They've dealt with my wheelie bins, that is! When we got Cornerstones in 2009. we had two bins - regular, and recycling. The regular one was 20 years old [it said 1989 on the top] but in good working order.
The recycling was slightly newer, but had a couple of small cracks in the lid. We started paying for a garden bin. Four years ago, I stopped paying for that, as I was getting into composting properly, and felt it was £60 p.a. I didn't want to spend! I pushed that bin out of the way. Recently I realised those cracks were major splits, and my recycling bin was filling up with water in all the rainstorms. So my 'clean&dry' recycling was useless.
Last week [3rd March] I rang the helpful woman at Breckland Council. She made a note that I wanted the redundant garden bin collected, and a replacement for my damaged bin. "Don't worry if there is anything in them, they will deal with that, Should be dealt with inside 10 working days" And sure enough, early on 9th March, I got up to find the garden one gone, and a smart new recycling bin outside.
This was made in Telford [I remember Pauline telling me once that many of the UK bins are made there] and has 2026 imprinted on the lid. All I need to do now is stick my spare "4" numeral on the front, and spray-paint a recycling symbol on the lid. It can be quite confusing for visitors from other parts of the UK, when they helpfully offer to put stuff in the bin.
One site lists "Common UK Recycling Bin Colours" thus...
Last week [3rd March] I rang the helpful woman at Breckland Council. She made a note that I wanted the redundant garden bin collected, and a replacement for my damaged bin. "Don't worry if there is anything in them, they will deal with that, Should be dealt with inside 10 working days" And sure enough, early on 9th March, I got up to find the garden one gone, and a smart new recycling bin outside.
One site lists "Common UK Recycling Bin Colours" thus...
blue Commonly
used for "dry" mixed recycling, including paper, cardboard, and sometimes
cans/plastic.
green Often used for garden waste, but in some areas, it is used for dry recyclables.
red/orange Often designated for plastic bottles, pots, and, in some cases, food waste.
brown: Typically used for garden waste or organic waste.
But then it says "It is essential to check with your local council for the specific, definitive colour system in your area, as they can vary significantly."
Here in the Breckland region of central Norfolk, regular is green, recyclable is black, and garden is brown - totally different from both Leicester and Dorset. I wonder what colour our food waste bins will be when they arrive?
green Often used for garden waste, but in some areas, it is used for dry recyclables.
red/orange Often designated for plastic bottles, pots, and, in some cases, food waste.
brown: Typically used for garden waste or organic waste.
But then it says "It is essential to check with your local council for the specific, definitive colour system in your area, as they can vary significantly."
Here in the Breckland region of central Norfolk, regular is green, recyclable is black, and garden is brown - totally different from both Leicester and Dorset. I wonder what colour our food waste bins will be when they arrive?
What colour are your bins?
Lack or green for dirty waste, blue for paper, silver for bottles and plastics, and maroon for food and garden waste. Black emptied every two weeks, blue and silver every four weeks and the maroon one every two weeks if you have a permit. Catriona
ReplyDeleteBlue, silver and maroon sound like ceremonial colours!!
DeleteBrown for garden waste, green for general waste then the recycling comprises a blue sack for cardboard (why a sack when it rain can get in?) and three crates for glass, paper and the third plastic and tins. It used to be glass and paper in one bin until a thoughtless householder put broken glass in with paper and a council worker sustained a bad cut. We put paper in either a cardboard box or a carrier bag and then put that down one end of the glass crate. This is fine with our bin people as it’s an obvious separation.
ReplyDeleteWe are fortunate to have enough space for all these containers!
Jill
Lots of containers. Our bottles used to go to the bottle bank, but the council decided (against the recommendation of the Recycling Centre) that glass could go in with general recycling. It is much less efficiently sorted now I'm told.
DeleteOur regular bin is black with purple lid, recycling is black and Garden waste is green with yellow lid. We have a food waste caddy which is black with a yellow lid also!
