How does your council encourage you to recycle?

[fryalot]

If bins are going to be collected every two weeks instead of weekly to encourage recycling, what does your local council do to help you?

We have a blue bin for paper - no cardboard, magazine type paper or packaging. Just paper.

erm.... that's it.

And, we have a bottle bin that is 7 miles away.

What do you guys have laid on for you?

nothing at all

other than a bottle bank in the village

we're down a private road and thus not entitled to a glass box & paper bag apparently

we don't have a bin either, just bags which we have to store indoors as we'd get rats otherwise.

well, I think geekgirl wins the prize for the least looked after mn-er (by the council, on the recycling front)

green box for glass, metal, paper, old mobile phones & printer cartridges, clothes shoes.

Soon to get a green bin for grass cuttings, plant waste and cardboard.

Black bin for everything else.

Free composter and free bokashi bin.

Freecycle number to collect old furniture.

I think we do quite well, other than lack of plastic recycling (only at household waste sites - you have to take your own)

i would like to sing my councils praises

black bin for household rubbish
green bin for garden and kitchen waste
green box for recyling

any other rubbish you have (like furniture, old carpets etc) you just phone them, leave it on the kerbside a week later and they will collect it for free

also, i was on the school run when our green box was emptied, it was an extremely windy day and my green box got lost, probably blown down the road

i emailed the council and they brought me a new one the next day

in our town they've made a huge noisy fuss about how the whole district is doing the kerbside recylcing. Erm yes, except that'dbe the whole district - as long as you live in a posh part of town! I have been asking for three years when it will be extended to all parts of town. At the moment, the area behind my road gets it and the block on the 'other side' of the main road gets it, but not us. My friend, who lives on a posh road, is 2 seconds walk from a huge council recycling unit but still gets kerbside collection for newspapers, tins and bottles. I have no transport and have to schlep 15 minutes with what I can carry [anger]
Last time I contacted the council to ask, I was told by the Customer Services Dept ''yeah, they ran out of money so now you'll have to wait up to 3 more years until they bring in wheeley bins.

What's the point. They are just paying lip service in my opinion.

Our council has done fortnightly collection for over two years I think. Alternates between "ordinary" and green bin, which has paper, plastic, cans, tins. cardboard.

We still have black bin bags here I put one out a week.
Then a green wheelie bin for garden waste - collected alternate fortnights.
Then a large white bag for paper, black box for glass and cans go into a plastic bag - all collected the 'other' week.

The only thing I have to take to Tesco's to recycle is plastic bottles, which I seem to have millions of!

Seems like our council is pretty good - shame they've just hiked the council tax up really

What a lot of you ahve bins that you can put garden waste and kitchen waste into. We used to be able to do that, but according to Fife council, there is a new legisltation that prevents them from collecting the brown bin if it has kitchen waste in. It's apparent though from this thread that the legislation ONLY applies to Fife. We also have a blue bin for all paper and carboard, but it only get lifted once a month, and god forbid the lids not shut, because they empty out the offending bits of paer, and dump them on the street. Then of course they get blown around by the wind and that is really good for the environment. We also have a black wgheelie bin for household rubbish which gets lifted once a week. Again if the lid is open even a millimetre, they take the offending bag out and dump it on the street for cats and birds to get into and scatter the rubbish all over the place. This rule though, only applies to certain areas in my village, as i watched in disbelief at the bin man emptied a bin which was overflowing, the lid hadn't evn been closed. Then the following week the same bin man took a bag out of my neighbours bin (her lid was only open a few centimtres) and left it on the street.
There is a glass/plastic bottle (only white ones, and no other plastics) and tin can recycling place round the corner by the school. However the bottle banks have been overflowing for more than a week now so I am getting a collection at my door

our council takes glass, cardboard, paper, clothes, shoes, telephone directories and some plastic bottles. All these we put in a big black box and which is emptied weekly from doorstep.

we also have a big brown bin for garden and food waste and a little green bin to put food scraps in before we transfer it to brown bin.

I think it's a pretty good service. I could cope with fortnightly for both - I have far less waste now in the main bin. The recycling bin would be pretty full though after a fortnight

You know I have NEVER heard of a bokashi bin before this thread. And I've just looked it up - they look actually useable, I'm impressed!

"well, I think geekgirl wins the prize for the least looked after mn-er (by the council, on the recycling front)"

yes, it's so infuriating. The nearest paper bank is 30 minutes away. Our council tax is sky-high, too - over £200 pcm , you'd think they could at least give us a sodding bin.

And then they whinge and moan about North Yorks. having such low recycling rates ... not bloody surprising, is it?

I know exactly what you mean. I'm in East Yorks, and at least I get a bin - and a paper bin!

Whereabouts in north yorks are you?

just off the A59 between Harrogate and Skipton

Some councils in north yorks are great - the village next to us is "over the border" and they get all sorts of stuff.

Our council is pretty useless - they collect garden waste, glass(although there are bottle banks everywhere so it is not that necessary) and newspapers.

They DON'T collect plastics, cans, cardboard.

Instead I stock these things up in large bins that I had to buy myself, and make fortnightly trips to our recycling centre 10 miles away.

Many people probably don't bother to recycle these items so all their plastics, cans, etc. end up in landfill.

Wheelie for waste, still collected weekly.

Blue wheelie for paper waste, collected monthly. You can have extra bins on request.

Recycling boxes (as many as you need) for plastic & glass bottles, tin, aluminium, aerosols, textiles, shoes - collected weekly.

Compost bins (previously £5 each, now free)

Free large item collection.

Various small recycling sites, 3 major sites, spread out over the area.

Saltire, we are the same as you.
We have a grey wheelie bin, a green wheelue bin for garden waste and a black box for metal, paper, glass and fabric.
The green one was usedf or garden and kitchen and cardboard, so veg scraps and egg shells. But the council are now stopping a lot of this and it'll only be for garden. Soemthingt oddo with salmonella and stuff.

But they are converting lots f the mini recycling centres to take plastic and cardboard.

OK Time to blow a trumpet for Milton Keynes: - Milton Keynes Council has an excellent recycling programme:

• All your refuse and recyclables will be collected on the same day. You can find out the collection day for your street.
• Paper, cardboard, plastic bottles, cans and foil are collected in pink sacks.
• Glass bottles and jars are collected in a blue box.
• Non-recyclable waste is collected in a black sack.
• If you need pink and black sacks or a blue box, email us or call us on 01908 25 25 70.
• There is also a garden waste collection scheme available to residents for a small charge.
• There are three main Community Recycling Centres (tips) and eleven smaller recycling points across Milton Keynes.

The three Community Recycling Centres accept the following items for recycling:

• Green, brown and clear glass bottles and jars
• Food and drink cans
• Plastic bottles
• Newspapers and magazines
• Textiles
• Hardcore
• Bric-a-brac
• Old car batteries
• Used engine oil
• Garden waste
• Cardboard boxes
• Aluminium foil

Wow, Iota. That's impressive.

It says Hardocre on that list Iota, is that where you take all your dodgy DVDs?
How do they recycle them, do they all have a go at watching

saltire

Geekgrl - it's no better for some of us in town centre if it's any consolation...

by only letting you have one tall skinny wheely bin per household!

We get ours collected fortnightly.

Big green wheelie bin for garden and food waste.

Grey wheelie bin for rubbish. We do have an extra big wheelie bin because there 5 of us in the house.

You just call council and they take smaller one in exchange.

We also have 2 small lidded green/black bins for paper/card etc.

At some point they're due to introduce another bin for plastic/glass/tins.