We only filled one bin bag in the last two weeks

[PourquoiTuGachesTaVie]

Aibu to be a little bit impressed with ourselves as a family of four (including a baby) plus one cat?

We have a separate bin for recyclable waste and all appropriate food goes in the composter for dh's allotment but it was still a surprise when we noticed there was only one bin bag for the binmen to collect. It's kind of inspired me to see if we can do more and make mine and dh's games of bin jenga even more exciting

And yes I know this isn't the most thrilling topic of conversation but three month olds aren't great at conversation, as gorgeous as she is.

The four of us can fill our wheelie bin in under a week, even with three recycling wheelie bins.

And we have just been forced into rubbish collections every three weeks

The food waste wheelie bin is absolutely disgusting by the time IRS due to be emptied, with mould over everything. I can't wait 'til summer .

Family of 4 (2 Dcs 14 & 8 - so no nappies but I did use reuseable), one cat (doesn't use a litter tray but neighbours cat uses our garden)

Our 'grey' bin (landfill) is a slimline and goes out every 2 weeks -but can easily do a month - maybe longer....
Paper bin/tetrapack - big wheelie bin - monthly 90% full
Compost/garden waste - depends on how much the garden is growing

Our council will recycle all plastic except clingfilm...our big plastic and can bin is full to overflowing when it emptied once a month...
and worse I'm very 'packaging aware' so we don't buy 2lt bottles of fizzy pop or individual yoghurts (big pots or make our own) or bottled water or individual juice bottles and try to avoid supermarket meat in trays... it horrifies how much plastic packaging we get through....
If they didn't recycle so much plastic our landfill bin would be fuller...
So YANBU to be pleased but maybe it isn't as 'easy' for those with councils that don't collect all plastics...

Yes my life is such that the only thing I have to boast about is filling one bin bag in a fortnight. Bet you're all literally green with envy with that one

Seriously though, I was surprised we managed it, hence the thread. I'm interested in hearing how others reduce their waste further though and seeing the different approaches to recycling taken by councils is interesting too.

We fill 2/3 bin bags per week but don't use the recycle bin. If the council want all the rubbish sorted they can fucking well do it themselves!

Are you joking Rich?

We burn everything.

Yes and no Duty. My feelings aren't really that strong about the council but I most certainly don't use the recycle bin.

We are a family of 5, we have one rubbish bag a week. The recycling bins are fairly full though. The big difference for us is the waste disposal unit in the sink, all food waste goes down there. I can put leftover roast chicken bones down there and they are gone.

Depends on what your council will recycle though- ours doesn't take much plastic or any food, so these have to go into general waste.

Same here, half a bin bag a fortnight
LOTS of recycling
LOTS of compost

But mainly a Bonfire every week

rich obviously is rich enough to pay lots more council tax. I'd rather not do that.

We have a baby but use washable nappies too. We still manage to fill one (small, we have a tiny yard so asked for a slim line one) wheelie bin pretty full every fortnight.

We can recycle food waste, paper, card, bottles and cans but we get milk from the milkman so few bottles except wine bottles

There does seem to be a lot of food packaging due to reheating ready meals from scratch, we still use a few disposable nappies as we've only just cracked the night time nappy situation with DS and he intermittently gets a rash from his current washables, and I refuse to lug a bag of 5 nappies around for a day out.

We also seem to get quite a lot of other packaging and I suspect a lot of it is things we order online, as we live in quite a small town and a lot of fairly practical items aren't available (e.g. I do a lot of sewing but order fabric which comes in packaging, second hand baby clothes from ebay etc.)

rich obviously is rich enough to pay lots more council tax. I'd rather not do that

I can't say that I care really. The difference it is likely to make to the total amount of tax we pay (excluding income tax) is fairly inconsequential.

We also fill our tiny grey bin within a week. 2 adults and 2 children. We have fortnightly collections so it's a trip to the tip once a week with rubbish which is kept in the green bin till I have enough to take.
I'd say we recycle 50% of what we should.

Why is food waste recycling dangerous Londonrach?

We have 1 black bin bag a fortnight too.

Me, DH and 2 primary aged dc.

Recycling and food waste is collected weekly, blag bags fortnightly.

It's not that hard.

Living in Ireland, there's no 'council tax' so we pay for our refuse services directly.

We have a contract with a local company for rubbish and recycling and they weight the black rubbish bins before emptying them to determine the fees. (You pay an agreed monthly amount over a 6 month contract and your bill is adjusted accordingly.)

Therefore, it's a direct incentive to sort your food and general recycling waste into the other bins provided.

You can spot the summer tourists who can't manage a bit of simple sorting of the recycling, stuffing their rubbish bags into the ordinary street and park rubbish bins...

We're lucky because we can put most things in recycling bags (apart from food waste, nappies and polystyrene) so we don't end up with much in the main wheelie bin. I get the guilt if I accidentally put something recyclable in the normal bin. But then some people I know ignore the recycling bags and just shove everything in the wheelie bin and I wonder what is the point of me standing there carefully washing out all my yogurt pots when half the people don't bother anyway.

That's pretty damn impressive. We fill the bin each fortnight, despite all my best composting/recycling/food wasting efforts.