making a wastebin bag clamp

[Ian & Hilda Dedic]

Hi Chaps,

In their ineffable wisdom, the council here have decreed that no bags should be used in their food recycling scheme, not even din tested fully compostable ones or brown paper bags.... only newspaper

so why the post title? I hear you ask..

well, I have a food bin in the Kitchen (7ltrs volume) and I can fold sheets of newspaper to line the bin reasonably well, but the top of the newspaper always flops down after a few additions to the bin, and doesn't really help when trying to keep the worst of the crud off the bin.

So I am looking to buy/make some sort of hinged or spring loaded rectangular clamp which will fit inside the bin and newspaper and push outwards from the inside to clamp the top of the paper to the bin so it doesn't flop down.

plastic strip or wood would be probably ok or metal at a pinch.

anyone have any ideas where I might find one to buy, or suggestions for construction?

any ideas gratefully considered

and I have written to the council telling them what idiots they are for making it hard to actually carry out clean food recycling within the home---If you have a food bin without a liner it gets stinky/greasy pretty quickly.

dedics

[BigWallop]

Thin bungie cord? You could tie it in a loop and stretch it over the outside of the bin, over the paper that is folded over the rim of the bin. Like a big rubber band.

Simple, but effective. :-)

[stuart noble]

Nice in the summer :-)

[mogga]

Wrap items in a sheet of paper (learn the chippy wrap) and put them in the bin. Empty into the outside bin. Reduce the amount of food you waste and then you don't have to worry about it.

Ours came with some nice bags that are easy to use but way too expensive to buy, so a lot of the time I use newspaper.

[Ian & Hilda Dedic]

Ah but if it were that easy I'd have done that ;-)

the newspaper sheets don't come up so far as to overlap the edge, which is why I have the flop problem.

dedics

[Ian & Hilda Dedic]

yes, but if you are cooking in the kitchen and want to scrape your peelings straight into the bin you haven't got time to be mucking about individually wrapping each item in newspaper, and indeed I only have one freebie local newspaper per week to use, I'm not going to shell out for a newspaper so I can waste time playing origami wrapping my onion skins!

dedics

[Rod]

Too right! (Partner's comment.)

I think you should:

a) buy Sainsbury 'no need to peel' carrots; b) ensure everything else is frozen, tinned, ready-peeled-and-cored-in-plastic-container, dried, or somehow ready to cook/eat; c) ask for a larger bin for plastic, cans, etc.

Obviously that would reduce your compostable waste right down to what will easily fit within one freebie paper.

[fictitiousemail]

Do you have a garden ? If so them compost it yourself,do your garden some good,help your plants and keep the Council out of it altogether .

[Lobster]

Dump your tabloid and buy the Torygraph instead!?

Howsabout bulldog clips round the top edge?

David

[Lobster]

So your kitchen bin then gets emptied into a big bin outside? or what? If so, then why not just use ordinary binbags inside the kitchen bin, empty these bags into your outside bin and drop the dirty bags into the standard bin outside?

David

[Ian & Hilda Dedic]

no, there's a special food only recycling bin which is kept outside, and is also prone to disgusting stinkiness (especially in the summer) if not lined with something. I just want to use compostable bin liners and the council won't take the food rubbish if I do.

Thus trying to find an effective way of keeping a newspaper lining open so the bin is useable. and I can just decant the contents of the kitchen bit into the outside food bin.

dedics

[Ian & Hilda Dedic]

yes but it's not how I want to live thanks....

I actually use my kitchen to cook real food for the family....

dedics

[Ian & Hilda Dedic]

I have 4 or 5 compost heaps already full of garden waste, but the food recycling takes meat and bone scraps, which if I put these on our compost heap would just encourage the rats round here to think it's their larder.

dedics

[Ian & Hilda Dedic]

not a bad Idea. maybe some of those tablecloth clips for garden furniture might do the trick!

thanks

[fictitiousemail]

No need to speak of your neighbours that way .:-)

What a friggin' palaver .I hope they don't start that around here where it's all tenements with 8 homes to a close .

[OG]

The problem is the rectangular shape - if it was circular you could use something like a couple of pipe bending springs to act as an inner collar to hold the paper up.

[Lynet Smith]

Would drawing board clips, plus strategic positioning of some plastic rulers (washable!) do the trick? You could put the rulers vertically in the bin, rather than horizontally.

[mogga]

Do you have a garden to have a compost bin? If I had to put all the veg peelings in the green waste it'd drive me mad. As is it I have a large tub on the side big enough to take a days peelings and them empty it into the compost bin every day.

I also only get one freebie paper a week. I wouldn't want to waste it either else I'd have to buy one to light the fire with.

[Pete Verdon]

Say bollocks to the whole thing and put your food rubbish in the rubbish bin?

I don't mind doing my bit to keep recyclable stuff separate, but take it too far with the picky regulations and I won't bother. I'm paying them over £100 a month for little more than waste-disposal, I don't feel the need to do half the job for them.

To their credit, my local council have been pretty reasonable on this score compared to some places.

Pete

[chris French]

so why not put the peelings etc. you mentioned on the compost, that just leaves meaty scraps and the end of a meal which could all be just scraped into a couple of sheets of paper, wrapped and binned