have we had an argument about rubbish yet?

[peskipixie]

i dont understand how people cant get by with one wheeliebin. we have recently gone to fortnightly collections and people are frequently dumping black bags on the alley on the wrong day, its disgusting. but why is it necessary? we have recycling boxes, they will take as much recycling as we leave out, just not rubbish. there are 6 of us in our house and we manage fine. i honestly dont get why its such a problem.

anyone want to enlighten me?

we have three of the things! One for the rubbish, one for the recycling and one for the compostables. They are fab, and make it all soooooooooooooooo easy.

The only time we have to take stuff to the dump (which is also V recycle friendly) is around Xmas, or if we have a real sort out.

well, let's see.

do you live in a rural area?

there are often NO recycling collections in these areas.

none.

there are recycling facilities in 'town', which is miles and miles away.

and you don't drive.

and there's no bus.

and you're elderly or have a young family.

that's how someone can end up with more than one wheelie bin.

FWIW, i drive our recycling to the facility on the way to drop off DD1 at nursery and compost kitchen and garden waste, but i could see how if you had no car you'd wind up with more rubbish.

people around here burn their rubbish often enough

We have good recycling collection and alternate week grey/brown wheelie bin collection. Its good and easy. And our area is also going to be pioneering 'Total recycling' plants:

environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/mg19626265.900-total-recycling-aims-to-make-landfill-hist ory.html

Sounds good... though I hope we arent downwind of them!

But expat that is not what is being talked about. People who have fortnightly bin collections in rural areas also have fortnightly recycling collections. This is our situation. We have fortnightly collections of general rubbish, and fortnightly collections of plastic/paper/tins, plus monthly collections of the glass crate. None of these are ever more than half full.

ndp I really cannot imagine how with one extra person you are creating more than twice as much rubbish as we are.

well, bozza, i live in a rural area.

it has NO recycling collection.

you have to take it in yourself.

and btw, we're a family of 4 who only half fills a wheelie bin a week.

i was making up a scenario.

and also, if they're going to charge people as they throw, are they also going to lower council tax?

i mean, part of council tax is supposed to go for rubbish collection, so if you're paying for that as you throw, then you should be lowered council tax, too.

So expat are you saying that you also have fortnightly general rubbish collections? I compost which reduces food and garden waste because we do not have a collection for these.

I'm SAYING WE DON'T HAVE MORE THAN ONE BIN FULL OF RUBBISH BUT I CAN SEE WHERE SOMEONE WOULD OUT HERE!

And yes, we have fortnightly collections.

the thing that gets me is that you can hire private companies here to collect your rubbish, so if you can afford it you can do that.

sort of defeats the object doesn't it.

Lots of this already discussed on the ecoliving threads - where we discovered that some people who thought they were recycling were in fact contaminating the recycling with things you can't recycle (like tetrapaks - check out the map on the tetrapak thread to see just how many councils will take them - not surprisingly lots of people thought they could recycle when they couldn't.) Same for lots of types of plastic and glass. As I walk down my street I see loads of recycle bags proudly out on the pavement for collection and there's usually something in them that would mean they are classified as contaminated. What's to stop people doing this? Though of course it certainly reduces the amount of "regular" rubbish!

OK expat, I would have thought it was fairly unusual to have fortnightly rubbish collections and no recycling collections.

I'm worried about this because I am responsible for emptying the playground bin. I also, once every few months or so, walk down our lane picking up all the rubbish which passing motorists throw out of their windows. Am I going to be charged for their stuff?

As well as reducing the wrappings etc on our food-eg buy loose as much as you can & take your own re-useable bags/boxes we have to get into food recycling too.

Because good old "Home Economics" is now "Food Technology" & part of DT at school, children just don't learn how to re-use food. They buy it in single portions & what's uneaten is thrown. The idea of making a shepherds pie or cooking a basic meal for two nights is alien to a lot of young parents. Last Sunday I bought a large chicken which we had roasted, then we had cold meat,jacket pots & salad Mon. Then I used the scraps of the carcass for a soup & some I made up into a curry both of which went in the freezer for anothere night.

God yes I'm a GOW.

On a lighter note not much food is wasted in our house as what doesn't go in the compost goes in the Labrador

We put out 2 small black bags a week for 5 of us. Main difference was when we got a compost heap.

It has to be done. I know it's going to be unpopular and it will be whinged about hugely but I don't see there is any real choice.

our local council has recently gone fron weekly recycling to fortnightly.

now what the fuck is that about? eh?

surely if one wanted to kiss arse re: recycling they would have fortnightly collections for normal rubbish and weekly of recycling.

eh? eh? eh?

am i right?

vote for me custy for president of the replublic of England

If it persuades people to recycle then its a great idea.
We put out 1 black bag a week (5 of us - one still in nappies but reusables), while our neighbours who have exactly the same access to recycling as we do and have one less in their house (still 1 in nappies) put out 5 or 6 a week. If it pushes them to think of recycling then it's good, as giving them recycling bins hasn't made them use them.

Our local council has promised not to go to fortnightly collections. We also have mixed recycling (ie paper and plastic doesn't need to be separated) and composting bins are being trialled v soon. We don't get wheelie bins though - we buy our own black/green ordinary round dustbins and black sacks, but get given garden waste bags and clear recycling sacks.

Once a fornight for the black rubbish bin, and once a fortnight for the recycling bin, alternate weeks for us. Still struggling. We get people fly-tipping down the end of our road because there's a patch of waste-ground and it's just going to increase. Ah well.

And the cheeky council have sent us all sniffy letters about the rat problem, as though it's something in our gardens, rather than the ill-kempt council land.