No, not Bin Face, Bin Space!
In my first little flat, I had a small kitchen bin, a wpb in the lounge, and a small fliptop bin in the bathroom. Over the years, my bin collection got larger...everybody had a wpb in their bedroom, and under Bob's desk we had a regular waste bin and a bin for paper-to-be-recycled.
Leicestershire was ahead of the curve with wheelie bins - outside we had bins for regular, recycling, glass, food waste, garden waste, battery bags... We acquired Cornerstones and I retired here with a definite surplus of bins [back there were no food waste facilities]
recycling, general, food waste, compost
I am hoping this system will work smoothly. We still have two bins under our shared deskspace. Outside two wheelie bins [regular and recycling] and the new blue food one. We decided we didn't need to pay £64 p.a. for a garden refuse bin.
But there is one other category of waste which was not being managed properly. The 'soft plastics' stuff - the crisp packets, plastic 'belly band' wrappers round food trays, cheap carrier bags, pouches and sachets. There is a lot of it about. My system was to put a carrier bag inside a small bucket in the Futility room, and squash stuff down- knot it when full - and drop it off at a supermarket when I went shopping. This was not ideal - I kept forgetting to take the heap of knotted bags to the store!
Like Count BinFace, I am working and hoping, for a better environment. Are you?
Like you, I try to recycle as much as possible. I save soft plastics and take a bagful to the store from time to time. I also frequently forget to take it, but I reckon this doesn't matter. As long as it gets there sometime, that's good enough!
ReplyDeleteI try not to waste food, but even so the food waste mounts up. Even if I don't waste anything, there will still be banana skins, onion peelings and egg shells.
Skins, peel and shells go in my compost. I think soft plastics do easily get forgotten and.they mount up.
DeleteWe have four bins outside -black for rubbish, blue for paper, silver for plastics and glass, and maroon for garden/food waste. We don’t use the maroon one for garden waste (£45 charge) . The bins had to have a bin shelter made as they are not lovely to look at. We reckon our blue and silver bins are only emptied every 2/3 months instead of monthly, the black bin every two weeks as per collection timetable. As you know, we try to reuse or upcycle as much as we can. Catriona
ReplyDeleteMaroon and silver bins sound so exotic, I was really hoping you'd have a tartan one for mixed recycling!!
DeleteWe try and recycle everything that is recyclable. Lots of our food waste (veg peelings etc) goes on our compost heap. We do pay for a garden waste bin we have a large front and back garden with many shrubs and plants so it is always full. I do what you described with flimsy plastic and wrappings and mostly I remember to take it when I go shopping to recycle. Our actual black bin is the least full of our collection of waste bins so I feel quite pleased that we are trying our best. Regards Sue H
ReplyDelete👍 well done 👍
DeleteWe recycle well, while we got a new food caddy for the kitchen this year, it has still been untouched as we eat all leftovers and put all actual inedible trimmings in the garden compost bin. Our main black wheelie bin gets put out once a month or sometimes bi-monthly as there is rarely much in it. Our compost and it's bin will be coming with us when we move. :-)
ReplyDeleteI'm intrigued as to HOW the compost will get moved! Will.you bag it up?
DeleteHaha, yes. A couple of old compost bags should suffice, then it will all be tipped straight into the new raised beds that Alan will eventually get around to building, and we will start again.
DeletePoor Alan - will his to-do list ever be completed?!?
DeleteWe still have a mixed recycling collection and household rubbish collection. So everything recyclable gets chucked into a tub in the corner of the kitchen. Food waste started recently but we don't use it at all - everything goes into our composter. This might change if we had, a bone-in leg of lamb?..
ReplyDeleteI think bones and teabags will be the main things in my bin
DeleteWe don't have food waste recycling as yet, there has been leaflets about it. You have to pay quite a lot for your garden waste bins, Amber Valley charge £48/year. No room for a garden bin here, so we have tip trips every so often. I have a double kitchen bin, 1 bin for waste and other for recycling and the only other bin is in the bathroom. Xx
ReplyDeleteThe best thing about Tip Trips here is the opportunity to look for bargains in the Recycle Shop!
DeleteLocally in our town in Ontario we have a blue bin for hard plastics, cans, bottles and styrofoam. We can even include plastic flowerpots and toothpaste tubes. This is fairly new, as is adding soft plastics to the yellow bin for paper and cardboard. (Box board flattened and tied up separately.). Our son maintains that most of it ends up in the landfill anyway, but at least we are separating it. Between our composter and the recycle bins, we often don't need to put out our garbage bin every week. Ratty clothing gets cut into rags for the garage and house.
ReplyDeleteToothpaste tubes and plastic flower pots are hard to recycle here
DeleteFor toothpaste tubes, look at the Boots recycling scheme. They encourage you to scan items to earn points on your Advantage card, but you don't have to. I just drop my items straight into the bin. I'm sure there isn't a Boots in your village, but there will be one in Norwich. And as it takes a while to get through tubes of toothpaste, it doesn't matter if it's somewhere you only go occasionally.
DeleteThank you. I knew Boots take medication packaging, but I didn't realise they take toothpaste tubes.
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