Can you fit a fortnight's worth of rubbish in a small wheelie bin?

[Loobeeloo]

I have 3 under 3 in my house as well as dh and now we are recycling we have managed to reduce our rubbish down to 4 bags a week.

The larger wheelie bins hold 4-6 bags I'm told (the council won't take them if the lids won't close fully) but I now see there are suggestions we will all get half size bins to avoid "bin envy"!

wheelie bins

How on earth will I get my rubbish down to just 3 bags a fortnight?

So, maybe I should open a compost business where I go round and collect peoples compost WEEKLY (not bi weekly) and then sell it back to them when it's all decomposed to use in theri gardens -- those who have gardens anyway.

Seriously, how do you keep the kiddies playin in the back garden from playing in the the compost heap/bin? Or do you keeo it in the front for passers byy to view and enjoy the aroma?

eleusis - the composter takes things like veg and fruit peelings, all garden adn grass cuttings, dead flowers (and the water from the vase) torn up cardboard, paper, egg shells, bread crusts etc. Do not put any cooked food in there, no meat or dairy products.
We have had our composter (a black one with a lid) for nearly 10 years now. The only thing it attracts is fruit flies, but they don't bother me. (the are tiny and you only see them when you lift the lid to put some stuff in)

nailpolish - the only problem is that the compostable/biodegradable bin bags are very expensive. But I will look into getting them.

eleusis - the composter takes things like veg and fruit peelings, all garden adn grass cuttings, dead flowers (and the water from the vase) torn up cardboard, paper, egg shells, bread crusts etc. Do not put any cooked food in there, no meat or dairy products.
We have had our composter (a black one with a lid) for nearly 10 years now. The only thing it attracts is fruit flies, but they don't bother me. (the are tiny and you only see them when you lift the lid to put some stuff in)

nailpolish - the only problem is that the compostable/biodegradable bin bags are very expensive. But I will look into getting them.

oops, sorry

And where do you put the contents of the composter when it gets full?

The composter makes compost. It rots down to a nice moist mulch. This you put on your flower beds and shrubs in the garden. Sprinkle it over your lawn. Put it on the veggie patch. Saves on buying bags of compost from the garden centre. Mind you, it takes a few years, so don't worry about it being 'full. You have to keep it moist and place your composter in a shady place.

can you put bread in the compost bin?

Yes, molly.

Thanks

mines in the sun coz i thought it had to get hot. is that wrong then? tragically so? as in, do i need to move it?

there will be a black market in wheelie bin space. Old people could make a mint -

you will see signs in the local shop

"rent bag space in my wheelie bin £5pw space for one bag guarenteed - may take more on occasion. please contact albert humberdickle"

hey, you could be the wheelie bin oligark, custy - go round and make all the oldies sign away their rental rights to wheelie bin space quick before they realise the worth of it

I think compost bins should be positioned in the sun because thew warmer they get the faster they compost. If they are the open wood cage sort then they need to be kept moist, but if they are the fully-enclosed plastic sort then they generally keep themselves moist, especially if they get lots of green waste and kitchen waste.

I thought you shouldn't put cooked starches in for the same reason that you don't put animal proteins in - attracting vermin. Commercial heaps get so hot that this is not a problem, but domestic heaps don't generate as high a temperature.

If you've got clouds of fruitflies then you've got too much kitchen waste. Sprinkle some earth/dry grass clippngs/shredded card on top of each layer of kitchen waste to keep the flies down.

thanks for that PC. v informative.
i never seem to take info in if given in large batches (6 pages on compost heaps and my eyes glaze over) but little snippets like that, i can retain. i think.
the brain is a muscle i heard. well mine aint had much stretching of late. think i may go and do an irrelevent degree just so i can think of myself an intelligent again.

A muscle? In that case mine's in the same shape as my pelvic floor muscle.

ah, I did wonder why we could put cooked meats etc in the compost bags (door-step collection).

PC
yes, well, mine too to be perfectly honest.

Yup, PC is right, it should be in the sun! doh, no wonder it has taken us 8 years to get a spade full of compost out of it

ROFFLE!!!

hippipotami,

It was another poster who had put about taking the excess to the municiple tip I was commenting on. It wasn't until I just read back from your posts that I realised you had mentioned a tip at all - and no I don't suggest you dump it somewhere, as someone who lives down a quiet counrty lanes and drives past various piles of tyres and builders rubbish everyday.

Having read your posts you seem to be doing loads to help reduce your waste. To help your compost keep warm, we cover ours with an old natural fibre carpet - makes it sort of stew in it's own juice! Also to keep it moist and help it rot down, particularly if there's lots of grass cutting it's good to pee on it - another job for the boys I think, along with spiders and maggots!

i am very keen to recycle and do as much as i can but have avoided putting food into a compost heap as i am paranoid about attracting mice (read on here how someone had a family of mice in their heap) and rats

those of you who have mentioned fully enclosed compost bins - have any of you had any vermin problems and where did you buy them from and for how much?

thanks

I've not had any vermin problems (that I know of!) but did have an ants' nest in the compost bin. It was very weird and somehow quite pathetic to see them scurrying about carrying eggs and larvae as I was digging out the compost the other week.

We got ours at B&Q IRRC. You can get them all over the place, often even through the council at a discount.

we have a couple of compost bins that are open on the bottom (on the ground) and have a lid on the top. We used to put green food waste (peelings etc) in it - but I now put all that in the council compost bags and our bins just have garden waste in them.
We have a mouse in ours at time - dh once lifted the lid off (to have a wee in it - its good for it!) and there was a mouse staring up at him. He is slightly more circumspect about pissing on the compost in the dark now .

ok alycat - am sorry!
fwiw I hate flytipping with a passion. I regularly take my dog for a walk in the local woods, and the carpark there is often used for dumping, it drives me insane. So I sympathise (sp) with you.