This week my Word of the Week is:
This week my mind has been on our bins. I know how boring!! Apparently we’re getting simpler, smarter recycling where I live. That’s what they’re calling it anyway. I’m sure it will be simpler eventually but at this moment in time it just feels like a lot of faffing about and trying to remember the new rules. Oh! and to top it all, they are changing the days the bins will be collected, add in the bank holidays and it's going to be chaos for the next few weeks!
Right now we have 3 wheelie bins. Garden waste, recycling and general waste and two boxes. One for cans and one for glass bottles or jars. From the start of April, the boxes are going and all the recycling goes into our new, bigger red bin, food waste goes in the garden bin and the general waste is used for everything else. It sounds simple when it is written down but it's a lot to get my head around.
Our new bigger red recycling bin was delivered on Monday and I thought ahead. I ordered some of the sticky numbers weeks ago to put on it. Of course, I couldn't find them. I looked everywhere but came across them eventually. I wanted our house number on because now everyone's red bins are the same. I don't want to get mixed up.
I think we have been short changed. My dad's cousin, who lives in Hartlepool, was given an outside caddy for food waste and a smaller indoor one. They were also provided with liners to put in their wheelie bins. We get none of that. I bought an indoor caddy to make life a little easier. Going outside after every meal to scrape the plates does not sound like fun. I guess you can tell I am not happy about the food bin situation. We don't have that much food waste, which is probably a good thing but we still have some and I can just imagine how it's going to stink in the summer. I know it will knock me sick every time I open the wheelie bin. Our council is helpful. They suggested freezing food waste. lol Especially for smelly items like raw meat or fish. They say you can store the waste in a container in your freezer then transfer it directly into the outdoor bin on collection day. I can just imagine it. Stu is getting ready for work, goes into the freezer and picks the wrong tub and takes a tub of food waste for lunch. lol
It just seems to be making more work for me. The garden/food wheelie bin will need washing out every week in the summer. What happens if a hosepipe ban kicks in? I did think about getting the biodegradable wheelie bin liners but as far as I can see online, our council is saying no to them. Ugh! I suppose it could be worse. If we did have a food caddy I can just imagine it blowing away down the street.
Now I have to train my family in how to use the bins. The old recycling bin was emptied earlier in the week, so now all recycling goes into the big red bin and this week we are starting to use the indoor food caddy. Becky stood in front of me the other day with a handful of things, trying to figure out what was going in which bin. I know we will get used to it eventually but until then, keep me in your thoughts because I predict me getting shouty with my family when they put things in the wrong bins.
How has your week been? I hope you have had a good one! I am of course linking up with Anne who blogs at Raisie Bay to join in with her Word of the Week linky!
Wow, that stinks! Literally, unfortunately. I'm sorry that you have to deal with the change. So all food waste goes in a separate container? And it's called a garden bin? That makes little sense. There are definitely different type of food waste. There's compostable waste and then there's... not compostable waste. UGH. Good luck as you transition to this new system. It doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me.
ReplyDeleteI put most of my food waste in the garbage disposal, so have very little that will smell by trash day. I DO have a gallon freezer bag in the door of the freezer, marked TRASH so that stinky stuff that doesn't go down the disposal can be frozen until trash day. It works for me, but it's just me here. Recycling rules seem to change often. Very little is actually recycled now, and they did away with it in the county. Just the city is doing it here. Yep... it can be confusing and does make more work for us. Good luck!!
ReplyDeleteI'm really surprised that the food waste is going in with the garden waste. I'm sure it won't be long before that changes because all councils are supposed to be collecting it separately by 31st March. According to a BBC article though 1 in 4 councils will be missing the deadline. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpv8ye887e4o
ReplyDeleteYou probably will eventually get a separate bin for the food waste to go outside as well as the caddy for the kitchen. That's how ours works. Pros - the waste gets turned into bio fuel. Cons the outside caddy is very attractive to foxes - we wedge ours between the wall and one of the wheelie bins and so far it's only been opened by foxes once but yes once it's empty it could blow away. Not too much hassle to clean it as it's not that big. Can't imagine putting food waste into my freezer. Yuck! Another downside with our collections is that the general waste and garden waste are only collected alternate weeks (recycling and food are every week) so it's a pain remembering which bins go out when. Good luck!
