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?

YANBU - family of three here and use a full size wheelie bin every fortnight. That said it is half full of sawdust and hay from the small animals of which we have many and I am not allowed to put that in the garden waste bin

YANBU.

We have to take all our recycling to the dump ourselves as the council don't collect it in this part of the borough.

We also have to take the plastic somewhere else as the dump doesn't have a skip for plastic.

I wouldn’t bother recycling if I had to take it to the dump myself - why should I give up my weekend and use my petrol when I pay a fortune in council tax? I’m pro recycling but I’ve got better things to do than sit in a queue at the dump! Our useless council wants to cut the hours the dump is open and charge for more and more so they’re hardly encouraging people.

The more I read on here the more I think that recycling ought to be a national initiative & not down to local councils. The variations are ridiculous!

Looking on the thread clearly there are two areas that cause extra waste that can not be recycled. Pets and nappies.

Should we all decide our cats, rabbits and dogs aren't worth the beding/straw/cat litter/food anymore and just take them to the shelters in droves???

Is that what the government would like to see happen?

We got our animals long before these stupid rules were introduced. Had we seen how little refuse is collected fortnightly we would think twice before getting pets now. One week and our bin is full to bursting with cat litter and dirty soiled straw. Or perhaps I should let the animals sit in their own excrement because we can't clean them out....

We have seen a surge of fly tipping here. Horrendous, and I blame the councils. How is it saving money if we are just dealing with the extra fly tippers instead?

It is a national disgrace.

We never eat out, we live in the country and make food from scratch.
I am sure if I was living in a town this would be easily solved, we would just go out to eat three times a week and job done.

It is hardly in line with their health drive, which is encouraging healthier eating.

No wonder we have an obesity crisis. No one has the refuse 'space' to bloody cook from home seven nights a week, and that is before you have had the audacity to have a baby with nappies, or a cat with litter.

Any normal sized family cooking at home, with active children and pets will struggle with this recycling disaster.

*Our council website says that yogurt pots, plastic meat and veg trays etc, are not recyclable

This is because the council are either unable to sort the recyclables due to the type of sorting equipment they have or there isn't any requirement for that kind of recyclable waste in your area. *

Or maybe they have changed contractors and they no longer collect certain items.

Our council re-tended last year and the new lot dont collect flyaway plastics. Frankly I think councils should be the ones dictating what will be collected.

Thing is, variations in roads and space available and markets for recycling across the country are huge. Would you say no-one should recycle plastics because there's only demand for pelleted plastic for reuse from about half what we use? No. So we have a number of places to recycle plastic and they will take input from councils near them who can reliably give them clean enough empties to make it profitable. When demand for recycled plastic picks up, they will expand and take from more councils.

Having multiple trucks picking up nice separate waste streams in a typical English suburb is fine. Doing the same in a very rural area would make petrol and staff costs ridiculous. In an urban area it would cause too much traffic and people don't have space for separate bins.

If you phone the local waste company -Biffa, Veolia, or waste authority, they may give you better advice (and a tour of their facilities!) For example I asked why my council wouldn't take foil when they take cans. They said they'd love clean foil if it was actually metal not the pretend plastic foil, but they found if they said foil is welcome they get so much foil that's outweighed by the bacon fat etc on it, that it's not worth it. Lids are welcome if plastic is hand-sorted, but older machines can't cope as they get stuck. Etc.

The only constant across the country is that when a council brings in a new rubbish/recycling scheme, they have to double numbers of staff to answer the phone and prepare them for huge amounts of abuse, for about 6 months. It's the one council service everyone uses...

When I had a cat the vet told me to only feed her dry food as it was better for her teeth.

Also comes in biodegradable cardboard boxes. [polishes halo]

No wonder we have an obesity crisis. No one has the refuse 'space' to bloody cook from home seven nights a week

What a ridiculous comment.

When I had a cat the vet told me to only feed her dry food as it was better for her teeth.

That's fine until the cat has to go on wet food, then what are you supposed to do?! I wish the manufacturers made environmentally friendly pouches that contained something my cat will eat!

I think competitive rubbish/recycling threads are overtaking healthy eating threads as my favourite MN topic.

The only thing mystifying me is how much kitchen towel are you using op? Do you never use a dishcloth at all.

When I had a cat the vet told me to only feed her dry food as it was better for her teeth.

But a lot higher in salt. My vet told me not to feed dry food unless it was specialist low salt because it messes with their kidneys.

