Most Complicated Waste/Recycling collections

[peters]

Our garden waste collections also have a fortnight off over Christmas which means they have capacity to maintain the other collections including re-scheduling if either of the other two collections fall on any of the three bank holidays. They resume garden waste in time for people to put their tree in it if they so desire.


Ditto, three bins each of which is collected once every fortnight. I have to say the logic of putting glass in a mixed re-cycling bin is beyond me as it all gets smashed when it is tipped into the lorry and then had to be separated from the paper/card/plastic. No doubt there is some hi-tech machine somewhere which does this.

I do find the various colours of bins around he country amusing, ours is entirely logical (to me at least), green for garden waste, black for landfill and whilst I suppose they could have picked any colour for (the most recently introduced albeit some years ago now) mixed re-cycling and in fact it is grey.

What I find interesting about the Cheshire collections, is how the schemes evolved.

In 2008 the Macclesfield borough had a white reusable bag for paper, a clear reusable bag for cardboard, a green plastic box for glass and metal, a green garden waste bin and a black general waste bin

In 2008 the Vale Royal borough had everything the Macclesfield borough had plus an additional red box for plastic recycling.

Since then the Macclesfield scheme has been replaced by the Cheshire East scheme which saw a grey bin introduced replacing both the bags and the green box, as well as allowing plastic recycling. Then last year food waste collection was introduced - no new bin, it goes in the same bin as garden waste.

The Vale Royal scheme didn't really change following the formation of Cheshire West council. All their boxes, bins and bags remain with an additional little bin for kitchen waste. I know people who find the additional little kitchen waste bin one too many and just put their kitchen waste in the general waste bin.

The Cheshire East waste goes to a facility in Shotton, there was a leaflet about how they separate the waste so you might be able to get hold one of those still. (There was supposed to be a Lyme Green facility near Macclesfield, I suggest you Google that if you don't know about it and want to find out why it didn't get built, I don't want to turn this thread into one on local council corruption.)

 

[peters]

I note some councils don’t like plastic meat trays etc

A lot of meat gets sold on black plastic trays. At some recycling facilities they use infrared to sort plastic and it can't sort black plastic meaning black plastic gets 'sorted' with the non-recyclable waste that wrongly ends up in recycling bins. That wouldn't be specific to meat trays though, a Lynx shower gel bottle would get treated the same way.

 

[skyhigh]

When I lived in Leeds they had a decent-ish system:
Black bin for non-recyclables
Green bin for plastics, paper and metal
Glass needed to go to a bottle bank.

Unfortunately the frequency of collection was pretty odd - in my first house, the black bin was collected weekly and the green bin once a month. In my second house, they were collected on alternate weeks but different days!

Where I live now (Harrogate), the system is better:
Week 1: Black bin for non-recyclables
Week 2: Black box for plastics, glass and metal, blue bag for paper.

It's a much more logical system, except the boxes don't have lids so the recycling has a habit of blowing around. The blue bags are roughly the size of a large bag for life, and they won't accept anything that doesn't fit in them, so no chance of them collecting cardboard boxes. Max of 2 bags and 2 boxes per house.

 

[GusB]

Some if these seem very complicated. Why cant we have the same national system?

That would be much too sensible - don't be daft!

I had to get used to two systems for a while. I'd have to sort out everything at home and put it out on Monday night for Tuesday collection. I then had to head to my dad's house to sort out his stuff for collection on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

My own local council (Moray) cut changed its collection frequencies when Covid hit and I'm still not used to the new routine. We have a fortnightly collection for food and garden waste (brown bin) and the rest is three-weekly. Plastics and metals are collected in the pink bin, paper and card in the blue bin, glass in an orange box and general waste, of which I have very little these days, goes in the green bin. Some weeks I have no collection at all, while every six weeks everything goes out. Rather than trying to remember the schedule, I just wait until I hear the rumble of wheelie bins and see what everyone else has put out.

Highland was (pre-Covid) blue bin for card, paper, plastics and cans on alternating Wednesdays, green bin for general waste on the Wednesdays in between and a brown bin for garden waste every Thursday. They didn't collect glass at all, which was no good to anyone who didn't have a car.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Wonder how much supposedly recyclable material, actually does then get recycled, and doesn't just end up as additional landfill (or burnt)?

