Rubbish collection - is it like this for you?

[JiveLad]

The complexity of rubbish collection seems to have risen enormously, as I discovered today.

We have:

1. Green wheelie bin for compostable waste (including food and cardboard).

2. A green box for papers

3. A black box for bottles/glass

4. Another box for tetrapaks - which they won't now collect - so they go to a local 'Tetrapak dump' although we could technically speaking chuck them in black bin bags (see 5.).

5. A dustbin with black bags for the remainder of waste.

I missed out what we are supposed to do with tins.

The green wheelie has to be wheeled to the edge of the pavement. The guys will come into the drive way to pick up the box of bottles - but not the black bin bags any more - so they have to be taken to the pavement edge. This has to be done by 7am cos they come early.

The green wheelie is collected every other week, black bags every week, bottles fortnightly. So today, there are 3 different vehicles coming down the street for collection, starting at 7am.


Is it the same where you are?

[Dreadful Scathe]

Nope, some houses will have 3 bins : brown for garden waste, blue for recyclable waste, green for everything else. We don't have the brown one due to the collection trucks being bigger and finding it difficult to fit down some streets, apparantly . There is no glass collection, you need to take them to the big glass bins in car parks and the like, but there are quite a lot of those.

[Gav]

We have 1 wheelie bin for normal rubbish, plastic bags for recyclables and a box for glass.
I'd be happy to have a selection of boxes to put different recycling into, if it weren't for the fact that we have no-where to put them!

15 years ago, I spent some time in Bavaria (South East Germany) where they already had about 10 different recycling bins and very, very big fines for putting the wrong rubbish in them.

Or, more recently, how about the zero-waste town in Japan? Residents of Kamikatsu have to compost everything organic and take everything else to the recycling centre and its 34 different boxes.

[Gojive]

"Where's ya bin?"

"I's bin no where"

"No! Where's ya wheelie bin?"

"I's wheelie bin no where - honest!"



Our collection service (Runnymede BC, Surrey) is actually quite straight forward...so far!

We have a blue box with bag for glass/tin/paper collected weekly, and we have a standard good ole fashioned salt of the earth black wheelie bin for everything else except garden waste, also collected weekly. The only pain is disposing of the GW - this has to either go to the tip, or yuo have to pay for a part-time part-year collection service.

[Rhythm King]

It's all bags for us - black for rubbish and pink for recycling - the latter is always the bigger by far.

[DJ Andy]

Here in Portsmouth it's black bags for normal rubbish collected weekly, and a big green wheelie-bin for recyclables - paper, cardboard, tins, and certain plastic containers (but not all!) collected fortnightly.

Glass, you have to take to bottle banks yourself.

Garden waste has to be taken to the local tip yourself.

I compost as much organic waste as I can as it saves on buying compost for the garden.

[Crazy Shark]

Green wheelie bin is for recycling

Black wheelie bin is for everything else

This is pretty simple for anyone that lives in SE London. Im not sure if this is what its like in other parts of London.

[Steven666]

We have -

- a green bin for garden waste (monthly)
- a grey bin for tins, plastics, cardboard packaging (fortnighly)
- a black bin for everything else (fortnighly)

[Georgious dancer]

Brown bin for compostable waste
Black box for Glass
Red box for plastic and cans
Green Box for Paper and Cardboard
Green bin for anthing that doesn't fall into the above categories!

It was a bit frustrating when it first came into place but our household seems to have it sorted now and put very little into our big green bin! We have just got a water butt and are also thinking of having our own compost heap!

Oh and we live in the london borough of Bexley which is on the boarders of london and kent!

[Stuart]

In Reading I have a brown recycling box for paper, cardboard, cans and some plastic (I actually put all of my plastic in there). Glass has to be taken to a bottlebank. The remainder of the rubbish goes into a black sack.

[Trouble]

Blimey, i just have a black bag. There are bins outside for glass, clothes and i think cardboard but i dont really seperate them. As far as im aware, there is no stipulated requirement for it and i cant think where i would put everything if it did. Only living in an apartment, where would you put it all. I cant think of anything much on a daily basis that would need seperating. Mind you, thinking about it clothes i clear out i do put in the clothes bin and wine bottles (not that i have a lot of course)... but rest all goes in main bin.