ReplyDeleteI'm concerned that a food bin with a yellow lid will attract flies and wasps!
DeleteSmaller Green top is household, blue top is recycling and brown top for garden waste. Apparently in the early days people had to be told not to put redundant children's swings and other garden furniture into the garden waste... our food waste is due soon but at the moment any feelings and bits and pieces, even meat and fish scraps, go into our compost bin. It has a floor so vermin haven't been able to get in (so far, 30 years and counting)
ReplyDelete"wish cycling" is so common. " It's in my garden, I don't want it, so it can go in garden waste" - even if it is a dead gazebo or a plastic ride on toy...
DeleteI think the bin men and ladies do a great job. We used to have one large green bin for mixed waste, we still have ours with the lid 'tied' on but now, if you order a new one, it's a black slim line one, so we kept the older one as well, which seldom gets used. We have 2 black boxes, one for paper and cardboard and the other for glass. A blue bag for plastics and cans and a brown kerb side smaller bin for food waste which we top up from the kitchen food waste caddy. We used to have an allotment where most of our veggi peelings went but have it up last November but we do not have a garden waste bin as the recycling centre is a mile away. The soft plastics I save up and drop off at the supermarket when I have a bag full. It seems very strange holidaying in other parts of the country where less is recycled, especially food! In one part of Northumberland they do not have glass recycling so we had to take bottles to the local car park, would have been wrong to put them in the bin.
ReplyDeleteWell done for mentioning females on the bin crews. (Ours are all blokes) Apparently Norfolk really struggles to sort recycling, because we have so many holiday makers on the Broads and at the coast who get confused by our bin colours. A very high proportion of our counties waste cones from these visitors
DeleteIt's hard to believe that once upon a time, everything went in one small metal bin. Just goes to show how much more packaging we now accumulate. My local council is threatening to introduce yet another bin so we can separate paper/cardboard from tins/jars/bottles making a grand total of four bins. Such fun.
ReplyDeleteYou are right, just one small metal bin with a noisy metal lid back in my childhood. And the compost heap for the peelings. And leftover school dinners all scraped into the Pig Bin. As you rightly say, nowadays there is so much more packaging.
DeleteGreen for rubbish, brown for garden waste, red for mixed recycling (plastic food containers, tetra packs, glass, clean aluminium foil) and blue for paper and cardboard. I assume that we will be getting food waste caddies at some point too.
ReplyDeleteOur recycling all goes in one. I'm sure it would be better if all householders could sort some of it as you can
DeleteOur recycling all goes in one. I'm sure it would be better if all householders could sort some of it as you can
DeleteGreen for regular waste, brown for garden waste £35 p.a.), blue sack for paper, white sack for recyclable plastics and tins, green bucket for glass. I take my 'soft' wrappers/bags to either Aldi or Co-op and dispose of them in their recycling boxes, small silver bin for food waste.
ReplyDeleteI just flung my soft plastics into the big container at Sainsbury's (it is like netball practice, usually takes me 2 goes!)
DeletePs our green bins are collected once every three weeks but there's talk of that changing to once a month, I'm assuming because they're running out of landfill to put the stuff.
ReplyDeleteWe are fortnightly
DeleteOh my, here we are black for regular, green for recyclable, and brown for garden. Why can't we all have the same colour scheme? We have a lot of female members in our crews. The crews are really great and are very reliable, helpful and pleasant. Regards Sue H
ReplyDeleteBlack, all three of our bins are black. Only the lids of the two recycling bins are coloured. The tins/glass recycling lid is red and the paper/cardboard lid is blue. The garden waste bins are all green, but I have never had one, I compost all waste and use up all leftovers. Which will mean that our newly arrived small 'food waste' bins ... which are black ... will be redundant too. I think I will be able to use the smaller one on the work top in our new kitchen as the compost heap will be a tiny bit further away.
ReplyDeleteHaving the same colour scheme would be good. But councils like to maintain their individuality, hence the purple bins
Delete