http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-13371680


Solution get a dog.

So by the level of the fine, they think putting food in the bin is worse than shop lifting!
Words fail me.

I have confusion. Is the 'wheelie bin' they are referring to a recycling bin? Picture in the story is a black bin and black bins have always been landfill bins in my world?!

Surely "general rubbish" is exactly where food scraps should go?
Can you recycle food scraps in Wales?

Our council wants us to put food scraps in the garden waste bin.

Wow! That's the first time I've heard of that. Confusion over, thank you

Them wanting me to and me actually doing it are two different things.
Plastic, cans, paper etc fine. But I'm not keeping food scraps in the kitchen and I'm not going to the outside bins every time I cook something.

We've got a food waste bin, a recycling bag (which we empty in to 6 separate bins downstairs) & a general rubbish bin.

It can get a tad confusing

Our planet is the most important thing there is. Failing to recycle when facilities have been provided (at my expense, I might add) is an unforgivable act of vandalism that is raping our children's future. Rapists deserve more than a £100 fine.

WTF? How is putting it in the correct bin any more difficult to putting it in the wrong bin?

What food waste? I think over the past year we've amounted no more than a carrier bag of cooked food waste, the rest goes in the compost. Everything else is eaten.

In the two locations I have lived recently - Cornwall and Cardiff, the systems are very different and as such I have a different attitude to each one.

In Cardiff, there is a general "recycling" bag, into which ALL recycling stuff goes. There is also no restriction on what they will collect (they will take all plastics etc). You can put as many of these as you like out and they are collected weekly. You have a black bin for non-recyclable rubbish, which is collected fortnightly. There is also a green bin for gardening and food waste, which is also collected weekly. Because they make recycling so easy (all in to one bag), everything that can be recycled is.

In Cornwall however, not only do they insist on paper, glass etc being separated, but they won't take it unless it's in its proper bag/box. They also refuse to collect certain types of plastic, metal tins etc. They do not collect food waste. On this basis, we simply CBA and put it in the black bin if we're not sure.

We have:
• Green box for glass and metal
• Bag for paper
• Bag for cardboard
• Bag for plastics
• Tin foil in a separate bag in the green box
• Brown wheelie bin for garden waste
• Black bin for everything else

It’s a bloody mess, TBH. The day plastic goes out is the day the road gets strewn with escaped bottles, etc. because people don’t think to tie to tops of the bags up. The last few weeks with all the bank holidays have been really annoying because the recycling collection days have been all over the place, and people don’t know what to leave out or when.

The recycling contractor at work has decided to replace the clusters of 4 separate bins we have around campus with one general rubbish bin. Apparently it's simpler for them to deal with if it's unsorted at our end.
It'll also probably help encourage the students into actually using a bin, if they don't have to stop and think for a moment.
Of course I jest; there'll still be the dropped rubbish one foot from the bin...

That's mental. Why don't they make it simple?

We're lucky up here. 1 grey recycling wheelie bin, for everything. Same size as the waste bin with a separate removable compartment in the top for glass and batteries. Tins, paper, cardboard, plastic and everything else goes in the main part.

Seriously, that bin is used at least twice as much as our waste bin. Sometimes it's full by the time the 2 weeks are up.

Honestly, if they want people to recycle then make it easy for them.

If they are planning to compost it then you should not be putting cooked food into it. Cooked food waste is not the easiest to get rid of. Though if people only cooked what they ate and so there was no food waste then it would also solve the problem.


So true.

It does seem that some councils have much easier schemes than others. I really like the two bins for compost and general waste / bags for recycling although I'd be worried that the bags would blow away. We have two great big bins and two recycling boxes which takes up a lot of space, and the boxes aren't always big enough.

I thought they meant things like potato peelings etc.. Some cooked food is OK, but anything heavily salted and also meat could be an issue.

It's not a problem that occurred to me, because wasting prepared food is simply not something that has ever been permitted in my life. As a child, not eating the food lovingly prepared by my mother slaving in the kitchen all day was totally unthinkable. These days, I can't afford to just throw away all that time and money. There's no such thing as "unwanted leftovers" in my house; there is simply "tomorrows dinner"