How Green are you?

[Daisy]

Leaving DS2's today, I noticed a huge pile of recycling rubbish waiting to be collected. We have a system of black bags for general rubbish and clear bags for recyclables such as paper, plastic bottles, cardboard etc, and the bags are collected weekly. Glass and garden waster are collected monthly, but you have to pay for garden waster collection. This was a huge pile of stuff from a relatively small group of houses and I was mentally multiplying that by all the houses in the land, week in week out. Our local council is aiming for nil-to-landfill within a few years, and it seems an impossible task.

At home, we seem to fill a black bag every week, no matter how I try not to, and I put everything into the recyclable bag I can, plus we compost all uncooked kitchen waste. Unless we change our shopping habits and manufacturers reduce packaging materials I don' see things getting any better. Has anybody found a way to reduce their household waste?

[Gemini]

We have general rubbish collected one week, recycling the next. We have three boxes. One for glass, one for paper and cardboard, one for plastic bottles and tin cans. Between April and October we also have a green garden waste bin collection on recycling day.
I recycle all I can, but like Daisy we usually fill the black bin, or almost.

[Plantaholic]

I take my hat off to our council. We have a blue bin for glass, metal and plastic, a black one for general rubbish that cannot go in the blue bin , a green bin for garden waste for which we do not pay and a brown small bin for food waste wrapped in recycle able bags. There is a box for card and paper but I prefer to take mine to the recycling myself as it is two minutes away in the car

[Nanto2girls]

We have grey bin for general waste,which is emptied fortnightly,blue bin for cardboard,brown bin for glass/plastic bottles and green bin for garden waste.Blue and brown bins are emptied monthly.During summer,the green bin is emptied fortnightly.We have a canvas council bag for newspapers which are collected when blue bin is emptied.

[herriotfan]

We have weekly collections and I do try hard to keep our rubbish to a minimum but like most people there is normally some that will end up in landfill.

[Oma]

We have a Green bin for general waste collected weekly ,
Blue bin that takes everything that can be recycled Glass, Tin, Plastic, Paper, cardboard, Tin foil, collected fortnightly
Brown bin for Garden waste again collected fortnightly
Household rubbish like furniture etc we have to pay £15 to be collected so cheaper just to take to tip or if good still donate to community shop, any Metal like Cookers, Washing machines ,and so on we have a scrap metal man comes around everyday about 7am we just put out the night before and he will take it away .
I do recycle all I can and have even been known to have a hissy fit if I find cardboard egg cartons or paper in the waste bin as B is prone to do Grrr . I never throw paper napkins in the bin always go in recycle as half the time they have only been used to dab mouths clean ,they only go in bin if dirty ,same with kitchen roll if only been used to wipe water up they go in recycle provided they not soaking wet

[Elisi]

I cannot abide being told what I HAVE to do or think etc

I was 'green' long before all these rules came in!

[Avo]

We have green for garden waste and food waste, blue for glass, paper, plastic, card etc and black for everything else.... I generally try to recycle, but sometimes are can't be bothered and just chuck it in the general kitchen bin which then goes into the black bin.

[Daisy]

I get very upset by all the unnecessary packaging we seem to get. We recently bought new bedding. Each pillow case was wrapped round a sheet of cardboard, then put in a plastic bag with another pillow case, also with cardboard. Why? Men's shirts are even worse. Cucumber comes wrapped AND shrink wrapped. Huomous, multi-packs of yogurt and similar things have a cardboard outer sleeve or pack, most stationery items seem to come bubble packed, ... the list is endless. And then in the supermarket when you get to the mushrooms and want to buy loose ones and put them in a brown paper bag - there aren't any bags!

[Oma]

Amazon are the worst they put a tiny parcel inside a huge box then pack it out with reams of brown paper Why there is no need for it

[Skye]

Apart from the main global reason for recycling there is also the fact that each council will be fined ridiculous fines if they do not reach the target set, which in turn will be passed down to us with higher council taxes, rates etc etc

[Shemadee]

I bought what looked like a reasonable sized jar of face cream only to find the box was more than double the size of the product - shouldn't be allowed!

[Daisy]

Shemedee, cosmetics are so deceptive, and often a large proportion of the price is related to the packaging, another large chunk to advertising and promotions and only a relatively small amount on the actual product.

[ZIZI]

I cannot abide being told what I HAVE to do or think etc

I was 'green' long before all these rules came in!

I know what you mean - when you think about the soft drinks bottles we use to take back or return to the Corona man, milk bottles, keeping the brown paper bags, always carrying our own shopping bags instead of getting plastic ones etc. We always used to take our own recycling to the various recycling stations but they have all disappeared.

Our council collects rubbish one week on Tuesday, next week the recycling which is everything except textiles and shoes which have to be put in a carrier bag by the bin. We don't compost although the council does issue compost bins for collection weekly. We are in an upstairs maisonette so exempt. Kitchen is very small as well. Our recycle bin is always packed so if we forget to put it out we have to put stuff in a seperate bag, they will take extra recycling but not extra rubbish. If the lid on a rubbish bin is open because it is full you get a condescending telling off note glued to the bin and they refuse to take it. If your recycling bin has the lid open you don't.

We have dark green bins for rubbish, light green for recycling and brown for garden waste whichj costs us £50 a year and ours has been full for a month because it is collected on alternate Fridays and we keep forgetting to put it out.

we used to have blue crates for recycling until a few years ago, much less intrusive, they were not taken when the bins came so I put them behind my lovely stone garden bench and grow tomatoes in them. I dislike the bins very much so paid quite a lot of money for a twiggy "fence" that goes around them to hide them. Much happier seeing that in my garden than those horrid bins.

[Nana]

Plant,some very valid points there. Reading all the posts I wondered if it might be a good idea if all the Councils were made to talk to each other, so we all had the same bins & same collection routines? What works for one surely aught to work for the rest.