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Most Complicated Waste/Recycling collections

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gswindale

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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?
 
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Mcr Warrior

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My area, it's as follows...

Week one: General non-recyclable waste (also, separately, green (garden) waste and food waste);

Week two: Cardboard and newspaper for recycling (also, separately, green (garden) waste and food waste);

Week three: General non-recyclable waste (also, separately, green (garden) waste and food waste);

Week four: Metal cans, milk bottles (but not most other plastics) and glass bottles and jars, for recycling (also, separately, green (garden) waste and food waste).

... then back to week one, again.

During the height of COVID-19, the green (garden) waste collections were alternately either reduced to fortnightly or suspended entirely (with food waste then temporarily allowed in with the general waste).
 

Bevan Price

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Weekly - Recyclables: Paper (blue bag); Glass bottles, cardboard (black box), Plastic bottles, metal cans (pink sack).

Every 2 weeks, March to December only - Garden waste (green bin).

Every 2 weeks: General waste (brown bin).

Food waste would be weekly, but I don't have any. The local birds happily dispose of any residual scraps that I may have.
 

Domh245

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I've seemingly been quite lucky in only living in places with fairly sensible waste collections. Both have had fortnightly schedules alternating between "recycling" and "landfill" - in Nottingham it was 1 wheelie bin for everything recyclable (glass/metal/paper, etc), one bin for garden waste (collected same week as the other recyling April-September), and one bin for general household waste.

In the bit of South London where I am now, it's one wheelie bin for any household waste, and another for any paper & card (both collected the same week), and then green/purple boxes for all other recyclables (Once upon a time each box was for different recyclables - paper & metal in one, glass & plastic in the other), collected the week after the wheelie bins. There's also food recycling which is collected every week, and garden collections if you subscribe to those (collected fortnightly). Batteries & textiles can also be collected weekly if left out in plastic bags (untied & tied respectively) on bin day
 

DarloRich

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Fenny Stratford
Milton Keynes:

  • All recycling except glass in special sack
  • Rubbish in black sack
  • glass in glass bin
  • food/garden waste in the green bin

All collected every week ( Green bin currently suspended due to COVID impact on bin men)

Simple.
 

Typhoon

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Location
Kent
Canterbury -

Weekly: Food

Fortnightly: Week 1 -Recycling (blue bin with box for paper)
Week 2 - Landfill (bin), and garden (green bin) provided you have paid.

If you have lots of paper, you can have a (red) bin for it if you ask
 

swt_passenger

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Winchester district ( rural)
week 1 black bin general & food, and brown bin (subscription now required) for garden waste.
week 2 green bin for paper, plastic & tins/cans recycling, and separate black box for glass bottles and jars.
week 3 same as week 1
week 4 green bin only
 

Big Tim

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Location
York
City Of York

Week 1 - Grey Bin (General Waste)
Week 2 - Recycling - 3 lidded boxes - one for glass - one combined tins and some plastics - one paper & cardboard

Late April to October - Green Bin (Garden Waste), collected by a separate team on the Week 2 Rotation

Some areas are still predominantly terraced housing, and do not have any bins, and have to present their waste in "bin bags", but I think most - if not all - now have recycling boxes. The boxes are a poor substitute for a general recycling bin which other councils in neighbouring areas have. They tend not to be large enough, and in anything sterner than a light breeze the lids blow off and the neighbourhood gets littered with (particularly) paper and plastic on collection day. Frustratingly, most weeks the boxes are all tipped into a single wheelie bin by the collection team, and dumped into the wagon as a single load. Seems a bit of a waste of our time separating the waste!
 
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RailAleFan

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Midlands
Stafford

Week 1
- Green wheelie bin (general waste)

Week 2
- Blue wheelie bin (recyclables excl. paper/cardboard)
- Blue bag (paper/cardboard)
- Brown wheelie bin (garden waste; if you've paid extra for it to be collected)

Generally happy with this. The blue bag for paper/card can be kept indoors, is almost half the capacity of a standard wheelie bin easily compacted and I'm only putting mine out once a month.
 
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Parallel

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Wiltshire

Week 1 - Black general waste wheelie bin
Week 2 - Blue dustbin for paper/card, plastics and tin; small black box for clothing and glass

There are also green bins for garden waste but you have to pay for that service. Food waste is not recycled.

Bath/North East Somerset

Not too sure how often they're collected but there are several bags that go out. One for plastics/cans, one for paper/card, one for mixed glass, one for food waste and one for general waste.
 

