We have three bins in our kitchen, one for food scraps, one for recycling (don't have to sort it, everything goes in one bag), and a third for 'general waste'.
It occurs to me, that we throw out either food waste or recycling stuff. What would you throw away that doesn't fall into either of those categories?
We've recently switched from four separate bins for general + plastic bottles/tins + paper/card + glass to one bin for all recycling (with an expanded list of acceptable stuff such as tetrapak and yoghurt pots) and a general bin
we have a brown wheelie for garden waste Green box for cardboard and paper Blue box for cans and plastic Black box for glass brown box with lid for food waste lilac plastic bag for textiles clear plastic bag for batteries black wheelie bin for general waste Another box for light bulbs
Like you I don't put very much into the general waste bin.
In my case its mainly filled with
ash from my wood burner sawdust from carpentry off cuts of chipboard or plywood (unless I've got loads in which case a trip to the tip is needed.) cat vomit from resident cat dead birds brought in by resident cat dead mice brought in by resident cat dead frogs brought in "walnut whips" left by visiting dog (belongs to M.I.L) empty paint cans. I tried leaving these with the food cans but the operatives were having none of it used worn paint brushes and other general D-I-Y emptied consumables. used rags that hev went paint/sealant on them etc.
I can see that for families, there is probably used disposable nappies as well.
As this is collected fortnightly alternating with the garden waste bin, I sometimes use both wheelie bins for garden waste and put them out the same day, leaving the black wheelie bin lid open so the operatives can see its garden waste.
Shredded paper apparently won't be accepted here as the fibres are too short, certain plastics are also no good or items that have a mixture of materials bonded together it seems. If you are more advanced in Kent, then maybe they need to have a word in the ear of our mob. Brian
What do people do with unwanted paint? I have tried taking the lid off emulsion and find it takes weeks to solidify.
Over the years, I have accumulated 100l or so of oil based paint. Mainly job lots at farm sales where the auctioneers have lumped crap with saleable stuff. Anyone for festering JCB yellow?
It is going to vary from person to person and possibly depending upon what is accepted for recycling. I produce little or no food waste in a week. My general waste is about one swing bin full every week. I can't say I have ever analysed what it consists of, but I suspect most of it will be packaging of types that are not accepted for recycling.
The "instructions" on my recycling bin supplied by my new LA (one next to yours) says that the only metal you can put in is tins and the only plastic you can put in is bottles.
All other metal/plastic has to go in the general waste
On Friday 23 August 2013 10:34 tim..... wrote in uk.d-i-y:
That's pretty poor. Ours says types 1,2 or 3 plastics. They do not care what form the plastic takes as long as it has a little triangle with the number on the base (most items do these days).
Apparantly types 4+ are not worth anyone recycling.
I wish they would take glass.
Our paper collection is useless - no shredded, no plastic, no giftwrap, no brown. I cannot be arsed so it all goes in the black bin. I use the paper box as overflow for plastics (we fill 2 crates a fortnight).
Our new bloo wheely-bin takes glass, any plastic including drinks cartons (but not plastic film from e.g. food containers), tins, and there's a box that sits within it for cardboard and paper.
Then there's the green bin for garden waste - sometimes empty, sometimes ram-a-jam full.
A small lockable grey bin for food waste (collected weekly, all others every two weeks).
And a black bin for everything else. Quite often only put out once a month.
I'd say our recycling is now at the practical limit.
When I lived in California, kerb-side recycling was introduced in 1983. Three stackable containers for tins, glass, and paper. When I returned to the UK in 1993 and mentioned this at a Parish Council meeting, I was told it would never catch on here.
Rubbish. If you want them to do it, they'll have to charge more. If I have an empty bottle or plastic drinks bottle in my mitt, how hard is it to put it in the right container?
The stuff that isn't taken by the recyling... our kerbside collection takes paper/card, hard plastic, metal and glass. It doesn't take cartons but they make good fire starters along with CPC flyer pages (not the glossy covers), squidged you can get an awful lot in a bin bag, they eventually get taken to a HWRC near the weekly supermarket.
So for the general waste that leaves mainly plastic films of one sort or another from food packaging, used bits of kitchen roll/tissue, contents of vacuum and DIY detritus.
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