a great way to dispose of stuff that can't be composted (usually the bigger weeds, thorny and spiky stuff, and small wood that's no good to feed the heating) and that does get filled up every two weeks, pretty well much. Kitchen waste can go in the green bin if wrapped in newspaper, but except for meat bones, that kind of thing tends to get composted here.

Tesco now takes soft plastics and cat food pouches (washed out and dried) for recycling, so there's a box in the kitchen for that. Whenever I go shopping, I squeeze it all into a bread bag and drop it into the hopper that's in the entrance lobby.

I also keep a large cardboard box in the garage for anything else that can be recycled but that doesn't fit into any of the above categories. When the box is full, I do a run to the local recycling center in Witchford, which is just ten minutes up the road.

Black bag still gets collected weekly here. I've only put out a black bag twice since December - and that's been because it's started to pong rather than because it's full. There's only been the equivalent of about a carrier bags' worth in it each time.

Given how good the recycling services are out here, I can't understand how some people can still put out four or five black bags a week... What the heck are they throwing away?