Warm boot recommendations please

[Snowy]

The house round the corner have their bins on display, but I don't mind. They are covered with the delightful Daniel Craig!

[WitchHazel]

We have two recycling boxes, bith of which are collected weekly (and the same day as the bin). One if for paper/card and the other is for glass/metal/plastic,

 

I really appreciate the weekly collection. When I lived in another borough it was fortnightly and on a different day to the rubbish, and we rarely remembered to put the box out.

 

The problem is understanding what plastic is acceptable. When we moved here, we put everything plastic in the recycling, and then we got a note telling us what was acceptable - but instead of telling us something helpful, like "Only things with a "2" stamped on the bottom), they talked about fizzy drinks bottles and shampoo bottles. We've discovered that most plactic items aren't acceptable.

 

We keep both these boxes indoors. Our neighbour keeps hers in the middle of her drive, and she puts everything in (like we used to do). Unfortunately, she doesn't put anything on the top, so each day we end up picking her used carrier bags, bread roll bahgs, sweetie wrappers etc out of our driveway and hedge.

 

One day I had (and I am not exaggerating) nearly a quarter of a wheely bin full of her stuff, as she'd put some polystyrene out and that had blown into my drive. I was seething, and at one point I was posed to throw it back over onto her driveway. However I realised that, whilst it would have been satisfying, I was being childish, so I put it in my bin.

 

I would love to have a regular green waste collection, but we don't. We can phone up and book a date for them to come, but there is usually a three week wait. And then everyting has to be bagged up, or. tied in neat bundles Instead we go to our local tip, but they are now being funny about trailers (ours is 5x3) so we have to do several car journeys for what we used to do in one trailer run. Not very green, huh?

[Tessa the Duchess]

The London borough that I live in is very good for re-cycling. Every week

they collect everything except hard plastic. Recently my son's g.friend

discovered that Tesco which is where she shops have a massive recycling

department and give reward points for every 10 items recycled so she drives

all our stuff there. We do squoosh down plastic bottles and tins and tetra

paks otherwise she would never get it all in her car

 

Tessa

[Lesley]

The house round the corner have their bins on display, but I don't mind. They are covered with the delightful Daniel Craig!

 

..in person - hasn't he got anything better to do with his time?

[Cate in NZ]

Our system has just changed this week, and it sounds promising.

Weekly collections for general rubbish, & fortnightly for recyclables (not tetrapaks or yoghurt pots unfortunately). No recycling facilities for garden waste though, although we're promised compost bins to follow

 

Down side is that I now have a big green general wheelie bin, a big grey recycling wheelie bin and a black plastic crate for glass all lined up in the front garden. Attractive ........... not at all

[The Dogmother]

When we go up to Norfolk, it's completely different up there - the lady next door but one just tells us to leave it and she'll sort it.

[Happymama]

Ours is two-weekly, on the same day as the normal rubbish collection. I use the green degradable bags, too, and usually only put one out, not full (they're bigger than black bags I think) and put out the equivalent of two in clear plastic, glass and jar/can recycling, so I recycle half the household rubbish, and four bin bags a month isn't bad for a family of 5 and pets, but I aim to get it down to NOTHING, or as close as I can.

 

Landfill sites will be full in 26 years. Then they will HAVE to do something about it. I'd rather get ahead so the taxes won't affect me so much.

 

Disposable nappies should be illegal. They can take 500 years to rot, this is in NO WAY acceptable. (yes, I had three kids.)

 

When I move I'll have a wheely bin, but there's NO WAY I'll fill one of those, and wont' have the space for a large one,but I believe you can get smaller ones, so I'll ask the council for one of those (fat chance) and then go and buy my own, if they' won't take my green bags.

 

Tetrapacks need to be specially recycled, and can only be done in one place in the Midlands somewhere, so if you can find somewhere to offload them at no cost to yourself, you are indeed fortunate.

 

Remember when Ski yoghurts came in paper pots? I make my own now, which anyone can do in a flask.

 

Our lot won't take plastic milk jugs, but you can get a doorstep delivery of local organic milk for supermarket prices in BOTTLES, so that's ok. And OJ, so that's the Tetra problem sorted out.

 

There are two ways to make people reduce what they use, and recyle more of what they do, and one's to pay them, and one's to fine them.

 

Which one's coming, do you think?

[Christian]

We have alternate general waste and recycling. they do take plastic bottles, junk mail, paper, card, cans and tins, but not glass.

 

Most of the green waste goes into the compost bins.

 

Glass to the bottle banks

[Guest]

We are Midlands and our council now recycle Tetrapaks, they don't collect them but we take them to the tip. (There is a collection point there)

 

Along with our plastic and cardboard

 

We have a fortnightly collection and have a box for paper, glass and tins. We also have a green bin for garden stuff.

 

Our dustbin is still collected every week, it was collected today and had 1 half empty bag in it

[Helly Welly]

We are pretty lucky, our recycling is collected every week, that's all paper produucts including envelopes and catalogues as well as cardboard, plus plastic bottles and cans.

 

Green waste is collected once a fortnight, although with three allotment sites in the town it could do with being collected weekly. Some areas have glass collection as well, but we take ours to the tip. There are lots of bottle banks around too.

 

Our normal rubbish is collected weekly too, the council will only collect 3 bags, which i think is more than enough. We put out half a compostable bag each week and its all plastic, though we try hard not to accumualte it in the first place. Yogurt pots aren't a problem in our house as they are saved to be used as seedling pots.

[Geoid]

Our council recycles : all types of paper, glass, foil, food waste (they turn it into compost) tins, oil, batterys, cardboard, Aerosol cans, textiles, garden waste, and shoes.

 

they will soon be collecting tetra-paks and plastic

[Guest]

That's impressive Fred! Which borough are you in?

[Geoid]

The London borough of Ealing (everything is collected once a week)

[Milly]

Reading these postings it strikes me that it's so variable from one part of the country to another! We really should all have the same opportunity to recycle before they start talking about charging people for their rubbish.

 

We have an ordinary collection once a week and a recycling collection fortnightly. But it's fairly limited: paper is only newspapers, magazines, office paper; plus tin cans and glass. And a list as long as your arm of all of the above which they won't take such as tin foil. But if it means they do actually recycle the above, it's a start.

 

We can recycle plastic bottles if we take them to a recycling centre. I have never seen anywhere round here doing tetrapaks.

 

Milly

[Jules.]

Our rubbish is weekly, our paper & "green" compostable bin stuff is fortnightly. I have to take everything else to the supermarket to recycle it- cans, glass & plastics. I store it all in my little shed where I keep my chickeny stuff. Our council has a competition on at the moment- you put your name & address on some paper & stick it to the can, along with the name of a local school you would like to support. Every 2 months a can is drawn (don't know how!) & the winner gets £200 of shopping vouchers, & the nominated school gets £200 as well.

I have not seen anything around here for tetrapacks.

I would much rather have everything taken away for recycling by the council, & I am sure that more people would recycle if this were the case.