There’s a thing that we do every Monday morning. Well, sometimes we’d do it on a Sunday night instead.
We’d put out the rubbish.
No, that’s not a euphemism.
Putting out the rubbish would consist of:
- shifting the big black ‘household waste’ wheelie bin from the rear of the house, to the front and likewise,
- carrying the square, black plastic ‘recycling waste’ bin around to the front.
Soph used to laugh at my approach to recycling.
For example, I’d know that I should put glass jars and tins in the ‘recycling waste’ bin, and that’s what I’d do.
But I’d get told off for putting used teabags in the ‘recycling waste’ bin, which I didn’t get, because teabags can be mulched down, and if that’s not recycling, what is?
Anyway.
Things have changed!
Our local authority has designated our black ‘household waste’ wheelie bin as ‘garden waste’.
They’ve also given us a *new* – a second – wheelie bin. It’s grey and larger than the black one.
This grey monster is our new ‘household waste’ bin.
And we’ve been given a (slightly smaller) black wheelie bin which is our ‘outside food waste bin’.
We have also been given a small, grey bin which is, we’re told, a ‘food waste’ caddy.
We’re supposed to keep this new bin – sorry, caddy – in the kitchen somewhere. This is for dumping our *food waste* in to, as we generate it.
I do have an issue with the whole concept of ‘food waste’.
The only food waste we generate comes from things like the tops of leeks, potato peelings and egg-shells.
We judge cooked portions correctly, we eat what’s prepared and cooked and we throw nothing away.
But I’ll accept that not everyone feels as precious as I do about wasting food, even though they bloody-well should.
The idea of throwing away cooked food is abhorrent.
But back to our ever-growing collection of bins, courtesy of our local authority.
To recap…
We have our old ‘household’ waste bin which used to be emptied weekly. This is now called our ‘garden’ waste bin.
It will be emptied fortnightly.
Then there’s our new ‘household’ waste bin. This will be emptied fortnightly too. But not the same fortnight as the ‘garden’ waste collection, obv.
So they’ve given us larger ‘household’ waste bins and a less frequent ‘household’ waste collection service.
Stunning.
Then there’s our new waste ‘food’ rubbish collection service.
This will be a weekly collection.
Erm, huh?
Oh yes, and then there’s our ‘recycling’ waste collection.
These will be weekly too.
Fuck, is anyone else confused?
Let me see if I’ve got the hang of it:
- weekly recycling collection
- weekly waste food collection
- fortnightly ‘household’ collection
- fortnightly ‘garden waste’ collection (alternating with ‘household’)
And lots of new bins too.
Marvellous.
Has anyone stopped to calculate the *true* cost of this?
- raw materials – all that lovely non-biodegradable plastic in those bins
- road miles (by my calculations that’s an additional 35% of collection journeys)
Amazing.
We have recently moved to a similar rubbish system,. Large black wheelie bin for general rubbish, green wheelie for recycling collected on alternative weeks. With a small green food box collected weekly, along with a smaller green food box for use in the kitchen.
I haven’t used either food box yet. I also only cook what I need, and on the rare occasions there is something left, the dogs polish it off. Like you guys, I am careful about not wasting food.
Don’t get me started on the fact that I cannot get the wheelie bins from the back to the front of the house, so as a result they are stored on my driveway.
I live in a Terrace house. The type with no front garden, the front door just opens straight onto the footpath. I’m meant to have A Green Garden waste wheelie bin, a black household waste wheelie bin, a Glass & metal recycling box plus a paper, plastic & cardboard recycling bag.
All the bins have to live on the pavement outside the house as the entries either end of our terrace are very sensibly gated.
The green bin was stolen the first week I had it. I’ve had three recyling boxes as they’ve been stolen. I can’t be bothered to ask for a fourth and I don’t use the paper/plastic/carboard bag as it would just blow away.
Sorry planet, but until they come up with a sensible and convenient way for me to recycle I can’t.
What happens if you paint the big grey bin black, the black bin grey and the little caddy green?
We have a grey general waste bin, a blue recycling bin, a brown garden waste bin and a green bag for paper recycling. I’ve never worked out what gets collected when so jsut stick everything out on a Tuesday morning and see what’s still there on Tuesday evening. Stupid thing is that I live in a house with a garden that’s about 6m x 5m and consists of a sqaure of lawn and a lot of pots. A paper recycling bin would be FAR more use than a garden waste bin but no, that’s not how it works apparently.
Cuts.
I always lurk, but here I go: I hate recycling. I don’t get it (for some reason I want to really understand the whole scientific process around it and how exactly we are saving this planet) It’s a palaver and I always try to find a reason to let someone else do it!
Perp; my neighbour has similar difficulties with moving bins from her rear.
cha0tic; long time no see! There’s something very wrong with having to keep bins at the front of a house, especially for those people who have tiny or no gardens. It’s screwed.
IanB; I think if you repaint things the local authority will spontaneously combust.
Vicola; that’s my point. Environmentalists are up in arms about plastic but don’t seem to be protesting about plastic recycling bins.
Ash; I dunno. I think this new system will lead to 25% additional mileage.
Dazedlittlemiss; I’m with you. This might come back to haunt me but I don’t get recycling either. Especially when we seem to be throwing an undue amount of raw materials at managing/enabling recycling!