[philsmove]

Brizzel
Big Black wheelie bin - general rubbish every two weeks

Small black box - recycling, Food and drinks cans (Newspapers and magazines (including catalogues and junkmail) Yellow pages and telephone directories Glass bottles and jars Clothes, blankets and material bag, Pairs of shoes Aluminium foil and containers Household batteries, including rechargeable Spectacles Aerosol cans weekly

No Plastics

Small brown bin - food waste weekly



Green Wheelie Garden Waste and Card board weekly £29 extra per year

Cardboard lose, weekly

[Steven666]

We have -

- a green bin for paper/mags (6 weekly)
- a brown bin for garden waste (monthly)
- a grey bin for tins, cans, plastics, cardboard packaging (fortnighly)
- a black bin for everything else (fortnighly)

Urm, corrected.

[Batgirl]

we have:
Black wheelie bin for general waste - every 2 weeks
Green wheelie bin for cardboard,tins and paper - every other week
Brown compostable box - weekly
Garden waste - small green hession bag - same week as green bin
Glass to bottle banks - no curb side collection
And they won't take your wheelie bin if the lid is not flat down!

Bedfordshire!

[Dreadful Scathe]

And they won't take your wheelie bin if the lid is not flat down!

send them a bill for non-collection you've paid for it already in your council tax

[Batgirl]

Our bin men (or what ever they are called now) are a nightmare!
They have a bin inspector who rummages through the green wheelie bin to check it's contents and if any rogue rubbish is in it they will not take it at all!
We had ours refused because one of the schoolkids who pass us on the way to school had put a crisp packet in the green bin (which has got to be preferable to on the ground!) - it was easiliy removable and I was at home but they simply left the whole lot and put a nasty CONTAMINATED sticker on the bin.
I wholeheartedly support recyling but it seems to be much harder than it could be where I live!

[martingold]

This recycling business by councils makes me laugh if they are so keen on us recycling why is it the law that if you dont pay your road tax they can destroy a perfectly good motor vehicle
Also the council in tendring (clacton area) are allowed to, and enjoy destroying very good high fi and noise making equipment if it has been confiscated due to noise pollution. An officer of the council was on essex radio the other day really enjoying destroying perfectly good equipment with a sledge hammer.
Surely in both these cases the equipment or vehicle could be recycled (in other words sold) which instead of vandalising it would raise money which could be put to some sort of good use.

[Gav]

Surely in both these cases the equipment or vehicle could be recycled (in other words sold) which instead of vandalising it would raise money which could be put to some sort of good use.

I don't know about the specifics of where you live, but generally, they do. However, the item has to be worth more than the cost of selling it.
Selling a second-hand stereo for £10 is hardly going to be worth the cost of someone's time to take it, store it and find a buyer. Same applies to cars, they're usually auctioned unless they're below a certain value in which case they're "recycled".

[Twirly]

Where Beo and I live (SE London) we have:

Brown wheelie bin for garden waste - no idea how often collected as only downstairs have access to the garden and use it
Blue box for glass and cans - collected weekly on a Tuesday
Blue bag for paper - collected weekly on a Tuesday
Green wheelie bin for everything else - collected weekly but not sure which day.

No facility for recycling food waste as I'm in a flat with no access to a garden, so not much point, but would otherwise.

Trouble - you can easily recycle even if you've got limited space, I've been doing it for years. You can get special bins now to help you separate stuff out, such as this one. Am getting something similar built in under the kitchen sink when I get the kitchen done.

[martingold]

I don't know about the specifics of where you live, but generally, they do. However, the item has to be worth more than the cost of selling it.

I wasnt talking about the area i live but tendring district council the leader of it was on BBC radio essex extremely proud of himself for destroying what he described as very expensive equipment

Selling a second-hand stereo for £10 is hardly going to be worth the cost of someone's time to take it, store it and find a buyer.

they could always take it to the ebay shop in colchester who would do all the work for them ok for a cut of the profits

Same applies to cars, they're usually auctioned unless they're below a certain value in which case they're "recycled".

Not acording to the government adverts which states they will be crushed