Single hen

[Guest]

As this forum has people from all over the country on, I would like to ask what recycling facilites local councils provide.

 

Where we live we have a weekly wheelie bin collection. We are also provided with a green box for the collection and recycling of newspapers, magazines, junk mail, cans and glass bottles. We also have a green wheelie bin for grass cuttings and garden waste (not food). These are collected every fortnight.

 

We live a few hundred yards (too old for metres) from the border of South Staffordshire, they have a fortnightly wheelie bin collection but they collect recycling cans, bottles, plastics, newspapers, magazines and also garden waste. They will also take as much as you put out whereas we can only put out a box full.

 

South Staffs are now also introducing the collection of cardboard and food waste for composting.

 

Dan used to work in Cheshire and they had brilliant recycling facilities. He used to take all of our plastics, tins, bottles etc. This was before we had any recycling provisions. He said there were proper recycling bins in the streets (I think this is brilliant)

I would be very interested in what other people have to say.

 

This really started me thinking after watching It's not Easy Being Green. They had collected all that recycling from the Eden Project. I wondered if places like Alton Towers etc had the same policy for recycling.

 

Sorry to go on so much, but the thought of all that stuff going into a landfill is appalling. Why can some councils do really good things to help out the environment and others only do the bare minimum.

 

Right I will get off my soap box now.

 

PS If you do have recycling collections, do your neightbours put stuff out for collection, about 60% of ours don't

[Mrs Frugal]

Hi Debs,

 

We have a fortnightly collection of recycling from our little green crates which are woefully inadequate for the amount of stuff we put out so we end up with a big pile of bags as well! Our council (South Kesteven) take card, paper, tins, plastic bottles and packaging but not glass but we have ample bottle banks around the town for that to not be a worry. The council will take whatever you put out so long as it isn't in black bin bags as they think it's rubbish and leave it!

 

Looking around at our neighbours boxes each week, two to the side of me always seem to put out a box full of things which is good as they are both single women. The family of 6 with 4 grown up children never put anything out which I find really annoying as they put a couple of their black bin bags of "rubbish" with our single bag when the bin men come each week as they've already got 4 by their gate and don't want to look bad! The 3 people living the other side of us only ever put out a carrier bag of newspapers. I can't believe they don't have more things which could be recycled. It doesn't hurt to recycle. Most of the people here do put something out but not nearly as much as us and my friend down the road!

 

The council also have a green wheelie bin scheme for kitchen and garden waste but we have a compost heap so ours tends to go on that instead. I'm also going to get a can-o-worms for my birthday so we can use that too!

Edited April 7, 2006 by Guest

[Guest]

We have just received our recycling boxes here in Midlothian. They are collected every week, and we get 2 boxes - one for glass and tins, and one for paper, cardboard and plastics but only specific types of recyclable plastics.

 

Having just sorted out my recycling for the week, I still have a box full of stuff that my mother will be able to put in her council collected box (City of Edinburgh), and she had a pile of plastic that she can't put in her box, but I can put in mine.

 

Confused?! I am!

 

We also have a garden rubbish bin and a normal bin which get collected on alternate weeks.

[Guest]

Our council (Haverng) gives us special orange bags - they are stronger then the usual black bin-liners.

 

in the recyclng bags you can put cardboard, paper (junk mail etc), plastic (milk cartons but not yoghurt pots), cans (drinks and food) and plastic bags.

 

they get picked up by the bin-men and go in the dustbin-lorry wth the black ones - but they don't split in the lorry and are seperated out at the depot.

 

it's really easy - it all goes in one bag (except glass) and you can fill as many bags as you like (they are delivered free and you can get free extras frm the library and other places)

 

they've just introduced a wheelie bin scheme for garden waste - you fill up a wheelie bin - they collect every two weeks.

 

 

Phil

[Guest]

It is really confusing

 

I am getting quite good now, I have stopped buying as many things in plastic as I can now ie vegetables and milk. I now have a lovely local milkman who delivers every other day and Saturdays, so no plastic milk cartons. I have a veg box every friday and if I need extra fruit or veg I always buy loose from the green grocer or if I can't get there from the dreaded supermarket.

