Forced to Recycle?

[rockchick]

Saw on the news this morning a community down south somewhere (note to self: everything is down south from here!) were up in arms because their refuse collection was only going to take place once a fortnight. There was much moaning and knashing of teeth, but I personally think they'll get used to it.

What a great way to make people aware of the amount of waste they collect, and to stimulate folks into starting composting and minimizing the amount of packaging they bring home. The local council would save money by halving the number of collections they do, which uses less fuel. Treehugger savings all around! I think it's a good idea.

[Kingetter]

If you live in a flat, have no garden (like sheltered housing), depend on supermarket shopping where most things are 'packaged/wrapped', I don't see them having much choice. Eggshells, potato peelings etc, cans, plastic milk bottles, and so on, what can they do but 'bin' it all? And, as the years roll by, there's a growing population of older, infirm people, to whom this applies.
Keeping such refuse in your home for 2 weeks isn't good nor healthy and worse during hot weather. Try it some time.
But I agree that if one can, one should.

[MadPict]

As mentioned on another thread about refuse collection, we have had this system in operation for a couple of years now - we have 3 wheelie bins, one for recycled plastic, paper, cans, cardboard etc, one for green refuse (garden waste/kitchen waste[anything that can be composted]) and one bin for all other rubbish which does not go into the other two. We get a fortnightly collection and can even manage to miss one as the bin is not full.

You do get used to it and it will encourage people to recycle as much as they can (something we have done for over 15 years now)...

[BLACK DOG]

A similar system is operated in East Ayrshire. However it has a number of drawbacks. Firstly for the vast majority of people a general waste collection every two weeks isn't enough - bins are overflowing. In the summer the smell from bins filled with two week old rubbish has to be experienced to be believed!!!!
Leading on from the first point - the level of fly tipping of household waste in lay-by's and public areas has reached astonishing levels. People are prepared to transport rubbish in cars to dump it but not to look for public skips.
The County now has a huge rubbish problem.
Before any recycling orientated waste collection scheme is implemented the council need to educate people and thoroughly study the needs of the people in terms of providing additional uplifts on request or providing additional public skips at key locations.

[paris]

Here in lincs we have 2 bins, 1 blue for paper ,tins, cans, and anything that can be recycled. The other bin a green 1 is used for everyday rubbish that cannot be recycled. They are emptied every other week. There are 4 in our household and during the hot weather the green bin stinks beyond belife and of course maggots are crawling everywhere. ok so we now recycle but the health issue is a big problem.

[Ricco]

Hey, Paris. Its us again!! Here in Winnershire we have two recycling boxes (one for plastics and tins, the other for paper and cardboard) and a biodegradeable baggey thing for garden waste. These are collected alternate weeks on the same day as the rubbish. Since I sometimes produce a lot more green waste than will fit in the baggey I bought a 1 cubic metre baggey and today took loads of stuff to the recycling. We also recycle bottles and jars. Almost everyone in our street recycles. I find it so sad that so many people do not do so.

[percy toboggan]

I see nappies - the disposable variety as a big problem here in summer. the woman next door but one - a new neighbour is expecting twins. How many nappies is that a week? I'd guess about 56? 112 a fortnight as they are suggesting now locally. The authority mentioned was S-horpe.
Council tax rises year on year, and services reduce. Why do we put up with it? Because we're British. Sometimes, I'd rather be French !

THE SYSTEM BLANKED OUT HALF OF S############HORPE! NOT A BAD IDEA REALLY!

[daviddd]

I see nappies - the disposable variety as a big problem here in summer. the woman next door but one - a new neighbour is expecting twins. How many nappies is that a week? I'd guess about 56? 112 a fortnight as they are suggesting now locally. The authority mentioned was S-horpe.
Council tax rises year on year, and services reduce. Why do we put up with it? Because we're British. Sometimes, I'd rather be French !

THE SYSTEM BLANKED OUT HALF OF S############HORPE! NOT A BAD IDEA REALLY!I was in France last month and noticed that there were signs on the community waste bins warning that it was an offence to put recyclables in there, so I don't think you'd like it PT! Personally I would support such a move.

[bigpete]

Hi
Way down in Leyland lancs they have once a fortnight collection, so folk take their extra down to the public dump (saves the Council using time and fuel you see, if the public do it for them) - anyway in some places down there it's a fair way to the dump, so it's pretty obvious that to a lot of people 'I pay me Council Tax' they simply dump it in laybys. this 'land-flll tax' was a very short-sighted move.
Up here it's an 88 mile return trip to the nearest official dump; try once a fortnight and there won't be any lay-by left for parking.!

[rockchick]

I hadn't thought about the nappie issue, two weeks worth would really stink! (time to go for cloth???) but as for food waste, if you can't compost cuz you're in a flat with no garden, why not get one of those liquidizer gadgets installed on your kitchen sink, so you can put food waste down the drain?

[Kingetter]

Nappies? Yes, but, that's not all. Dog stuff, cat litter stuff, bird cage stuff, all smell pretty foul normally - just wait till you've had 'em over a week. There are even more 'unmentionables' but we needn't get too specific here - I think we can all see the problem.

[squidge]

In many areas they have a reuseable nappy scheme where you can sign up and the council provides laundry facilitites - taking the dirty ones away and bringing clean ones. Also you can get a refund on the cost of buying the nappies to start with - About time too

[sjwahwah]

dunno... in Edinburgh.. we got the bins taken up every week although ours seems to not fill for quite a few weeks because of the recycling. We got a blue bin for tins, glass (any colour) and a blue bag for paper and red bin for juice cartons and cardboard types and they alternate picking up red and blue ( I do know this is not available in all of Edinburgh either, we just got it about a year ago in our part of town). They don't pick it up but, there are facilities that we use for textiles, clothes for charity shops and plastic. We use Moltex nappies which are biodegradeable but, can only put the ones in the worm bin that aren't soiled as the only bins we can fit in the back will not get hot enough to kill any bacteria or pathogens that might be present so, I have to toss the dog poo as well in the bin. All food scraps get composted as well. Garden waste is also picked up in brown bins every month during the summer which the council composts and sells... great idea.

I mean this leaves you with very little for the landfill if you put everything in the proper bins and alot of people don't have gardens for compost so it is difficult. As far as the garbage disposals that liquidise the food scraps.. the problem with those is the same problem with flush toilets.... this is drinking grade water that is purified and filtered and then contaminated in our kitchens or our toilets and then it is now officially wastewater that needs to be treated again... bit of a huge waste.. considering in some parts of the country there is a water shortage... (they should stop pooing in the clean water they've got and unhook their down pipes from the bathtub and sinks and showers and redirect it to a butt outside if possible) I mean our water isn't metered here like it is in alot of places in England but, if I owned a house first thing I'd do is get a compost toilet and commercial one if you don't have a garden.. a commercial one would be paid for in 6 months going by the rates for water in some places.

That's getting off subject but, I do know that people are obviously worried about the smell and attracting rats and other animals to the bins when they aren't emptied every week but, the smell can pretty much be stopped by putting a good layer of organic material on top everytime you add something to it... like leaves or sawdust or dirt... but, pretty impractical if you live in the city. of course, when it gets real stinky people start disposing it anyway they can... so, I don't if there is an answer that isn't quite drastic!