Green bin, to pay or not to pay?

We have a green lidded wheelie bin for garden waste, a black lidded wheelie bin for general rubbish (collected fortnightly). Easy to remember - "Green and Blacks"!!
We also have a blue lidded wheelie bin for general recycling (tins, plastic, glass) and a red lidded wheelie bin for newspaper and card - collected on the alternate fortnight.
We also have mini brown bins for kitchen waste, collected weekly.
Where we used to live blue was for paper and card, pink was for plastic and tins, brown was for garden and kitchen waste. Black sacks for general rubbish.
Why can't councils work together??!!!

 

Then they wonder why people dont recycle.
Lots of complaints around here regarding the bin men just chucking it all in the same bin before emptying it after everyone has bothered to separate stuff.

 

Our council is introducing food waste bins here in 2026. From what I’ve seen this includes plate scrapings but what do you do with out of date food?( say from the fridge?) Do they go in the food bin? And what about out of date tinned foods? Do we have to open, empty, wash and put food in food bin and can in tins etc? We’ve never had food waste bins before.


Apologies for going slightly off topic ….

 

Just put any food waste in the bin, I buy the liners otherwise its a matter of washing it out all the time, but any food that will rot down can go in them.

 

Ooh @cactus_girl we missed the changes happening re getting a separate bin for paper. Seems we are in phase 1 too. We have a handy cubby hole for our current two rubbish bins, not sure where we will put a third

 

This is my problem having a very small front garden. I paid for a new
Red Bag for paper & card. My council delivered a large Red Lidded bin.
I did phone the council but couldn't get through...so I've thrown it
up the top of the garden out of the way.

 

We don't have separate food waste bins, but then we don't have a lot of food waste, and most of what there is, is what the cats have left in their dishes. Hardly ever is there anything to scrape off our plates!

 

My unpaid for green bin was left outside on the pavement all last year with the other (grey - recycling and black - general) two. We all leave them on the pavement around here as our gardens are very small. I kept putting stuff in the green bin thinking eventually it might rot down, but in fact it was emptied on the last collection of 2024. I did wonder whether to complain to the council that they had nicked my compost heap!

 

We have 1 bin for general waste (green) 1 bin for garden waste (dark brown with garden waste printed on the lid) and 1 bin (light brown) for any thing to be recycled.....paper card glass tins plastic bottles.
The recycling bin goes out one week and the general and garden waste the next. We don't pay to have the garden waste collected .....yet, but it is only collected from mid March to end November. If you can't fit all your recycling in the bin you can leave it beside the bin(neatly) and they will take it as long as they can see that it is recycling.

 

Our garden waste bin needs a sticker which arrives in the post. Trouble is that by December it’s faded so much the address has disappeared ! They still empty it though thankfully and every other week except over Christmas/new year.
We have a kitchen waste caddy but I never use it as it goes into my compost bin and we don’t waste actual food to be honest ….. children of the 50s and 60s you understand !
The comments about consistency are well made. Our garden waste bin here is brown, recycling bin is blue and rubbish bin is green lol. Over in Hereford the recycling bin is black and the rubbish bin is green ! All rather confusing, especially for the elderly …

 

How confusing, had no idea there was such variation across the country.
As I’ve posted, we pay for a fortnightly green waste collection ( in a green bin!) According to the council blurb, the bins are microchipped, but I have never seen anyone seemingly checking them. We have a four week gap around Christmas. When the lid on one bin cracked, I think the emptying machine was a bit enthusiastic, a guy arrived in under a week and fitted a replacement lid.
Our general landfill waste is collected every three weeks ( black bin)
Our food waste ( small blue bin) is emptied weekly. We do use it, for peels etc, as I don’t do composting.
We have a green sack for tins, plastic food containers and bottles, this is emptied weekly.
We have a black box for glass jars and bottles, plus cardboard, paper and batteries. We can also put bagged textiles, and small electrical items like toasters in it as well. That goes weekly.
All seems to work well here, and East Devon has one of the highest rates of successful recycling. Certainly, our landfill bin is rarely more than half full, as so much goes in the recycling bins. Which is lucky, as I forgot to put the rubbish one out a fortnight ago!

 

Yes, it's a right nuisance as the existing paper punnet that sits inside the recycling wheelie is so space efficient. I'm going to keep ours and not hand it back to them and carry on using the existing bin as it is (in the integral garage). The new paper bin can sit round the corner out of sight and unused and will be filled up just on bin day. I have no idea where I will put the food waste bin. Maybe sit it in the existing paper punnet!

 

At our previous address in England we had four wheelie bins. Now, here in North Wales, we have two wheelie bins - one for general rubbish which is emptied every four weeks and one for garden waste emptied every fortnight and paid for separately. We also have the Trolibocs system for recycling plastic, glass and paper with a separate bag for cardboard.