How do you recycle without having 3 bins or a messy kitchen?

[msrisotto]

My kitchen is small and I hate it looking like a big mess. It doesn't take much for chaos to reign in there. So what do you do about your recycling? At the moment i've got one proper kitchen bin then recyclables spilling out on the floor around it. It looks pants.

I have two white wicker tubs in the utility - one for cardboard/plastics and the other for glass.

At my old house with no utility I used to pile it up a bit and do regular trips to the recycling bin in the garden.

I have a plastic box which everything goes in, when it's full it then gets emptied into the outdoor box

www.homebase.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?langId=110&storeId=10151&partNumber=138276&c_3=3%7Ccat_14418477%7CKitchen+Bins%7C14418484&c_2=2%7Ccat_16849298%7CKitchen+Accessories+and+Cookware%7C14418477&c_1=1%7Ccategory_root%7CKitchen%7C16849298&c_4=4%7Ccat_14418484%7CRecycling+Bins%7C36251766&cmpid=summit_pla&_$ja=cgid:8448163456|tsid:49590|cid:275140816|lid:50037563818|nw:g|crid:33349607776|rnd:5563122811816584240|dvc:t|adp:1o7

I have one of these

Oops, not good with links!

We have a regular kitchen bin, plus a three-drawer plastic (v cheap) sort of chest of drawers from B&Q - use that to separate paper, glass and plastics. Empty those drawers as reqd

I have a bin with three separate bins in it. It is stainless steel with push too black lids. Looks nice and doesn't take up too much space. We use one compartment for regular rubbish and two for recycling. Then I have a compost caddy bin on the work surface for compost waste.

I have a double compartment bin so one side is for mixed recycling and the other is for general waste. There is a food waste caddy that moves from worktop to the floor depending on space.

this is my bin

www.amazon.co.uk/VonHaus-Stainless-Compartment-Recycle-Recycling/dp/B00GY8I2C0/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1390160844&sr=8-3&keywords=3+compartment+bin

ive got one of these.

its really good.

www.amazon.co.uk/VonHaus-Stainless-Compartment-Recycle-Recycling/dp/B00GY8I2C0/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1390160844&sr=8-3&keywords=3+compartment+bin

We've got these stacked in the understairs cupboard for bottles & cardboard/paper.
Regular rubbish bin in kitchen and a compost caddy on the window sill that gets emptied onto the compost in the garden.

Corner cupboard (bottom one). Half of it is unusable anyway. Tend to use bin liners for the flexibility they give in terms of amount of stuff.

We've recently bought the Brabantia twin bin, and its great, definitely worth the money. Its really easy to pull out the recycling compartment and tip it into the bins outside. Bought in a 20% off homebase sale. Haven't got anything in place for paper yet though.

How often do you get collections? Ours only come once a fortnight, by which time the mounds of cardboard/glass/plastic bottles/cans would have reached the ceiling, let alone filled any extra bins. There's only DH and me, and I don't think we buy anything particularly out of the ordinary but still have tonnes of recycling! And because we're only allowed a tiny box (and God help you if anything is over the brim, they will not take it) every fortnight, we just gave up putting any recycling out at all, and now pop to the dump every fortnight with a carload (as in seats down, full to roof). Which doesn't help re kitchen clutter as we just have piles and rubbish bags next to the bin, not very tidy :( I do sometimes store full bags of recycling in our garden waste bin just to get it out of the way.

Bit of a hijack but what about food waste? Does anyone still bother? We did, religiously, but then stopped after our bin wasn't emptied three weeks in a row (food waste being the only one that does get collected weekly). DH caught the binmen on week 3 and asked what the problem was. He was told it was cos the food has to be wrapped in plastic bags 'but don't bother buying them green ones, just use your Asda shopping bags mate, all ends up the same place anyway'. I thought plastic bags took years to break down?? Anyway DH threw a wobbly (not at binman) so we don't bother with food waste. Not that there is a lot anyway.

we have collections once a fortnight too - 1 week general waste and the next week recycling. We have wheelie bins though and the recycling is all mixed so dont need to sort into separates. We have a food waste collection every week too and it is plastic bags we use to collect the waste in the indoor caddy and then the bag is tied up and put in the wee outside food bin.

