Living in Brum, wheelie bins are unknown ... one of the oft-quoted complaints I hear is you need 1 for this, 1 for that, 1 for the other, to deal with recycling.
Would it be possible to design a single bin, with compartments - probably like an angled "V" in the side, so you can put bottles, paper, and household into the same bin ... then the compactors would have a corresponding mechanism to select the appropriate chamber for emptying ...
Nice idea but probably too complicated or easily broken for the rather rugged use they have to put up with.
We have sep wheelie bins for paper, glass, green waste, normal rubbish. We can nearly fill the paper one in a fortnight (although we don't crush boxes) - it's a half size one. The brown one for glass, jars. etc can go about 6-8 weeks before it needs emptying - so don't put it out very often anyway. (But I keep jars for making jam & pickling)
The normal rubbish one would be about half full every fortnight. The green waste for garden and food waste can either be a little box or a big bin. I rarely put it out as I compost green stuff.
I don't quite understand how some people fill two normal rubbish bins a fortnight (mind you they used to fill two every week) ...
Some people are so against recycling that they deliberately put the wrong items in the wrong bins creating more work for the sorters.
Around here, we have just one recycling bin and one rubbish bin.
I must admit, before we got the wheelie bins I was sceptical, but now we have them, they work well. Well it does here anyway, I suppose it could be different in areas of multiple occupation properties such as flats and bed-sits (studios ?)
David
Unless you have very peculiar usage one for household rubbish, one for green waste, a blue recyclables box about 1x0.6x0.6m for tins, glass and plastic and a blue bag for waste paper seems about right.
Certain authorities like Salford and a few other places are in a race to see how many full size wheelie bins of weird colours they can issue. I think the record is four full size ones, but maybe someone has more?
Newcastle has something like that as an insert into the recycling bin. They break too easily and get lost/stolen with monotonous regularity.
One of the uses of a wheelie bin was shown to me recently. I watched a fox walk down the road checking all the bins. It seems they have yet to work out how to get the lid raised. A lot more difficult than slashing open a plastic sack like they used to Robbie
We have recently gone down from 4 to 3 with the introduction of a new recycling facility somewhere on Merseyside Brown - gardening waste Silver - paper, cardboard plastic, cans, bottles Black - all other household rubbish Used to have a green bin for paper and cardboard.
The silver one gets very full in a fortnight.
Or rural areas where it's just one place to collect rubbish from then 400yds to the next. If you blink here you miss them collecting the rubbish, truck parks with door next to bag, picker uppper hops out, truck pulls forward length of truck whilst picker upper picks up bag and leaves new bag, bag gets lobbed in the back and picker upper jogs to door and hops in and away. 10 seconds tops, a wheelie bin would only just have it's wheels off the ground in that time...
In message , TerryJones writes
Possible but not very practical if only because of its potential size and weight when full.
Brum is permanently festooned with black bags, which are a magnet for foxes, rats and birds. Binmen go to pick a bag up - it splits. At which point it's not a job for the binmen, but street cleaners.
Too complicated - and it would get too big, then would need different mechanisms on the lorrys to dump them. etc..
Intersting to read the other areas recycling/refuse bin counts, etc.! Where I am (Teighnbridge, Devon), they recon on being able to recycle > 55% of household rubbish (target is 60% this year IIRC), and we have just two wheelie bins, and a box or 2. The bins are a black one for landfill, and a green one for compostables.
The boxes are filled with any other recycling - papers (although some paper and cardboard is allowed in the composing bin), tins, bottles, laser printer toner carts. etc. On Green-bin day, they do a street sort with a bloke coming round on foot, ahead of the lorry to sort the boxes, then the recycling lorry comes through then the composting lorry to empty the wheelie bins (sometimes the other way round)
It seems to work OK. We don't have an issue with the frequency as we rarely (if ever) fill either bin, prefering to do the (shock horror!) rare thing of only buying what we eat, etc.
Gordon
There are no other stops near here but we've had wheelie bins for a couple of years now and I prefer them. The recycling bags would blow away and they got filthy.
Garden waste, green bin, 110kg, weekly Paper/card, blue bin, 90kg, fortnightly Bottles/cans, brown bin, 90kg, monthly (put out about twice a year) Landfill, black bin, 70kg, fortnightly
It's the best it's ever been. We're fortunate in having enough space to put the bins without them being in the way or an eyesore.
A divided bin would be a pain in the arse.
We used to have boxes for recycling stuff, and the collection truck had numerous compartments for the numerous collectors to sort the items into different categories, now all recycled stuff goes into the same bin and must get sorted at the depot.
I wonder, though, with this arrangement, how much of the glass gets broken and un-recycled as the different coloured glass cannot be used together. I understand some gets ground up for use in road surfaces ?
David
That is the correct (TM) solution. 3 bins: garden+food, recycling, landfill.
Same bin format, therefore no special wagons and simpler recycling=more recycling.
Those little extra bins are a PITA - we have for "purest paper" and metal+plastic. I never have any "purest paper" (cardboard goes in garden bin) and the metal+plastic bin is too small so I fill the "paper" bin with more plastic and the dustmen handle it appropriately (it's fairly obvious).
I would welcome a mixed recycling wheelie bin, especially if it took glass too.
I may be wrong but I thnik transport and storage of bins relies on then being stackable wheels and lids added later prior to distribution. you would not get many in a lorry or store f this was not the case. Compartment bins would not stack
Regards
The trouble is that you can't put all food waste in a garden waste composter. It doesn't get hot enough to be safe.
Our council composts garden waste and food waste as separate items. The food waste goes through a high pressure, high temperature composter which is safe. I wouldn't want any compost that has random food waste in it that has just been in a garden waste composter and I don't think it would be legal to do so. Lets face it, mad cow disease was spread by incorrect, low temperature rendering of food waste. (Which probably wasn't spread by eating the stuff but by breathing in the food dust.)
Ours does, but not window glass for some reason. I expect the separator can't cope.
Depends on what they take in the recyclable bin... we started out with a box like that, and it was for glass and cans and got emptied weekly. Now we have a full size wheelie for recyclables that is emptied alternate weeks. That actually works very well and is frequently full in that time. However they take everything recyclable in it - glass, paper, card, tins, foil, plastics etc.
Not here, one full size as above, one slightly narrower for "rubbish", and one narrower and shallower for food/garden etc.
You can if you upgrade your composter. Tunbridge Wells have allowed exactly this since around 2004-5. Even meat and fish scraps are permitted.
Whereas down here in East Sussex, we cannot even put fresh peelings in the garden bin in case a microbe did a pole vault from a nearby pork chop. which is not a problem for me as I run 2 compost bins in the garden.
Already the subject of a European patent application.
Colin Bignell
I can fit my blue box (for paper) into my 250L black bin and the handles hook onto the sides of the bin - but without gaps cut into the lid or sides the lid doesn't go down flat. However, I do know that some councils do arrange bins like this.
JGH
What I hate about wheelie bins is the NOISE they make. The lid-slammers are bad enough but the trundling tyre noise and boom boom of dragging them around is horrible. But then, noise pollution is not regarded as pollution at all is it! In an ever noisier world wheelie bins need quieting. Other than that I think they are a great though :-)
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.