Ostrich

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North Dorset

Week 1 - Blue general waste wheelie bin - food waste bucket
Week 2 - Green recyclables bin (takes tins, cardboard, paper, recyclable plastics) - food waste bucket - green glass jars and bottles bucket.

Garden waste is fortnightly, and it's a pay-for service, which is a bit of a cheek considering the ruinous amount Dorset County Council and our local town council charge for annual household rates .....

Anything else, it's up to the tip at Shaftesbury, which is basically free but charges may be applied for the more esoteric items like rubble, soil, plasterboard and tyres.
 

Cheshire Scot

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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!
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.

I've seemingly been quite lucky in only living in places with fairly sensible waste collections. Both have had fortnightly schedules alternating between "recycling" and "landfill"
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.
 

Domh245

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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.

Not overly high tech, but yes automated sorting is now a thing, they generally separates things out by densities (plus magnets for anything ferrous) and gets quite good levels of separation. Theoretically this makes people more likely to recycle (if they just have to chuck it all in one bin, rather than sorting it themselves) - though how much of what comes out of the other end as sorted material actually gets recycled is another matter - glass and plastics particularly!

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.

That was my biggest bugbear with Nottingham - brown bins for recyling (grey lid for general recycling, brown lid for garden waste) was fine, but using green bins for landfill struck me as rather counterintuitive!
 

Cheshire Scot

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though how much of what comes out of the other end as sorted material actually gets recycled is another matter - glass and plastics particularly!
Yes, in a previous era we put out the glass in a box and when collected they were sorted into separate bins for clear and coloured, labour intensive yes, but there must have been a perceived benefit which cannot be applied to a pile of mixed pieces of broken glass.

My mother is not allowed to recycle black plastic but we can and do.

using green bins for landfill struck me as rather counterintuitive!
Green seems the most obvious colour for garden waste, or perhaps alternatively brown, but of course some councils had already used these colours for landfill before they introduced garden collections - a lack of foresight there. Traditional dustbins were predominantly black so why not stick with it!
 

Typhoon

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Kent
Green seems the most obvious colour for garden waste, or perhaps alternatively brown, but of course some councils had already used these colours for landfill before they introduced garden collections - a lack of foresight there. Traditional dustbins were predominantly black so why not stick with it!
In my bin area, you have to use the 'approved' bins , either initially obtained or subsequently bought from the council. Some people bring their bins with them (particularly if they have duplicates) when they move into the area but the binmen (and one woman) won't empty them. There is speculation locally that our colour scheme was chosen because it differs from that of neighbouring councils so it is much easier to see whether a particular bin is an interloper. This is just speculation!

Traditional dustbins were galvanized steel.
Too right, and the bin men carried the bin on their back!
 

jfollows

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Wilmslow
Wilmslow & Cheshire East is quite good I think:

Week 1: Grey bin for recycling, mixed but clean, sorted by machine by the council
Week 1: Green bin for garden and food waste, food since 2020

Week 2: Black bin for other non-recyclable rubbish

No charge currently for garden waste, and now that it's recently combined with food waste it's probably not likely to happen.
 

DelW

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In my part of Surrey, the most confusing system we had was when the regular collection day moved forward by a day after each Bank Holiday (or by two days after Christmas and Easter) and stayed on that day until the next BH. It made it difficult to get into a routine, especially around April and May with three changes in quick succession.

We now have two wheelie bins (or three with optional paid-for garden waste) and a lockable mini bin for food waste. Collections are weekly for food waste, same day but alternate weeks for landfill (grey bin) and mixed recycling (blue bin), and fortnightly on a different day for garden waste (brown bin).

At one time, we had to separate recycling between two boxes and a basket, and garden waste was put out in woven plastic bags (a bit like builders "big bags") which were liable to blow around the garden or down the road after being emptied. Overall the present system is about the easiest we've had since recycling collections began. My recycling and garden bins tend to be moderately full every fortnight, but I only put out landfill and food waste occasionally. Most of my food waste is vegetable and fruit peelings and goes into the compost bin instead.
 

DPQ

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We have different systems depending on housing density of a particular street and it's not uncommon to have 1 street on a different system to the next.

System 1

Fortnightly black bin (general waste)
Fortnightly Green bin (recycling)

System 2

Weekly black seagull proof sack (general waste)
Weekly pink bag recycling (no bin or sack)
 

matacaster

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Kirklees is pathetic.

