In the north east it's Green wheely-bin for non-recyclable and a Black box for the stuff they deem to be recyclable... they annoying thing is... the green bins are collected from the back lane but the black boxes are collected from out the front [or in the case of where I live... not at all...]

They've just introduced food waste recycling where I live, which sounds like a brilliant idea, until you realise that you're in a high rise flat/apartment where the kitchen and lounge are in the same room! It's lovely watching tv with the smell of decaying food a few feet away.

May I suggest:


I have:
Black bin = general waste (week A)
Blue Bin = Cans, plastic, glass (week B)
Brown Bin = Garden Waste & Cardboard (week B)
Blue Bag = Paper (week B)

The Blue bag long since died, so I just use carrier bags.

We have in Barnsley:

Black bin - Everyday waste (food, etc)
Blue bin - Paper
Green bin - Garden waste and Cardboard
Brown bin - Glass + cans.

We used to have a green tub and blue bag for paper/cans/glass, but that was phased out for the bins.

We have alternate collections of :-
- green bin for non-recyclable waste
- blue bin for paper, plastic (not tetra paks), metal.
- a black box that slots in the top of the blue bin for glass.

Seems to work fairly well.

In Reading we have ( I think) a reasonable system

Weekly a black wheely bin for household waste

Every other week
Green wheely – Garden Waste
Green Box 1 – Paper / cardboard
Green Box 2 – Glass
Green sack – Plastic bottles and Cans

As i tend to cook everything from scratch I generally only have about a ¼ of a black bins worth each week. The paper/cardboard box generally gets full and the garden one is variable. The glass one only after a party

I live in a second floor tenement flat in Glasgow. We just chuck our bin bags out the window. Preferably when somebody is walking underneath, and the bag is full of glass and rotten vegetables.

We have many rival companies vying for the paper waste. I think one area ended up with 6 different blue bins and even groups from one company going around swiping the bins from rivals and dumping them elsewhere!

How is this for thread ressurection?

How often should our bins be collected?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13740492

There was a Friends of the Earth representative on BBC Breakfast this morning, putting forward a very good case for maintaining the fortnightly collections.

We have a black bin for "residual" rubbish, a green bin for cardboard and food/garden waste, and a green box for paper and cans. They're collected alternate weeks. Apart from the really bad winter weather which prevented a collection, it's worked well. We've found our residual waste has dropped significantly, because it's so easy to put the relevant waste in the relevant container.

We have:

Green bin: General waste
Brown bin: Garden waste
Grey bin: Recycling (all the usual plus things like glass and batteries in a separate compartment)

I'd happily have fortnightly general wast collections but then our Council have made it simple to recycle. Our Green bin would take over a month to fill whereas our recycling bin is overflowing after 2 weeks.

If they want to instigate fortnightly collections for general waste Councils have to make the other collections easier for the public. I can see why if you have umpteem bins and boxes fortnightly collections may not seem attractive.

I've never understood what happens to all the material after it's collected, who gets it to use it again?

Heh!

Our green waste is composted. Down the road in Maidstone, they have an incinerator which generates electricity.

The main point is we all have to learn not to throw stuff away where it ends up in landfill. We're running out of landfill sites in this country.

They make money off it. That's why they should make it easier to collect, it's free raw material for them.

Either that or have a couple of fires like our recycling place did.

The thing is it's about money, not the environment. A lot of British waste has been sold and shipped to places like China in the past for them to use. Shipping it halfway across the world isn't really 'green'.

My local council, now green controlled, has weekly bib collections and fortnightly recyclable collections. They have abandoned having the glass sorted and just have glass collectors for all the glass, so unless they have a sorting machine somewhere that can sort the glass it is only useable for a few things. As for weekly bin collections I barely get have it filled ever, normally just one supermarket carrier of rubbish per week. They need to educate people about sorting their waste. Maybe make recycled waste free and other waste on a pay per throw system, with very heavy fines for fly tipping.