OMG, this is hilarious! "I can just imagine it. Stu... picks the wrong tub and takes a tub of food waste for lunch. lol" It sounds like it should be one of those Candid Camera/hidden camera moments. We have three bins - yard waste, recycling (for all paper, glass, plastic), and general waste. We are not provided with any liners, so I buy a box of the giant builder trash bags so that all the waste goes in the liner and not in the bin. I was liner-less in the last place we had bins and it never failed that something got spilled or spoiled in the bin and was just gross.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds confusing! We have a recycling bag, for glass, plastic, aluminum cans, ect., then a cardboard bin, which we turn into backyard fires, then a can lined with a garbage bag for the five cent returnable bottles and cans, then our regular garbage, which is everything else. We bring that out to the larger outdoor cans, and bring those in the back of the truck to the dump, either Wednesdays or Saturdays or both. We can bring anything to the dump, although there is a surcharge for huge things like couches. We pay $90 a year for a dump pass, but it's cheaper than paying for garbage pick up, which is privatized here. I hope you get it memorized soon, and it seems just like old hat after a while.
ReplyDeleteOMG, this sounds so complicated! I know you'll figure things out eventually but it's so hard getting used to a new system.
ReplyDeleteBtw this is Astrid from astridetal.com. I somehow can't seem to comment using my Google account.
Oh, it looks like I can use my Google account after all.
ReplyDeleteWowza. That does sound like a lot of extra work!!!!
ReplyDeleteOur council were going to do the food waste in the garden bin thing but never did. We have black bin, blue bin (recycling except card/paper) blue bag (card/paper) and green bin (garden) We are apparently getting an indoor caddy for food waste and a bigger caddy for outside... I cannot wait :/ Karen Early Rising Mum
ReplyDeleteSo I know this is a pain for you - changes to my routine really throw me BUT I do wish we had this here - we just have a refuse bin and have to do our own recycling and we do do it but its a mission.
ReplyDeleteI had to giggle about Stu taking frozen waste food to work! We have the little caddy for food waste and the smaller bin for outside. We had also been told that we will be having separate bins for glass, plastic and card/paper. My garden will be full of bins. I might have one of those bin sheds built because they have to be right outside my front door or I can't reach them. But, it does make me laugh that they are bringing this in because we are currently nationwide famous for having the longest ever bin strike of over a year! They have contractors doing the job and so far it's going well but we haven't had our recycling collected for a year! I did have a pile of it in my garden for when the strike ended but it grew so big my son decided to burn it. Now we put it in the shed and get ex to take to recycling centre when I can catch him in a good mood.
ReplyDeleteWe actually don't have garbage collection here in our town everyone is responsible for taking care of their own garbage... which basically just means we have to pay for a company to come.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds complicated, but maybe it will be better once you get used to it. I have mixed feelings about recycling since I wonder how much of it is actually recycled.
ReplyDeleteI think they have made it more complicated and it will put people off. We have to pay for our green bin (garden waste) each year so I think that's why they have given is the food waste caddy's. Like you said it's just more work for us, especially the cleaning. We pay for our black bin to be cleaned but we do the others ourselves. I do like being able to recycle but it is over complicated.
ReplyDeleteYou'll get used to it (and you'll end up with separate weekly food waste collections, the north/east have had exemptions for the end of March deadline as so many councils didn't provide any food waste collections before).
ReplyDeleteOurs was mixed food/garden waste that for years - our council's one of the best in the country - the food waste in with garden waste is fine - we never had garden waste, so would have a couple of food bags in the wheely bin which was ridiculous. Our recycling has always been mixed in one bin, but until January we couldn't recycle glass. I don't know why they're now mixing glass in because the recommendation was always to keep glass separate as it contaminates the rest. But hey, it all goes in together now.
We've had food kerbside caddies for a couple of years now, and separate paid garden waste collections. But they never collected our kerbside caddy (or our lodgers), even though it was obvious 2 were sat out by our bins in the gateway. Tried reporting it but because our collections are Fridays, you can't contact them to say it's not collected until 5pm when they've gone home for the weekend. Online I can't complain because it says we have Tuesday bin collections which we've never had (Tues/Fri depends on which village you're in and our route is with the Friday village, but the council seems to not realise that). But I then left the bin out til the Tues and it still wasn't collected. So after 2 weeks of trying I've given up. Frustrating, but more pleasant as it was really rank walking a condensing/warm/decomposing food waste bin down the farm drive to the gate. (with the recycling I pop it in the car, the normal waste bin bag I drive down with it on the bonnet, but I wouldn't do that with the dripping food waste).
We've never cleaned out our bins! But then they're down at the bottom of the yard/gate, rather than up near the house, so that means any whiffs are just kept down there.
We've been told all about the new bins but no new bins have appeared yet #wotw
ReplyDelete