How many bags of rubbish do you chuck a week?????

[JARM]

Well I never.... after living here nearly 4 weeks now, im suprised at how easy it is to recycle the majority of what you would usually chuck away.

Where I used to live, the recycling was pretty much non-existant, the recycling centres were too far away to make it worth-while and we used to put out approx 6 black bags of rubbish a week.

Since we moved, we are recycling anything and everything possible, and only chucking 1-2 black bags a week!

So, how many do you chuck?!

1.5 I think

our latest resolution is to compost everything possible. We are really slack about this.

we have one 1, if we have a half bag I save it for the next week ( unless it's the summer, stinky) and that's 5 of us with 2 children in nappies. Would prob have less if I composted which I just can't be bothered to do at the moment

I pass a neighbour's house with at least a dozen every week I seethe everytime I walk by their house and am disgusted by that - there is no need!

Dirtygertie I suspect your bags are being tossed back into the main rubbish as "contaminated". The do's and don'ts make up a horribly long list. I think butter/marg tubs are made of the same propylene as yoghurt containers. Lots of drink bottles (that look like glass) are not glass. And there are so many kinds of plastic....minefield!

1/2 a black bag
1 recycling bag
a week, 2 adults, 1 teen and a bubba.
bought a composter recently (council scheme) and thats helped a lot

Over the last few months I have recycled much more than I used to. Now down from 3 black bags a week to 1. I got some boxes for the kitchen so that I can sort as I go along.

There is no market for some of the plastic items (even if it says recyclable on it with a number)so therefore our council will only take bottle shaped items because they know that will be the correct number. They say it's just not feasible to sort through all the other stuff. I think sadly a lot of the things we send for what we think is recycling will just end up in land fill sites anyway.

I also either reuse plastic carriers or take them to Morrisons which has a plastice bag recycling bin.

1 black bin bag a week,tops
The council collects a bag for newspapers and a recycling box for glass and cans every fortnight (usually full of my wine and gin bottles )
I collect cardboard and plastic bottles to take to the tip to recycle, and have a composter in the garden.
I'm a bit obsessive about recycling all I can, but happy to drive a car and fly lots (hypocrite emoticon needed )

1 black bag
1 recycling bag

(2 adults, 2 children)

Family of 2 adults and 2 children:
1-2 Tesco sized bags a week.

We make 1 trip a month to the recycling centre.
We have a brown bin where we put the allowed foodscraps.

It is actually amazingly easy once you get into a routine.

By janinlondon on Wed 03-Oct-07 13:04:31
"I suspect your bags are being tossed back into the main rubbish as "contaminated".

hmm, not sure they would toss the whole bag awayjust because there was a rogue youghurt pot in there. Dont they sort through all the stuff anyway?

I saw a lady on the news the other day explaining how it is sorted. We can recycle numbers 1 and 2 in Britain and the rest gets shipped to China where their recycling facilities are much more sophisticated.

By janinlondon on Wed 03-Oct-07 13:04:31
"I suspect your bags are being tossed back into the main rubbish as "contaminated".

hmm, not sure they would toss the whole bag awayjust because there was a rogue youghurt pot in there. Dont they sort through all the stuff anyway?

I saw a lady on the news the other day explaining how it is sorted. We can recycle numbers 1 and 2 in Britain and the rest gets shipped to China where their recycling facilities are much more sophisticated.

1 swing-bin bag (or similar) per week maximum. There are 5 of us.

1 swing-bin bag (or similar) per week maximum. There are 5 of us.

Whoops, so virtuous I posted twice...!

Nope, council here says that contaminated (i.e. the whole lorry's worth) recycling gets sent to landfill too.

what do you mean 'the whole lorry's worth'?

We have about 1 black bin bag a week sometimes less.
We have doorstep recyling for glass, metal cans, paper so all that goes in there, then our council picks up cooked food scraps for composting, we also have our own compost heap and that gets all the uncooked food scraps plus some odd bits of natural fibre fabric and things like flour bags, they all disappear. We have to take all the plastic to the recycling depot but we do that in conjunction with a trip to the supermarket as its nearby and any odd carrier bags go to their recycling bins, then we collect up tetra paks and post them to the recycling plant once or twice a year in a huge box. Its not too difficult if you try not to buy all the packaging and stuuf you can't recycle and also avoid getting endless carrier bags by taking your own shopping bags.

Our bin bag is mostly made up of odd things like plastic film and and odd packaging that doesn't fall into any other category that's hard to know what to do with. Oh and envelopes as the council won't take those.

2-4 - but we only recycle food and not packaging so it was 4 this week due to ds's birthday. I burn card and paper in the winter. Food scraps go to chickens.

I mean one person doesn't separate their rubbish properly and the whole lorry load from many households is classed as contaminated.

proof that lorry loads get dumped - from Burnley council.

"""Unfortunately some people, either through simply not knowing what they should put in their claret sack, or deliberately trying to get rid of general household waste among their recycling materials, are misusing the system. A whole lorry load of recyclable materials can be contaminated and tonnes of cardboard and textiles that could be recycled have to be dumped in a landfill site instead because they are mixed in with other rubbish.""

From Wakefield:

"If you have a kerbside recycling service please use it as much as you can but do follow the guidelines. One contaminated bin can mean a contaminated lorry load, which means it cannot be recycled."

Don't use black bags here but we fill a wheely bin every fortnight and a recyling bin every fortnight (alternate week collections). Family of 4.

I use washable nappies (and some eco disposables), and we compost veg peelings, tea bags etc. I am a big fan of alternate week collections but I think it must be a bit foul for meat eaters as when we had a dead starling (courtesy of our cats) in the bin the blue bottles gathered in an excited crowd round the bin for the whole fortnight - yeuch....

It varies from between 3-8 bags a fortnight. I recycle glass and big juci tetra paks at tesco. In my recycle bin I have paper, cardboard, tins and plastic bottles. A lot of the rubbish in my bin is made up of youghurt pots, coleslaw tubs, meat containers and plastic bags from all sorts of things like magazines, vegetables, fruit etc.
Hampshire council say there are no facilities anywhere in the UK to send those kind of plastics to to be recycled. There must be one somewhere though becasue Asda in carlisle where my mum shops has a big recycling centre, she takes all her tubs and pots there, plastic bottles of all sorts.

I also have umpteen bags for life and take them to the supermarket all the time so don't end up with lots of bags, and when I get an online shop i give all my bags back to the driver to recycle

2 half bin bags a week (kitchen bin gets niffy otherwise) and 4 recycling boxes. Brown compost wheelie whenever its got stuff in it, but all bins only collected once a fortnight.

2 adults and 2 babes in nappies

Probaly 6 or 7 carrier bags of rubbish each week.

Fill the recycle bin every 2 weeks.

2 adults
1 toddler
1 baby (4 weeks).

I try to buy things that aren't packaged, dh can not understand why when i buy leeks for example i don't put into a plastic bag. I think it's a waste just to throw away at home.

My one complaint where i live that there are no butchers near me (nearest 5 miles on the other side of town) so i have to buy from a supermarket at the moment.