We are only allowed 3 black sacks a fortnight and really struggle even with maximum recycling going on. They limit how many plastics and cardboard bags you can put out and you're only allowed one box of bottles/cans a fortnight. It's impossible.

Several of my neighbours have got duplicate sets of bins, I think they have asked for extra for an annex that isn't used or those without an annex I guess have just said their bins have been stolen? Or you can just buy yourself a black bin, but however my neighbours have got all these bins I don't know for certain but they are emptied, the bin men just empty what is put out. Our council is probably going to go to 3 weekly black bin collections and I'm considering getting another bin myself if it starts to get really difficult although mostly I think I could manage 3 weekly.

rocketgirl22 Sat 24-Feb-18 13:57:24
Looking on the thread clearly there are two areas that cause extra waste that can not be recycled. Pets and nappies.

Should we all decide our cats, rabbits and dogs aren't worth the beding/straw/cat litter/food anymore and just take them to the shelters in droves???

Is that what the government would like to see happen?

We got our animals long before these stupid rules were introduced. Had we seen how little refuse is collected fortnightly we would think twice before getting pets now. One week and our bin is full to bursting with cat litter and dirty soiled straw. Or perhaps I should let the animals sit in their own excrement because we can't clean them out....

Is there not some kind of compostable cat litter? or washable/reusable? There must be something eco-friendly nowadays? I have no idea what as I don't have a cat. Straw must be able to be composted.

Peanutbuttercheese Sun 25-Feb-18 12:20:06
The only thing mystifying me is how much kitchen towel are you using op? Do you never use a dishcloth at all.

Think of the germs!

(I saw a thread on facebook the other day demonising cloths as they harbour germs. Which, as we all know, we must all be in completely sterile conditions constantly.) I find germ hysteria ridiculous

Do that many people here really go to the tip every/ other weekend to dump their household waste??

I agree that smaller rubbish bags rather than a big black sack will help you, OP.

We fill about 1.5 big black bags a week. Mainly nappies, wet wipes and kitchen roll, food and plastic wrapping. I could probably fill 3/4 of a black bag with nappies alone, so I don't quite understand how other people with small children don't.
Then again, individual circumstances need to be considered (kids at nursery filling up their bins, lunch at work etc)

Interestingly, I've just checked my local council website and realised I've been including the lids off bottles and milk, which along with black food trays, aren't allowed.

I've been looking at my own rubbish since this thread, and I'm currently on the same large carrier bag that I was when I first posted on this thread on the 21st Feb. (It's going out tomorrow, partly because it's nearly full, and partly because it's got the kitchen roll I used to wipe down the emptied compost container with, which is a bit whiffy.)

I'm posting about it here just because I was interested in what, after a fortnight, with two big eaters, was in it. It's mostly things like lots of empty biscuit packets, the bags that things like peanuts came in, the outside (unrecyclable) wrappers from a packet of sausages, the unrecyclable black tray from a packet of crackers, the food-soiled paper bag from a takeaway (can't be put in recycling as food-soiled), teabags (the paper/plastic bits only, as I put the tealeaves in the compost), the unrecyclable plastic lids from cartons, and some used tissues and kitchen roll. (In an ideal world I'd compost the tissues and kitchen roll, but as I'm using someone else's compost bin, and I think our used tissues are an imposition too far.) All this for two big eaters adds up to slightly less than a carrier bag in slightly more than a fortnight.

The thing that makes this possible is:

• our local authority recycles both plastic and tetrapaks. We don't have much plastic stuff (mostly jars and tins) but I have a lot of soya milk in tetrapaks.
• we have a veg box delivery, which comes with very little occasional plastic, all of which can be returned with the empty box to the farm scheme. I buy top-up fruit and veg loose, so no extra packaging there.
• we compost all the peelings and eggshells.
• we pretty much eat everything we cook so there's very little food waste.

...I know I'm going to get accusations of "stealth boasting" (if I'm planning on boasting anonymously on the internet, please allow me to tell you about my string of best-selling novels and my crowds of adoring fans, honest, guv) but I am posting it in the hope of demonstrating that you needn't be drowned under a tide of shit.

(The reality is that even a carrier bag a fortnight is too much - there is no "throwing away" because there is no "away". All this rubbish has to go somewhere.)

Oh, hang on - slightly less than a fortnight, because it's not a leap year!

Tea bags can be composted, surely?

No they can't as they contain plastic. I was horrified to discover this recently and will be switching to loose leaf as soon as my current box runs out!

I'd change if Twinings made my buttermint tea in loose leaf. I refuse to give it up!