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?

There must be some out there that are

I'm not sure about 'normal' tebags but I know some herbal ones are recyclable. I refuse to buy them though as they are so expensive and my favourite brand doesn't do them.

We have a small wheelie bin, two in nappies, and we don’t fill our bin every two weeks!

We have a large waste bin and two recycling bins for five of us. All three are always full. We have a constant backlog of recycling which we have taken to burning now. We have fortnightly collections. Don’t use the food bin as well the dh Is a food bin

Family of 5 and our average green bin (landfill stuff) is always full to bursting. As is our recycling. We have a black bin for cardboard/plastic/glass and a brown bin for garden waste (not collected between october and march) We cant recycle egg boxes (cardboard or plastic) any takeaway containers, meat containers and an insane amount of other stuff. We are constantly off to the tip with some rubbish we cant fit in recycling or not.

Thank you for the teabag suggestions, but the teabags aren't a problem, they're pretty much the only thing that goes into the MASSIVE green waste bin. They don't go into the black bin. We buy as much food as we need, and we eat it all. We have virtually no food waste at all, and even if we had tons of food waste, it would go into the huge green bin.

"Don’t use the food bin as DH is the food bin" Same here!

I think YABU, there are two of us plus cats and we only put out our bin once a month because we recycle everything that we're allowed to and squash down the rest.

Lina38 why don't you recycle? Are there no facilities where you live?

Can you recycle the plastic at the tip? That's awful. I would complain

I don't know how people manage to produce so little waste, my wheelie big if completely full after 2 weeks, and we do recycle.

In that case, lobby the local councillors and your MP for improved recycling.

That's odd about the yoghurt pots!

Most places do recycle yogurt pots etc. That isn’t good.

If you pour boiling water on plastic fruit/meat trays they shrink! . It's really satisfying. You can even use water from cooking so you don't have to boil it specially.

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

We don't use kitchen towels (why does anybody? Genuine question!)

We save all random non-bottle plastic (meat trays, yogurt pots, bubble-wrap etc - also the lids of the recyclable bottles, I only found out the other day that they shouldn't be left on the bottles as coloured plastic needs handling separately) in another bag & take it to the local recycling depot when the bag is full - maybe once a month - same with tetrapaks, lightbulbs, dead batteries, paper/cardboard if we missed the pick-up or just have a lot.

Our council used to take kitchen scraps but doesn't any more, which is annoying; so, our general waste is mostly cat food pouches, crisp packets, veg peelings & used tissues. We (2 adults, occasional adult offspring visitors) fill one 20L white bag every 7-10 days. Our bin collections are weekly for general waste & alternate-fortnightly for recycling & garden waste. We often don't bother putting any bins out.

Kerbside collections vary so much from council to council, it would be great if they could all collect the same stuff - like the meat trays & yogurt pots - but as ours doesn't it's still worth it to me (DH not bothered but goes along with it ) to save them up to help keep kitchen bin manageable.

Can you flatten yoghurt pots etc before putting the, in the bin? From the rubbish you speak of I don't understand how it takes so much room up. We are a household three adults, two dogs, two cats and two horses (lots of food and bedding packaging for the animals) and we have bin collections every three weeks, and we manage fine. My neighbour struggles, but we put their bins out for them when they were on holiday and their (overflowing) bins were packed with things that hadn't been squashed or put in in a way that leaves room for more rubbish. I don't enjoy "organising" my rubbish, but have to for it to fit in the bin...

I am absolutely fuming too.

We have one very small bin that is collected for black bin liners (non recyclable rubbish) It is TOTALLY inadequate.

We are a family of four with two dogs, a cat and rabbits (and fish but they don't count) We do not buy ready meals or pre packaged food.

I checked our bin liner this morning because we recycle every possible thing without exception: so in our black bin liner is:

14 dog food pouches (can't switch to tins as it is too much food for our small dogs)
14 cat food pouches
used kitchen roll that we use for cooking and cleaning (again can't be recycled)
sanitary products
Pet poop and accompanying cat litter
dirty straw and soiled newspaper from the rabbits hutch
smoothie cartons that can't be recycled

It is simply impossible to make it happen!

I am so cross as the government does absolutely NOTHING to stop the supermarkets producing masses and masses of waste.

We can recycle fruit containers but not yoghurt pots or meat packaging in my area. We don’t have a food waste bin. We have far more waste than some areas because of this.

Can you get a bigger bin op?

Lapdance if you don't bother with kitchen towel then try abandoning tissues too - cotton handkerchiefs are much nicer anyway!

I think, as usual, people are being really censorious and officious on here.

The amount of waste a family produces varies wildly with what they have going on in life. There's just two of us normally, so our bin is usually quite empty. However, we've had building work done recently and we've been absolutely overflowing with waste. What is more, our elderly cat has refused to go outside for the duration, so we've been emptying cat litter trays daily. I can honestly say that we would fill a bin the size of the OP's (the half size wheelie bins are TINY) with cat litter bin bags alone in a fortnight. I'm sure we'll go back to a lower waste situation once things are over, but my point is that it can be quite contextual. I have friends who had triplets, and they REALLY struggled with the increase in rubbish - and anyone who told them that, on top of dealing with tiny babies, they should boil wash nappies would, quite rightly, have been told where to get off.

used paper towel is compost or food waste, as is used tissue. That might save you a little room. I would be crying creating all that plastic and Styrofoam waste. Can you not get your meat from the meat counter? In a bag, no tray?

Yogurt pots are the wrong sort of plastic to recycle here (Leeds). We can recycle plastics with 1, 2 or 4 symbols on them, but yogurt pots are usually 5 so have to go in the black bin. Most of our meat and ready meal trays are one of the correct type of plastics but I can’t remember which. The film is not recyclable. OP, if your council won’t give you a bigger bin, can you squash your meat trays or even buy meat from the butcher where it will come in bags and trays and if you find the right type of butcher, it will be both cheaper and better quality. But you still seem to be producing a lot of non recyclable waste, what is making up the volume apart from the meat trays?

We can recycle plastic food trays etc but if you can’t you could cut down the waste by buying your meat from the butcher as you then get it in plastic bags instead of plastic trays which obviously take up less room . I also recommend using more bin liners but with less in as they are more likely to come out of the bin if squashed down than a couple of overstuffed bags IYSWIM . We are 4 adults and have a normal sized bin which is emptied fortnightly and we manage fine , although the recycling bin which is the same size is always overflowing and dh has to squash it all down

rocketgirl22

We use these to cover tins between pet meals. No more pouches and tins rinsed and recycled.

rocket can you compost the rabbit hutch waste?

If you're squashing the smoothie cartons, the other stuff you describe takes up no space at all.

Always worth regularly checking your councils website to see what they recycle. Ours now takes tetrapaks and aerosols and there are several points accross the city where you can take coffee cups for recycling. I save mine (not loads, I do use a reusable cup when I can and don't have many bought coffees) and drop them off when I'm passing.