 

[cactustwirly]

Reading has a black wheelie bin for normal waste, a red wheelie bin for recycling (except glass) and a food waste bin.

Dodd waste is collected weekly, the wheelies are fortnightly on alternate weeks.

Wokingham has a blue bin bags for waste, black boxes for recycling (except glass) and a food waste bin. All are collected weekly.

Leicester has a black wheelie bin for waste and yellow bags for recycling and both are collected weekly.

 

[gswindale]

Reading has a black wheelie bin for normal waste, a red wheelie bin for recycling (except glass) and a food waste bin.

Dodd waste is collected weekly, the wheelies are fortnightly on alternate weeks.

Wokingham has a blue bin bags for waste, black boxes for recycling (except glass) and a food waste bin. All are collected weekly.

Leicester has a black wheelie bin for waste and yellow bags for recycling and both are collected weekly.

Now I really don't understand why we (Bracknell), Wokingham & Reading have such differing systems given that they are all part of the re3 waste management partnership!

 

[david1212]

At the start of this month, our council introduced food waste collections and as a result switched from alternate weeks recycling and waste collections to what is effectively a 6 week rotation with food waste every week, recycling every fortnight (as previously) and household waste every 3 weeks. I feel I should also mention that the garden waste collections have a fortnight off over Christmas to stop you putting your tree in it!

My parents stated that this was more complicated/confusing than their system (not sure what they get other than weekly food waste).

I'm interested to know what happens elsewhere in the country to see if anywhere else has a more complicated system?

The current arrangement is straightforward alternating between
- non-recyclable household waste grey wheelie bin
- recycling red box ( plastic, tins & glass ), recycling bags ( paper & cardboard ) and green wheelie bin for both food and garden waste.

However by April 2022 it will change to something like the quoted post. I understand the adjacent council, with which a merger is proposed, will change from this April.
Core to the change is separating food and garden waste so they can charge for the latter at ( provisionally ) £40 / year. Christmas trees can be put out so long as cut up to fit in the green wheelie bin.

In the city where I work green bin collection is totally suspended from early November to April.

 

[peters]

I feel I should also mention that the garden waste collections have a fortnight off over Christmas to stop you putting your tree in it!

If you're a traditional Christian your tree stays up until 6th January for the feast of Epiphany, so a suspension so the crews can work around Christmas and New Year Bank Holidays wouldn't affect the first collection date after the 6th January. With garden waste the more dead the waste is the less space it takes up. In the last month I almost filled my garden waste bin with shrub prunings a week before the collection date and by the collection date the bin was only around 75% full, so if you do take your tree down on 2nd January and have to wait until 15th for a collection it might be your tree takes up less space.

With a lot of people getting things in cardboard boxes over Christmas, a longer gap between recycling collections can lead to some people having too much recycling for the first post-Christmas collection.

Wonder how much supposedly recyclable material, actually does then get recycled, and doesn't just end up as additional landfill (or burnt)?

I did hear that because less single use plastic is being produced we're currently recycling too much plastic for it all to be reused.

 

[ATW Alex 101]

A lot of meat gets sold on black plastic trays. At some recycling facilities they use infrared to sort plastic and it can't sort black plastic meaning black plastic gets 'sorted' with the non-recyclable waste that wrongly ends up in recycling bins. That wouldn't be specific to meat trays though, a Lynx shower gel bottle would get treated the same way.

Agreed, as black/hard plastic is a thermosetting plastic it indeed means that it is basically impossible to recycle so I guess it does make sense in that respect.

One council in Manchester (Eccles way) didn’t like even clear plastic meat trays though I think this possibly is from a rodent point of view.

 

[tj1997]

Coventry;
Week 1; Blue-Lid; Recyclables (incl. Paper, Glass & Card) & Brown-Lid; Garden Waste
Week 2; Green-Lid; General Waste
Food Waste can be put in either the Green or Brown Bin to get collected weekly.

 

[peters]

With regards to where recycled waste goes this recently appeared on the Cheshire East Council Highways Twitter feed

Today we’re supporting #GlobalRecyclingDay and the importance of recycling. Did you know that we have replaced old footbridges in Cheshire East with planks that are made from 100% recycled plastic bottles #Recycling

https://twitter.com/CECHighways/status/1372545826061393925

There's before and after photos of a bridge on the above link.

I wonder which type is least slippery in wet or icy weather.