We have a big plastic crate on top of the fridge for cardboard, plastic, glass. I lob it up there and then when I can't fit any more in DH (who is taller than me!) takes it down and out to the recycling bins outside.

Our glass and tins go every week. The cardboard is eveyr other week in with our green garden bin, but that has a lid, so we can shove it in there in between times without it blowing away everywhere.

We have a normal kitchen bin and a smaller kitchen bin for the recycling stuff (it all goes in the green bin mixed together).

We also have a kitchen caddy for stuff that goes in the compost bin.

We've got one bin in the kitchen for general waste and a second for recyclable. It does take up more room than I'd like but if I don't have it this way, the back door is being opened and closed far too often and it gets cold.

When it's full, it gets sorted in the covered bit of the back yard. This seems to be every couple of days, DP drinks milk like it was water! We're on fortnightly alternate collections, this morning the general waste has gone and I will take some recycling to the centre later, this time next week I will be doing the same but the opposite way round.

Our council doesn't offer a food composting service, some of it does go in my own compost bin though, eg potato peelings.

We have general waste one week and compost able waste the next week. Recycling (glass, plastic, paper) gets taken every week, one box and one bag though we have commandeered next doors as they don't recycle.

We have one kitchen bin for general rubbish, a caddy for food waste under the sink. I keep the recycling bag and box right near the back door and just put any recycling straight in them. We used to have them hanging round on the end of the work top, but now they just go straight out.

Inside we have a bin for non-reclyables, an old biscuit tin for dry recycling and a kitchen caddy. We use carrier bags in the old biscuit tin.

We empty the caddy as needed into the small food bin which lives inside our large green garden waste bin. Our garden is all patio so we have very little garden waste.

We empty the dry-recylcing into the large bags (no wheelie bins for dry-recycling here) and they get stored outside the back gate until collection (every fortnight).

As well as the garden waste wheelie bin and the non-recycling black wheelie bin we have 2 regular bins, one which keeps the dry-recycle bags until they are full along with glass until we walk to bottle bank and the other stores vegetables. Bins bloody everywhere.

Am pretty sure we discard (whether recycled or otherwise) more than we ever have due to packaging, lots of which still cannot be recycled.

We could actually do with a smaller non-recycling bin for inside. Maybe we'll get one of those double bins.

We now have 3 wheely bins.

One for normal waste
One for garden
One for recyclables.

All the stuff that can possibly be composted gets composted.
the recyclable one is usually full of the plastic and metal and we take it out to the bin daily.
The garden one is full of stuff that will set seed if composted, and stuff that we can't break down by hand
The normal one is now the emptiest these days. Just plastic that can't be recycled.

Every area has a different set of bins, it's madness.

Oh and any food, goes into the wormery. Not that there is much. But I put all my kitchen scraps from veg prep in there.

Stella that's awful. Are you allowed to order an extra box? In my old area they would take as much recycling as they could, I had 2 official boxes and a plastic toy storage box.

I live abroad now and the recycling here is a pain, there is hardly any space for general waste because in theory pretty much everything is recyclable. But we live in a flat on the top floor so taking it out every day is a huge pain in the arse.

We have recycling collected fortnightly (2 wheely bins for that). Rubbish in bin liners and a dustbin (anything they don't recycle, such as polystyrene, coat hangers) collected fortnightly and food waste (small indoor caddy for the kitchen top and larger outdoor caddy)
In my (small) kitchen I have 2 bins and the indoor caddy on the kitchen top. Recycling goes in one bin and rubbish in the other, then taken out to the outdoor bins as necessary. I put food waste in the green composting bags from Tesco, I'm hoping our bin service don't do what Stellaface's said they do with the food waste!