To resent having to go to the tip because our black bins are too small?

[GreenbackBoogy]

We are a family of two - no babies, no nappies. We recycle all paper, plastics, tins, bottles etc. Our black bin is not a full size one and is only collected fortnightly. It holds 1.5 black bags. AIBU to resent having to to go to the tip to drop off black rubbish, given the extortionate amount of council tax we pay?

We use smaller rubbish bags. The black ones are too big for the wheelie bin to comfortably take more than 2.

Maybe a wheelie bin bin bag lining your wheelie bin and putting the rubbish in loose?

You're creating quite a lot for 2 people.

You must be able to reduce that.

Check this out Not saying to go this far, but WOW, well done her, 4 years!

We've recently got some EcoBags for produce and soap, that has reduced our plastic huge amounts when shopping. I have been surprised how much actually.

You can't possibly be recycling as much as you can if you are creating that much residual waste. Take a look at the online tools that are available To Help you recycle more. There must be more you could do.

Yes, we recycle cardboard. I tried squashing everything down once and the outcome was that the bags didn't empty into the lorry, they jammed. They collect the blue paper bin fortnightly and every week it's pretty much full, I remarked to DH the other day that I was astonished how much paper waste we have.

We recycle all glass.

The black bag is basically non-recyclable plastic such as food packaging, yoghurt pots, things like kitchen towels.

We don't eat pre-prepared food at all, no microwave meals / ready meals - I will buy things like chicken breasts, whole chicken, steak, diced beef, mince, all of which come in plastic cartons. The food waste bin is basically tea bags, egg shells, the stalks/tops/tips of veg!

Hmmm, perhaps the plastic meat cartons could be chopped up so they aren't 3D but flat pieces of plastic, that could help. Good tip, thanks.

It holds 1.5 black bags.

I don't know if you have humongous bin bags, but that sounds ridiculously small.

My black wheelie bin, collected every 2 weeks too, contains 6 to 8 standard black sacks, you can probably squeeze a bit more if you are really in the mood.

Are you squashing your bin bag to remove excess air before tying it up? That can make a big difference to the volume.

I put kitchen towels in our food waste when we lived in a food waste borough (was permitted).

I recycle yoghurt pots - I would complain to your council if you can’t recycle them!

What about cooked food waste? Again that could be recycled where I used to live in the food wastebin.

Maybe buy some of yourmeat from the counter - but I recycle all of our meat cartoons.

Our tip has nowhere for black bag rubbish. It is for recyclables and bulky waste like furniture. You aren't allowed to throw a black bag in any skip without opening it and distributing the contents to the correct location. Nowhere for plastic food trays. We have a fortnightly black bin collection.

Most plastic is recyclable. Yoghurt pots (with cardboard sleeve removed) and meat trays can definitely be recycled. Check with your local council if you are unsure but generally only film plastic and plastic bags are total no gos, and lots of that can be recycled at the supermarket. So I think you need to reduce your landfill

Check those plastics on your council website if you haven't done so already. My LA recycles all meat trays and yoghurt pots.

We had the smaller wheelie bin in Germany, years before they were in the UK and we had no problems, family of 4 and no recycling bins then. The bigger ones that are the norm now were only issued to shops.

Yoghurt pots and other food containers are recycled here. It's a pain in the bum washing them all up mind!

Oh right I get it now! If we couldn't recycle yoghurt pots and meat containers our bin would be a lot fuller.

Oh and clean kitchen towel can be recycled with paper in lots of areas. So unless it's very dirty with food you could recycle that too - or even better, get rid of it and use washable cloths instead. We are a family of 3 and produce one black bin bag each fortnight.

I feel like the only one who doesn't recycle.

I go through 4 bags per wk with family of 4 😔

Thankfully we're able to have a full sized rubbish bin. We rarely fill it but we do have a lot of food packaging that can't be reduced - cat food pouches, cat litter, we buy meat in bulk so we bin the plastic bags it comes in. The recycling bin is generally full though.

Luckily food waste is collected weekly as we can't compost (I wouldn't want to even if the garden was big enough).

What about cooked food waste? We don't have any in this household

I have just checked my council online and yoghurt pots are classed as non-recyclable and must go into the black bin.

YANBU. We pay £153 in council tax a month and our binmen come once every three weeks. Drives me flipping mad.

So it now makes a bit more sense why everyone thinks I am BU! Our council website says that yogurt pots, plastic meat and veg trays etc, are not recyclable. You are all very lucky that you can recycle these! No wonder my black bin is so stuffed!

I remember a council advising people to scrap the content of dirty nappies in the toilets before binning the dirty nappies. I want to know how many household really follow these guidelines.

I know in some areas the "food waste" bins have been abandoned because they simply did not work. Councils limiting house waste are just increasing fly tipping. I doubt it really saves money in the long run.

You could use teabags that are compostable. There must be some out there that are. You could switch to loose leaf tea or tip the teabag contents into the food waste bin.

There's 6 of us we have recycling fortnightly, general waste fortnightly , food waste weekly,it’s made such a difference in reducing our general rubbish since we’ve started the food waste (picky eaters do not nd up putting quite a bit in there) . Is that an option?

That sounds like quite a lot of waste to me op. We're a family of 5, including one baby in nappies and can put out 3 bags a fortnight which we find plenty.