I’ve recently really got into recycling.
Now I don’t mean I’m some scabby field dwelling twat, hugging trees and smelling of soil. Recycling, well in Chelmsford at least is pretty easy. We’ve got a selection of boxes and bags to fill with recycling stuff, the council provide us with –
Brown Bin – Garden Waste, Grass, Small Branches etc.
Little Green Bin – Food Waste, literally any leftovers, scraps, out of date food etc.
Big Green Bin – Cans, and Glass
Plastic Sacks – Plastic
Paper Sack – Paper
Cardboard Sack – Cardboard
Black Bin – Anything that doesn’t fit in the above.
Everything aside from the Black Bin and Little Green Bin collected each week and the rest are collected on a two week cycle.
I’m not entirely sure what made me change my ways, I used to just chuck EVERYTHING in the bin, not really thinking about it. But Essex County Council (or is it Chelmsford Borough Council), just make it so EASY to do. Once you get in the habit of sorting it all out it, it’s like second nature. I suppose the only downside is where do you keep it all? All the bins live happily outside, but the sacks don’t really, and in this weather would get blown away / reduced to a squishy smelly mess. Thankfully I’ve got a shed to store mine in, but I imagine it’s tricky for those without something like that!
The food recycling only started in December – I was a bit concerned about having a small bin in the kitchen with rotting food waste in. This quickly went away when up until now there had been a big bin in the kitchen with rotting food waste (ie. the normal bin!). The food recycling seems to work well, although it’s a shame that I think I’m the only person on our road who actually bothers with it. Everyone else seems well up for recycling their cardboard and plastics, but the food.. No. I’m sure if they offered some sort of slight council tax discount for households who did the ‘Full Monty’ of recycling then there would be more people doing it, but alas people are lazy. It is easier to sling stuff away than ‘think’ about doing it any differently.
So, do you recycle?
The little green bin is far too small! I know they want to reduce foodwaste, but after peeling potatoes and cutting off the greens off carrots and cabbages, the bin is full up. And that's just Sunday roast and you've still got a whole week to go… You can't promote '5 a day' and then give a teeny tiny bin like this.
Jesus – I've never actually filled mine up!
We have a blue bin for garbage, green bin for recycling, brown bin for garden waste and purple bin for glass (no fancy food composting like y'all!)
We recycle but it drives me NUTS they only collect garbage every other week now. When you have a toddler you have a lot of garbage that you can't really control y'know?
I have a rabbit. My rabbit eats all the non cooked veg waste, and anything he doesn't eat (including what he has eaten if ya catch my drift?!) is put into my compost pile 🙂
We used to have a food waste bin when I lived in Southend, however, I didn't buy into it as they advised this would all be going on our fields and into pigs. I'm all up for recycling and reducing landfills and waste, but I don't like the thought of raw eggs and their shells, along with chicken bones and other rotting meats being chemically rotted (or whatever it is they do to make it safe?) then slung onto the new crops and into the new pork that i'm going to eat?
however the rest of the recycling gumph is very easy in Colchester too, the only downside is that you have to pay to obtain some of the recycling bags you need. 🙂 x
haha clearly you don't eat enough veg!!
We don't have any recycling where I am in central Chelmsford, so I have to save all my cardboard and plastic to take to my mums once a week in South Chelmsford to be recycled.
I have a whole post on recycling as well:
http://www.anothergoldfish.co.uk/2011/10/step-down-sunday-recycling-bins.html
Our area is quite frustrating as they are rather limited in what they'll recycle, but still give you loads of containers. They also won't do tetra-paks, so we have to post those to a recycling centre ourselves.
http://www.anothergoldfish.co.uk/2011/11/step-down-sunday-tetra-pak-recycling.html
There are only about 3 other people on our street that recycle paper, but that seems to be it. (Yet we've lost several paper and bottle recycling bags. Luckily it's free to order replacements.)
In Holland I used to have a bin half the size of the black bin here for food waste. It was collected every other week, which was a pain in the summer, but it would actually fit all that needed to go in that bin.