Where to put the recycling bins?

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Where to put the recycling bins?
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OP

Joined: 28 Jul 2006
Posts: 4661
Location: Yorkshire

Posted: Fri Nov 16, 07 9:01 pm Post subject:

This whole recycling thing raises so many issues it's difficult to know where to begin. I'm not sure from what you say if this is a reduction in the service from weekly to fortnightly as some councils have done, or an additional recycling service on top of the regular collection. If it is the former then I'd be looking for a corresponding reduction in the council tax - on 2 grounds, firstly the council will be paying less landfill tax to central government, and secondly they are providing a lesser service so they need less council tax. Personally, I think it is important not to let local authorities use "the environment" as an excuse to put up council tax (or, as perhaps in this case, cut services whilst still charging the same amount of tax!).

Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Fri Nov 16, 07 9:18 pm Post subject:

Rather than ask for a council tax discount I'd hit my head against a wall, less painful and better results!

Are the bins stackable? That way they'll take up less room in the back and are they too big to carry through the house? If you decide to keep them in the front garden then you could always cover them to stop people looking in. Finally I've written my house number on my bins in huge black permanent marker, this avoids people "accidentally" taking my bins.

kevin.vinke

Joined: 19 Dec 2006
Posts: 1304
Location: Niedersachsen, Germany

Posted: Fri Nov 16, 07 11:27 pm Post subject:

Well you are so lucky to get a bin!
We get VERY thin yellow plastic bags in which to put packaging (thoroughly washed of course

) and they collect once a month!
Most people in the rubbish service admit these go straight into the incinerator anyway.
The wheeley bin has an insert to half its volume.
Burning stuff of any kind is restricted ti 4 weekend Saturdays in the year.
Any unusual waste (sofa�s etc) is collected with special stickers except they advertise the collection date and the night before lots of vans with Polish numbers plates come to collect them.
Btw by the time the yellow bags pile up and get broken into by the wildlife and the bits get blown around by the wind it�s got all very messy.
Doesn�t help with your problem but another perspective.

OP

Joined: 28 Jul 2006
Posts: 4661
Location: Yorkshire

Posted: Sat Nov 17, 07 7:09 am Post subject:

It is interesting to hear how they do it in Germany, especially as we are always told how bad the UK is. I'm normally the first to criticise our local authority (East Riding Yorkshire) for their lacklustre performance but even I will admit they do an excellent job of refuse collection and recycling. We have weekly main collection in bins (1 size regardless of size of household) plus a monthly separate collection of recycling bins (up to 2 per household).

I think the idea of restricting bonfires to 4 Saturdays a year is a good one.

Yarrow

Joined: 26 Jun 2006
Posts: 463
Location: Wiltshire

Posted: Wed Dec 05, 07 6:14 pm Post subject:
perhps one day we'll all have rcycling bins on our street, and those litter-picker people will have extra bags for tin and glass... and maybe we won't be making some b@st*rd rich by collecting up for him... ah well

2steps

Joined: 05 Sep 2005
Posts: 5349
Location: Surrey

Posted: Wed Dec 05, 07 7:40 pm Post subject:
Virtually everyone here has them in the front gardens next to their wheelie bins. I had been planning to buy make a wooden planter with a trellis to put in front of them but it was another thing I just didn't get around too this summer

Yarrow

Joined: 26 Jun 2006
Posts: 463
Location: Wiltshire

Posted: Mon Dec 10, 07 2:23 pm Post subject:
you could always try to zoning principle of permaculture... Permawiki

oldish chris

Joined: 14 Jun 2006
Posts: 4148
Location: Comfortably Wet Southport

Posted: Mon Dec 10, 07 4:33 pm Post subject:

gnc wrote:

you could always try to zoning principle of permaculture...

Permawiki

ros

Joined: 19 Jul 2005
Posts: 2469
Location: Beds

Posted: Thu Nov 05, 09 12:10 pm Post subject:
Ours is out the front (it's a green wheelie bin) and sits with the landfill (black wheelie) food waste (for energy production apparently) brown bin and the green bags (garden waste) Goodness knows what peeps in central Beds without a front space do I built a willow screen for them and planted a clematis to cover it.

wellington womble

Joined: 08 Nov 2004
Posts: 15051
Location: East Midlands

Posted: Thu Nov 05, 09 1:20 pm Post subject:
I went to Oxford recently - in the city, they have litter bins for glass, paper plastic etc. I was mightily impressed! I wonder it's such a lottery?

Sherbs

Joined: 27 Apr 2007
Posts: 1931
Location: Swansea

Posted: Thu Nov 05, 09 1:29 pm Post subject:

We just have clear plastic bags for the recycling so you can put out one with tins, plastic and glass in, and another for paper but you can't put them outside too early or they get destroyed by kids, animals and weather so we've ended up with three kitchen bins in our kitchen which takes up loads of space. I think if we had proper bins for them we've put them in the front with our regular wheelie bin.

sean
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 42219
Location: North Devon

Posted: Thu Nov 05, 09 1:41 pm Post subject:

wellington womble wrote:

I went to Oxford recently - in the city, they have litter bins for glass, paper plastic etc. I was mightily impressed!

I wonder it's such a lottery?

We've got them. No idea whether they get used properly or not though.

marigold

Joined: 02 Sep 2005
Posts: 12458
Location: West Sussex

Posted: Thu Nov 05, 09 5:15 pm Post subject:

Treacodactyl wrote:

...Finally I've written my house number on my bins in huge black permanent marker, this avoids people "accidentally" taking my bins.

Wish I'd done that on my wheelie-bins - last week I got someone else's vile stinky bin back in place of my own nice clean one

.

Almost everyone around here leaves their bins in the front garden - after the first week you stop noticing them.

Mustang

Joined: 15 Jul 2005
Posts: 768
Location: Sunny Suffolk

Posted: Sat Nov 14, 09 9:05 am Post subject:

Recycle items at an earlier point so you don't need to use the wheelie bins (or at least, downsize to smaller ones). So, leave excess packaging in the shops and get them to deal with it. Re-use 'stuff' for other purposes, compost green waste, etc.

Wheelie bins are a pain if you've got no reasonable place to put them. They are therefore making some streets an eyesore because they are left on the pavement (e.g. if people don't have front gardens), and can also make it difficult for people (esp with prams,wheelchairs etc) to get past them.

I see them as simply an 'easy way' for local authorities to cut their collecting costs (reduced to every 2 weeks), claim they are 'green' etc. They are not really helping fix the problem at source (ie use of excess packaging, wasted food, etc). I think I saw a research report that even showed that the bigger and more 'recycle' bins that were given out, the more 'rubbish' was generated as people simply filled them.

maryf

Joined: 25 Oct 2009
Posts: 341
Location: suffolk

Posted: Sat Nov 14, 09 9:33 am Post subject:

We have two wheelie bins, one for landfill, the only things I put in there are poultry bones and when I do have it, polystyrene. Paper and plastic goes in the othe wheelie bin, mostly junk mail and food packaging - I would leave it in the shops but they just mix everything up and send it to landfill. Glass (not that we have much) goes to the bottle bank as the council won't collect it from domestic premises, and metal (cans etc,) I sort into steel, ali etc and take to the scrappers every now and then, the council will collect this but I'd rather get the money for it!! We don't have any food waste as it gets eaten by us, dog, rabbit, hens etc. and we don't seem to throw anything else out . . . . Ashes from the fire onto the garden, anything compostable in the compost bins.
When we lived in a town we also had two wheelie bins and everyone put them by the front gates - not the prettiest sight but they all looked the same - and most had put their number on them.

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