so pathetic - but I CAN'T organise my recycling (Y-A-W-N)

[BBBee]

thank you for opening - let's face it - not the most exciting thread of the evening.

How on earth do you manage your recycling?

I know I should do it and save the planet and stuff and I really try but it is driving me nuts.

We have one box for 'good' paper and glass and another box for plastic, cardboard, tins and 'bad'(?) paper. I oredered a bin for the second lot as we had so much. We also have a compost caddy by the sink and bin in the garden - those fellas I can cope with.

My problem is my boxes - I constantly have stuff stacked by the sink or piled by the back door waiting to go out. I had the boxes inside and the place looked horrible.

How do you cope with recycling without loads of piles of stuff waiting to be taken outside to go in the relevant bin?

I am so frustrated by this seemingly simple task.

You have to live with the boxes I'm afraid.
I keep mine in the garage and have trained the kids to put stuff in relevant one.

Boxes in the garage and under the stairs

Hang in there

We are a family of 4 and now we only put out one small bag of rubbish

Us too Noodle

Everything (except compost stuff) goes in one bin and gets sorted the night before collection.

we keep clear recyling bag in downstairs loo for paper and card
blue box hidden behind wheelie bin for glass (i take stuff out every night so it doesn't stack up)
grass cuttings and other stuff in the garden shed until they are collected

in scotland we have 3 wheelie bins

• one for recycleable garden waste (grass cuttings, hedge clippings, weeds etc emptied monthly)
• one for clean recycleable stuff like paper, tins, cans, foil, milk bottles, plastic bottles etc
• and one for all other rubbish, food scraps, non-recycleable plastics wrappers etc

glass bottles and jars aren't collected but each week or month i gather thwm up from the garage and take them to the bottle bank.

it means a lot of bins and only a fortnightly collection but it makes recycling v easy imo.

Everything goes into a bag for life which hangs from the under the sink drawer (the one that is not a drawer IYKWIM). When it starts to bulge slightly it is taken out and sorted.

Cardboard and plastic are the scary ones, the amount of cardboard is frightening.

We fill one black sack between 3 of us every two weeks. It is worth it when you go to take the bins out and you get that smug feelling that you are not filling up the land fill.

in spain we have

3 organic
2 rubbish
1 paper
1 glass
2 plastic

collections per week... so it never builds up that much..

Bree - it's the cardboard that scares me. Every weekend DH & I have a romantic walk to recycling and there is always a HUGE amount of cardboard. It seems to be mainly food packaging.

This site has some fab stuff to help - we have a couple of these which, because they stack, take up less floor space, and don't look too hidous, I don't think.

I cut my boxes up with a stanley knife asap, then I don't have to live with them. How many boxes do you have per week then?

noodlestroodle we also end up with a tonne of boxes but there is a way of folding them up if you collapse the base and once folded you can squeeze them into an unfolded box. I finally unpacked some wedding presents we got seven years ago and ended up with loads of boxes but was amazed I could fold most of them and in the end I had just one box stuffed with all the others.

i'm telling you theres a market here - those pricesare fucking outragous, the storage capacity is laughable. ihave 2 large plastic recycling boxes int he corner of my kitchen and they look hideous. i then hav a smaller box for glass. when i move iwill have a double cupboard for the recycling

I had some lakeland boxes in the house for paper, tins and glass but got fed up with the space they took up so they've gone... unless we have a party then I get them back out for people to put beer cans and wine bottles in, saves me doing it myself.

Paper tends to be junk mail so gets put on the table by the front door, then every few days I gather it all up and take outside.

All compostable stuff gets put in a small pot with a lid on and taken out when it's full.

Cans, plastics and glass get rinsed out and left on the kitchen side, when I have a good clear up everyday and empty the normal bin I take the the recycling stuff out too.

It was a pain at first taking things out every day and having stuff left on the sides, but we have to empty the normal bin so it's just a 2nd trip outside, and it saves me dreading the huge pile of recycling I had to sort through before.

Keep at it. It's worth it, I get a great feeling every week when I take the black wheelie bin down and it's less than a 1/4 full

www.argos.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Search?storeId=10001&catalogId=10651&langId=-1&sear chTerms=recycling

We have one of these bins, is great and holds loads of stuff...