-plastic milk bottles are recyclable, but not with the bottle tops on!!
-no glass collection, you have to take bottles to bottle banks at such as Morrisons etc
-shredded paper is NOT allowed in recycling bins!!

Tips will not take very small bag of rubble or say a single part bag of plaster or cement. Not really sure what you are supposed to do with the remnants after say concreting in a couple of fence posts for example.

I could go on, but I wont fortunately.
 

DarloRich

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reflecting on this: Since the suspension of the green bin collection in MK ( Food and garden waste) I ma having to put a black bag out every week which is mainly full of food waste.

I wonder how much waste nationally is food waste that could be recycled somehow.
 

gswindale

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Thanks all,

Seems like there is a lot of variation around the country.

Apparently part of the reason our council doesn't collect glass is because we're already so good at taking it to the Bottle banks, which does at least sort it by colour!

I have to say that I don't agree with the annual charge for garden waste collections that we have.

We have green bins for household waste (and always have in the 20 years I've been here), blue bins for recycling (changed from green boxes 10(?) years ago and either a brown bin or bio degradable paper bags for garden waste (you have to book in advance for the bags to be collected) and then a smaller black caddy for the food waste.
 

alexf380

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Location
Musselburgh, Scotland
East Lothian:
Weekly collections of a small food waste container, and then it is as follows;
Week 1:
Green bin (general waste)
Brown bin (garden waste)

Week 2:
Green & blue recycling boxes for glass/plastic and paper/cardboard respectively.

The green bins are a hangover from a time when we were less recycling-conscious, and would probably follow near enough every other council in the country and be black if implemented now.
 

ATW Alex 101

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Location
Ellesmere port
Cheshire West

Weekly:-
Paper, Glass and cardboard (including envelopes with the window) in a Green Box.

Plastic, tins and cans in a Grey box.

Food waste in a brown lockable caddy.

You may also put large pieces of flattened cardboard neatly next to the recycling boxes and they will be collected.

Used cooking oil and engine oil may be left in a sealed bottle and will be collected.

In the event you have surplus recycling, they may be placed in a separate container and as long as they are sorted appropriately, will also be collected.

Alternating every week:-

Household waste in a black wheelie-bin.

Garden waste in a green wheelie bin (the old household waste bin up until 2012!)

To give credit, we do have a very efficient and generous waste collection service, one which enables recycling every week and the ability to recycle most items. I note some councils don’t like plastic meat trays etc and some don’t even accept glass or food waste!
 

Dunnyrail

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Not only is it interesting to hear the different ways that Councils perform their magic but also the many and differing colours of bins that take some getting used to when and if you move.

My current regime is Week 1 Green Wednesday Garden Waste Blue Friday recycled plastic paper etc.
Week 2 Friday general rubbish
repeat.

Cant remember what it all was in Hemel but I had 2 Bins (garden and general waste) and 2 Boxes (paper and glass) with varying days and dates of collection that were somewhat bizarre at best. So to save me the hassle I built a wooden area that the bins sat in with box shelves so that the binmen just picked up as necessary as all was on my properties boundary. I think that has changes as I went past the property a year or two back and there appeared to be changes with additional boxes so my well thought out system had been screwed up.
 

Geezertronic

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Birmingham
Birmingham has weekly general waste collections, recycling (cardboard, plastics & cans etc.,..) is collected every two weeks, and if you have paid £50 for green recycling then that is every two weeks as well (alternates with normal recycling).
 

Bald Rick

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St Albans

Every week: food waste in mini bin, plus home electrical items (leave by the bin)

Week 1: Recycling - Green bin for garden waste; Black bin for all hard plastics*, metal and glass; boxes for paper/card combined.

Week 2: to landfill

I only put the green / black bins and card boxes out when they are full, or likely to have overflowed by the next fortnight. Saves the bin men a bit of work.

*they don’t like PVC. I chucked a longish bit of gutter in once, and they fished it out and left it behind!


shredded paper is NOT allowed in recycling bins!!

That’s because it doesn’t recycle well. AIUI Paper recycling works by separating out the original paper fibres and re forming them. Shredded paper cuts the fibres into lengths that are too short, and makes the paper quality too weak.

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

Agreed. Given that the number of sites that process recycling must be smaller than the number of local authority waste collection arrangements, it seems really odd that we don’t.
 
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