Latest Moan From You and Me 2023

This is a serious problem. The "4 bins" initiative seems to me to be purpose-designed to add to the problem and reduce recycling rates. I do like recycling, and under the previous scheme was very conscientious.

 

We "only" have 4 bins, if you include the food waste bin and the garden waste bin that you have to pay extra for.
All houses around here have front gardens/driveways of some type and space to put bins, but when walking around the streets its surprising how many just park them on the pavement and never move them, they are a danger to blind people and wheelchair uses at the very least.
We also have a certain element who think that once the rubbish is in the street it then becomes someone else's problem, its fly tipping at its laziest, rubbish just stacked up against fences until someone reports it and the council move it, this often includes stuff like wide screen TVs, garden rubble, mattresses, even armchairs, car parts as well.

The certain element I mention should be housed in concrete high rise blocks with absolutely no green spaces around for them to gain access to IMO.

 

Where I live the custom with any waste metal is to leave it at the end of your drive, or if it's something massive like, say, an old broken washing machine, just on the drive next to the house. It magically disappears overnight.

The same is not true for old mattresses or rubble or some of the other stuff you mentioned. The scrap man obviously doesn't want that stuff. For that you either take it to the tip (that's what I do as it's most convenient me with a decent size car), or phone the council to arrange a special collection. Usually there's a small charge, but every now and then they do a clear up campaign where they do it for free between certain dates.

 

There are a few houses, mostly 2 storey flats that have gardens, and you wouldn't believe the state of the gardens and the rubbish they just dump there, once its out the house its not their problem anymore.
I had a neighbour like that some years ago, thankfully they moved.

 

These, that I'm referring to are, are housing association places.

 

Wimbledon has been a bit tame this year, not seen hardly any games worth watching, and of course, with the roofs in use its seemed like mostly an indoor event.
I tend to follow the ones that make the least stupid noise when they hit the ball, cant get my head round most of the names these days.

 

We've only got 2 bins, 1 green for recycling and food waste bin, you can have a brown 1 for garden waste if you pay but living where we are there is no need, but 1 family have brown for garden waste and the truck has to make a speicle trip to come and get it, must cost the tax payer more than it's worth as it's the only 1 that i've seen in 5 mile radius
We also still have the black bags for waste which i only pit out 1 bag in a year, green bin for recycling i put out once in a month and a half, don't use food waste,
any litter is usaslly through drivers throwing out the window which i sometimes pick up

I don't watch wimbledon

 

We only have 2 bins and a small box for glass and batteries.

Black for general waste....we never have much so that gets put out every 2months as nothing decayable ( is that a word) is put in there and a green for recycling....we buy very carefully so that only goes out for collection once maybe twice a year. Glass box goes out once a year. All other waste is composted.
Our collectors have commented several times that we are residents in our borough.

 

I just wonder what everyone does with plastic bags and other packaging.
My recycle bin and black bin,(for incineration), are usually half full and are collected every two weeks, some households have two extra large recycle bins and often they cant close the lid on them.

I put all my plastic bags in the black bin including old compost bags, the recycle bin is usually full of cardboard and milk bottles, glass, maybe I dont squash it all down enough.

As for the garden bin that gets all the perennial weeds often if they have started to seed, and tough leaves that dont rot down well, brambles and all things prickly.
as I pay for it, I'm going to use it.

 

We really don't buy things that come with much packaging. The bags that sliced bread comes in is stashed for wrapping meat joints or bones which then get dumped at the bottom of our freezer until we put the black bin out on rare occasions. As there is only two of us we tend to batch bake once a month so leftover bones etc aren't really a big issue...and cause no problems as stored away and frozen after being use to make a stock base for soups.

Compost bags are saved and used to line the shelving in our large lean-to cold frame in the Autumn ready for the over wintering plants. I also save them to line big pots and planters in Spring.

We don't don't buy milk in bottles but in cartons. Neither of us use much milk ( I don't like it at all) the only time I have a little ( and that gets diluted!!) is on my breakfast , hubs is the same but not diluted so we only use about a pint and a half a week.

Everything else ends up in our compost bins for a while to break down further before being taken and added to the big main compost bays. Depending on the type of cardboard and again we seldom get much that too get chopped up and added.

It's a challenge I enjoy being faced with ,seeing how few times I have to cart the bins out for kerbside collection every year.!!