 

If I do go to the supermarket it is quite rewarding as it drives them mad when there are loose bits of fruit and veg on the conveyor and then you put these in another shops carrier bag

 

Although, I have a friend who was treated very badly when she had the nerve to use an Asda bag to pack her shopping into when she went to M & S. The assistant was very rude to her and tried to insist she used one of the M & S bags. She very politely declined their offer of a free bag and carried on using her own.

[Guest]

 

When I get veg from the supermarket, I always use the paper mushroom bags for everything, then put them in the compost.

[Lesley]

Under Stratford District Council we have a weekly black bin bag which is free and fortnightly we have a green wheelie bin for garden waste and a black crate for glass and paper. NO plastic

We are allowed to have more than one wheelie bin for the green waste but only one black bag and only the one black crate.

 

We do put some stuff in the green wheelie but only if it's not suitable for the chickens, wormery or compost bin, so not very often.

 

My sister is 10 miles away in Leamington Spa and under Warwick County Council and they don't provide any free bags at all and they're not allowed to use dustbins so they have to buy black bags.

 

Most people around us use all the bins for recycling but the binmen remove any plastic - even carrier bags holding excess newspapers - and leave them in the drive

 

The Eden Project have a lot of their plastic waste recycled to make items which they sell in the shop - we have coasters made from plastic cups and also from circuit boards - and rulers from waste plastic.

[ali-s]

We have an orange lidded crate for glass, cans, tins and aersols. A blue lidded crate for paper and cardboard. These are collected every week. I found I had too much paper and cardboard so the council brought round another blue crate free of charge.

 

We also have a brown wheelie bin for garden rubbish, soil, branches etc and a green wheelie bin for household rubbish. These are collected on alternate weeks.

 

No where in moray to recycle any sort of plastic, so this has to go in the household wheelie bin.

 

The council also do a free up lift service for large items such as furniture, white goods. I suppose these go to the landfill.

 

I bought a compost bin from the council for £10 and a green cone composter (cooked and raw food waste, including bones) for £5. This normally retails at about £70 I think. The green cone is fanstastic and if I had the space I would buy another.

 

Everyone in my neighbourhood uses their crates and wheelie bins. The council do regular spot checks, if you have put something that can be recycled in the wheelie bin they refuse to empty it, and I think they can fine you.

 

I think Moray's landfill will only last for another 10 years and there is no where else to dump rubbish after this.

 

Outside most schools and other public buildings there is a range of bottle banks, paper and can banks for the public to use.

[chocchick]

We have a black wheelie bin collected weekly and blue paper wheelie bin collected monthly which is very full usually.

We take glass to the bottom of the road where there is a collection point, and are now keeping tins and plastic milk bottles as we have found these can be recycled. A lot of stuff goes on our compost heap which we inherited from the people before us

We only put out about 1 bag of household rubbish a week, which is very little compared to others and I've noticed we have a lot more paper than other people.

[Trish]

we have green wheelie bins that take everything except glass. The only oroblem is they only empty them once a month. However I just noticed that my neighbour has two so it's off to phone the council to see if they charge for emptying extra ones

[Guest]

When our council first announced it was going to start a recycling policy there was almost rioting in the streets

 

The reason being, the normal household rubbish bins would only be emptied every other week, alternating with the recycling collection.

 

There were huge cries of 'rampaging foxes' 'flies everywhere' 'maggots' and mounds of dirty nappies lying in the streets.

 

We are a family of 4 and our bin was rarely half full even before recycling.

 

Most of these comments came from the sort of people that never use the recycling facilities (I know a few) so subsequently would have overflowing bins. We have neighbours that are a family of 7, or more on occasions, that never put out a recycling crate. But when there is a Bank Holiday (the bin men will take as many bags as you put out) they always have at least half a dozen bags and an overflowing bin.

 

The council relented to public pressure and bins are emptied weekly

 

I think there should be an incentive for putting out your recycling, maybe some sort of voucher scheme for using leisure facilities in your local area, for example.

 

Going to go and bombard my local waste and recycling department with lots of emails.

 

PS Also found out that the university I work for has no recycling facilities at all The reason given was, the logistics of collecting all the recycling was too costly.

[Louise]

Borders council are recycling in some areas I am in area 2 so it has been going since last September but they take paper, cardboard, magazines and junk mail away in a lilac sack and they also take cans (washed please and labels off) and plastic but only the milk bottle kind not yougurt pots or plastic bottles as they don't have the facilities for them (seems daft to me) which go into a clear sack.

