Solution for compacting/shredding plastics ?

[Jethro_uk]

Ah well, it's that day of the week the rubbish and recycling are put out. Our LA has weekly rubbish, and alternates between green bags (garden waste) one week, and paper/cardboard (blue box) and cans and plastic (green box) another.

Paper/card is no problem. It can all be laid flat, and often put into a cardboard box they are quite happy to take as well.

However plastic and cans are a different matter. We have a can crusher, which means tins take up minimal room, but ****ing plastic ! It is amazing how much a household of 3 (including one teenager) can go through. And no matter how much we try to crush the plastic bottles (milk, water) and plastic packaging, it still fills about 10 carrier bags.

Ideally, I'd like something like a paper shredder for plastic. Or something which can compact bottles. A quick google for "domestic plastic shredder compactor" suggests I will struggle !

Do any uk diy-ers have solutions for reducing the volume of plastic bottles ?

On a positive note, we used to put 3 or 4 bin bags out a week. Since sorting recycling, we rarely have a full one, which underscores how wasteful we are as a society.

[Mentalguy2k8]

If you mean shredding plastic bottles to put in the recycling bin, you might want to check first if the binmen will take it. My binmen won't take shredded paper in the recycling bin, apparently it's "too small" and contaminates everything else when it comes to be sorted by hand/machine back at the depot. You might find that even if you could shred bottles, you'd have to put them in the "landfill" bin anyway.

[Tim+]

Um, have you considered NOT buying bottled water? If it's the taste that bothers you there are any number of undersink filters and other solutions to produce de-chlorinated water. Good for the environment and saves you a lot of money.

As Mental guy has pointed out, this is probably a bad idea. Separating out shredded plastic from your waste will be very difficult for councils and it will almost certainly end up in landfill.

I would look to your consumption and ask youself if you really need to buy so many things in plastic bottles. There are three of us in our household and we usually have space to spare in our wheely bin that's emptied fortnightly.

Tim

[Owain]

Stamp on them until flat, then put the lid back on so they can't self- re-inflate.

Or if you've used the oven, put the bottles in the COOL oven so they soften, then flatten them.

And it's very unlikely you really need to buy bottled water at all.

Owain

[Huge]

Possibly not applicable, but I noticed the other day that the lady in the coffee shop at work blew a little steam into the empty milk bottles so they could be "scrunched" up small.

Quite. If the local water is very "chloriney", try putting a jugfull in the 'frig overnight.

[Mentalguy2k8]

I buy a 6 or 12-pack of bottled water every now and then, when I drink them I wash them thoroughly & fill them up from the tap and put them back in the fridge. I only throw them away when the lid falls apart but they can last for several weeks. I suppose the OP could buy one of those huge multi-litre containers of water to refill them if it's the bottled stuff he prefers. Then just hacksaw the neck off, fill up with normal rubbish and put in the black bin, it won't take any space at all.

[The Natural Philosopher]

buy a garden shredder

[Nightjar]

On 08/05/2013 11:25, Owain wrote: ...

Not even tonic water?

Colin Bignell

[Terry Fields]

Round my way shredded paper is perfectly acceptable, being mentioned specifically as an item for the green recycling bin.

However, they also say you can't bag up paper products (into a paper bag), so the shreddings have to go in the bin *as they are*. Needless to say, they get blown everywhere by the slightest breeze, or turn into a soggy mass that sticks to everything else, so I put them up in a supermarket bag and bung 'em in the landfill bin.

[Tim Streater]

Have you looked at it to see what it consists of and to wonder why you have so much?

[Mentalguy2k8]

I try to fill plastic bags with rubbish but not tie them up, then I just empty them into the landfill bin and chuck the empty bag on top. I find you use much less space that way. Full bags tend to end up spherical and leave lots of gaps. It's like that old demonstration they did in my chemistry class at school where they fill a beaker to the top with sugar and then tip in a load of salt without the beaker overflowing.

According to the local rules, the only thing you can do with shredded paper is to compost it, it seems even the local dump won't take it. Apparently "shredding breaks down the fibres in the paper in a way that means it cannot be used in the manufacture of new paper. So paper mills that accept normal paper for recycling refuse to take shredded paper."

[Brian Gaff]

Sounds like You need something like a converted garden chipper device.

Brian

[Brian Gaff]

That is correct, at least this is theexplanation mentioned in the info from our council.Under certain conditions strip shredded paper can be used, but not the cross cut stuff.

I also cut CDs into three with my shredder, it saves anyone getting hold of my data. Brian

[Dave Liquorice]

+1

Fortnight of rigid plastic (bottles, food trays etc) just about fills a 1 x 1.5 x 2' crate. But only because the bottles are suidged and the caps replaced.

[SteveW]

Our plastics bin is also frequently full before collection is due. In our case my wife drinks a lot of fizzy water, so we have no choice but to buy plastic bottles of it. I drink a *lot* of milk, as do our three children and the milkman only delivers *after* we've gone out to work, so again, plastic bottles are the only option. If we could squash the bottles and put the caps back on to keep them flat we'd be fine, but they insist that caps must go in the landfill bin so the bottles expand back to full size!

Five of us and the plastics bin is only emptied monthly.

SteveW

[SteveW]

Our council insist that the lids must go into the landfill bin, as they are a different plastic.

SteveW

[Tim+]

Who NEEDS fizzy water?

Tim

[Tim+]

Just plastics? Ours takes plastics, paper, cardboard, cans, glass, metal, batteries etc. so I reckon we're doing okay.

Tim

[SteveW]

No. Our black bin is plastics, cans, glass, metal, foil. Our blue bin is paper and cardboard. The green bin is garden waste and food waste. The grey bin is landfill. As of the end of this month the blue bin will be collected once a month, the black bin once a month, the grey bin every fortnight and the green bin every week. So two bins each week.

Up to now the collection routine has been the reverse for the grey and green bins, but food waste used to go into the grey bin.

SteveW

[SteveW]

My wife likes fizzy drinks and it's a lot better than sugary Coke or Lemonade!

SteveW