General Chat

I have two black bins for normal waste
two green bins for garden waste

and a blue bin for recycling :-D

Our Binmen are wonderful guys :-D :-D

My main problem is disposing of small electrical items. We have no option but to take them to the tip, which is difficult with no car.

Does anyone have this catered for in their area?

We have two wheelie bins and a green bag.
Green bag is for garden 'waste', one bin is for recycleables - mainly plastic and cardboard/paper. The other is for 'general' waste.
Alternate weekly collections. One week General and garden waste, the next, recycleables.
No glass collection - the nearest glass disposal is about half a mile away - on the road to nowhere. It used to be a quarter of a mile away, on the way to town, but that car park is now being built on :-(
No good for those without cars.
There was a compost bin offer a few years back, where you could get one compost bin quite cheaply - but in reality, two compost bins are needed for proper composting.

Von - JemimaFawr says she still has black bags for general waste. You're not alone.

I'm all for recycling but, from the sound of it, some councils don't make it easy.

I must be the only person with black bags :-0
We keep it in a normal dustbin until rubbish day so no problem.

Clear bags for recycling glass,paper and some plastic.

Different colour plastic bag for textiles

3 large bags for garden waste.
Small bin for food waste
Weekly collection for all of the above

All vegetable peelings go in our wormery or on the compost :-D :-D

I do have one gripe though and that is we can't recycle enough plastic. The adjoining council collects their plastic :-(

We used to have 3 wheelie bins (kitchen waste, garden waste if you wanted one and recycling) and a caddy for tins and glass. Now we have to put the glass and tins in with the recycling waste so the caddy has gone. Our problem now with the waste bin and recycling bins being the same size is that the waste bin is rarely a quarter full, yet collected weekly, yet the recycling bin is overflowing, (despite that we take all our shredded paper to a local smallholding) and is only collected fortnightly. :-S Black sacks would be ripped open by the foxes around here and be harder to carry down the drive with bad backs etc so I would hate going back to them.

We have wheelie bins which have to be left for emptying on a recreation ground at the bottom of the road. I don't think bags would last long there with the various animals that find their way on to the rec.

Our council seems quite backward with its recycling. We have a black bin for general waste and a blue for recyclable waste, collected on alternate weeks. There is no provision for food waste which has to go in to the general bin. Glass cannot be put in the recycling bin but has to be taken to a bottle bank - difficult for those without a car. Textiles can go in the blue bin but they must be put on the top in a special bag which must be collected from the town hall and that's a pain if you don't live in the centre of town.

There is a fortnightly collection for brown bin garden waste. However it is £55 to hire the bin which seems more expensive than most councils

We don't have food waste collection here, but I try and keep that to a minimum anyway. Anything 'smelly' is wrapped very well before going in the bin. Veggie peelings go in the compost. All bins collected fortnightly - general, garden, carboard+plastic recycling, tin+glass+paper recycling. 3 wheelie bins and 1 box.

Islington rules say that you cannot leave the bin on the pavement.
So if yr house opens onto the street tough.
OH yes there must be a drop kerb for the wheelie bin.
If the truck driver feels that he/she is impeded eg somebody parking on the drop kerb thats yr lot until next time.
The price for recycled domestic waste has crashed.

garden centres are the leading vector for all kinds of nasty bugs to enter the UK. If brexit put an end to them it might just be worth it.

We must be weird around here cos our green waste goes in a green bin in fact all our various recycling bins, boxes and bags are green.

At no extra cost that's fair enough then.

We have the original green coloured household bin, a black one for recycling, a box for glass and a brown coloured one for garden waste. That costs us £39 pa and is emptied alternative weeks all year round. The rcyling ones are emptied every 2 weeks whilst the household is weekly. We don't bother putting it out every week as there isn't much in it.

Like IGP, our veggie peelings go on the compost heap. There are specific instructions not to put them in the garden bin. As they all go for composting, its a strange decision to have made.

It seems a strange suggestion to freeze your cooked food waste. It would only work if you have space and the scraps are 'fresh' when they are frozen.

Rollo - what did the council expect you to do with a fox carcass? Give them a ring or let it get turned into road squish for the street cleaners to scrape up?

....

Someone has added to the neighbourhood site

To anyone who is concerned the new bins will be too small for a fortnightly collection of black waste - I've just spoken to the council and once everyone has their bins then you can order another one if you feel you will need it - fair enough?
............
Lets hope that stops the moaners fussy.

Surprising how many different combinations of bins there are. We have had wheelie bins for years. We have a brown one for garden waste, annual fee around £38, well worth it to save those numerous trips to the tip. We also have a green general waste bin which goes to landfill and a blue recycling bin which takes cardboard, tins, glass, card, paper (like computer paper), newspaper, yoghurt pots, plastic meat and veg trays plastic bottles, small amounts of shredding wrapped in newspaper. We also have a small food caddy for the kitchen the bags of which are transferred to the larger food caddy for collection. Our veg peelings etc go into amother caddy for our own compost bin in the garden. Green bin collected one week plus the brown bin, blue bin collected alternate weeks and food caddy collected every week. Food caddy can have food in any plastic bag now as all food waste is chooped up and used for producing energy. (they say).
Reading all the different types of bin collection in this county alone I think Tewkesbury BC have got it about right.
Only one moan at the moment, we have just had all new refuse lorries and now the food waste is collected separately and this week was not collected until late afternoon. Not sure how that will work in the hot sun if people neglect to lock their bins and animals get a whiff of food.

I wouldn't do that either, Names.

I'd question how hygienic it was. :-0

Over 30 years ago we lived in a house fronting straight off the street. Changing to a wheelie bin was a nightmare. Heavily pregnant and with a husband on late turn the night prior to collection I was expected to drag it down the back of other houses and leave it in the narrow passage between some of the houses. Luckily the council agreed to carry on collecting from my back gate, but once baby arrived I had to remember to go in/out via the front door for a couple of days.
Now we have a back garden and shed to house 2 wheelie bins, two large boxes for paper and glass, and a big sack for plastics & tin. The bag from the kitchen caddy goes in the fortnightly green wheelie and the general bin on the other week. I,m not doing as suggested - keeping the caddy bag in the freezer until green recycling week come around.

There are big differences in bins and collections from area to area. We have black for general rubbish and green for recycling (paper, card, glass, tins) and an optional brown bin for gardening. I had to buy the brown bin and then pay an annual fee. No food waste collected (but we can put peelings in the garden bin;-)) I asked if I could put shrivelled carrots in and the reply was 'we accept raw peelings' :-S

Edited to add: Larger families can get an extra general waste bin (6+ or 5 with a baby in nappies)

We already have different bins and have had for a few years.

Grey bin for general waste emptied fortnightly
Larger Green bin for recycling emptied fortnightly
2 brown bins for garden waste emptied weekly in summer but once a month March to October.
A smaller black food caddy emptied weekly
Blue box for glass and batteries emptied monthly.

In that, I'd agree with you Rollo. We have had several prosecutions for fly-tipping in the area since the LA charged a fee for vehicles to use the local waste tip.

Islington make you pay for the bins and are bureaucratic to the nth degree.
I got fined for putting a dead fox in the bin.
It is an out of control industry which has made fly tipping a lucrative business.

Seeing you mention washing the bins, Lyndi, I forgot to mention that some enterprising person goes round washing the bins for a small fee - OH does ours.