 

We can put out as many sacks as we want but they are very bulky I am lucky I have space to store them I would not be impressed if I lived in a small flat

 

We have a refuse collection once a week and a recycling collection once a week and in the towns there is also a garden bin collection once a week.

 

We have gone from one truck on the road per house to three Personally I would like to see them collect them on alternative weeks in fact this morning I put my refuse bin out for emptying for the first time in three weeks and it is not even full

 

Those of us in rural areas have been given a compost bin as we don't get a garden collection

 

I do know alot of people who won't take part because they don't want to wash cans and peel off labels because it is too much hassle but switching collections to every other week would force them to seperate their waste

[ali-s]

There were huge cries of 'rampaging foxes' 'flies everywhere' 'maggots'

 

This was a concern of mine last year when all the recycling was introuced. Didn't want food waste sitting in the household wheelie bin for 2 weeks especially in the warmer months.

Having the green cone in the garden means no food waste at all is put in our wheelie bin.

[Guest]

Louise

 

I like to sound of your lilac refuse sacks much better than boring black

[Louise]

They are biodegradable plastic and they give us a stash of both colours a couple of times a year they are fine just huge

 

I have two bins in the kitchen the stuff goes into but then to transfer to the cavernous bag which takes up floor space in the utility room it feels wrong to put them out only a third full each week So I keep cramming stuff into them

 

I wish they took glass as I have to travel a minimum of 8 miles to my nearest bottle bank and again that is more pollution unless the trip is for other reasons as well

[Guest]

It would seem logical to me for councils to co-ordinate all their resources. Some councils have the facility to recycle glass, so they could do all the glass, others plastic, cardboard etc.

 

They could trade with each other, we would have everything recycled and the world would be a better, greener place to live in

 

OOps sorry I think I drifted off then

 

Ah well I can dream

[Trish]

Nice dream, even better when it becomes reality

[Karen & co.]

That makes perfect sense Debs, but to get councils to talk to each other

 

We have a green wheelie for paper - not card or directories

 

a brown wheelie for garden waste,

 

a silver wheelie for tins some plastics and card,

 

and a black wheelie for everything that doesn't go in to the other bins and then we take the glass to the local collection point!

 

it's fine for us as the drive is big enough to house all the bins, but I do feel sorry for the folk who have the front of the house turned into a wheelie bin park.

 

We have been recycling as much as poss for as long as I can remember, and think everyone should do their bit!

 

Karen x

[AnnieP]

I'm really interested in this thread.

Wiltshire is woefully behind. We only got recycling boxes in rural parts last Autumn. We cannot put card or plastics in there. We have no green waste collection and they only collect refuse one week, recycling the next.

For us that means that we still have to recycle our card and plastic ourselves, so our garage is always full, we have to deal with our own green waste, (not that I mind), but others don't bother, and we have no wheelie bins for any kind of refuse, so for some larger families, two weeks worth of waste means lots of dustbins and carrying refuse sacks.

Apparently green bins are on the way.....

My neighbours are disgusting: They put out 8 black sacks every 2 weeks and recycle nothing!

[Trish]

8!! we are a family of 5 and we do recycle as much as possble but even if we didn;t I don't think we could make that much. What are they doing?

[AnnieP]

I dread to think! Their garden looks like a landfill site anyway! You'd just think they'd add to it!

[Guest]

AnnieP

 

You sound like you have neighbours like ours. I despair every other Tuesday when I see all of the houses that haven't put out any recycling at all but their bins are overflowing.

 

I try to think that maybe they don't buy a lot of packaged products, but I think I am deluding myself.

 

There is a Dispatches programme on Channel 4 next week which goes undercover to investigate the waste industry, may be worth a look in.

[PurpleHen]

I think I get the prize for worst council of the all - Wirral.

 

They collect newspaper every month and agrden waster every month, and that's it

 

No cardboard, plastic, glass.....

We do our bit by taking all left over cardboard, glass, cans and paper (not enough once a month) to the recycling centre ourselves, but there is no where local that will recycle plastic.

 

I think it is a disgrace that we can be so far behind everyone else. I have complained as well - wish they would do something about it.

[AnnieP]

That is disgusting!

But thank you for making me feel better!

[Nicola H]

Our Council are the same Jackie....................Emily and I have to go to the recycling plant once a month with glass, plastic and metal.