How many bins do you have?

<p style=”text-align: left;”>Rishi’s pathetic scrapping a non- policy aside,  it has I guess brought recycling into the media again.   Shame there doesn’t seem to be any discussion of what a good policy would look like 😔  myself I think much more pressure to reduce packing and waste is still the way to go,  but at the end of the day stuff still needs to go to bin.  So who has a decent system?  Anyone?  Croydon here,  I’ve 4 massive wheelies. Garden waste (charged extra for this), 1 for plastic,  glass and metal,  1 for paper and card, and 1 for landfill.   Finally a small food waste bin too.  2 wheelies are emptied each week,  food bin every week.  It works I think but the 4 wheelies do take a lot of space.   Is there a better system?</p>

Bristol:

1 wheelie bin (fortnightly, though we don’t bother putting it out every fortnight)
2x recycling boxes for glass/plastic/paper/cans/stuff  (weekly)
1x big bag for cardboard and brown paper (weekly)
1x food waste bin (weekly)
You can pay for a green waste bin, but on our terraced street no-one has a big enough garden to bother.

Three.

Recycling (cardboard, paper, some plastics, cans) but not glass which I have to take to a bottle bank. Big bin. Fortnightly collection.

Garden. Only for 7 months and costs extra. Big bin. Fortnightly collection.

General. Big bin. Fortnightly collection, same week as garden waste.

Not sure it is ‘decent’, they are mostly in soft plastic woven bags so more manageable than big wheelies for those in flats etc. The council next door makes it much easier for residents as 4 of the below are combined into a mixed recyclables bag.

• General
• Food
• Plastic & Metal
• Glass
• Card
• Paper
• Batteries
• Garden

Then small electricals can also be put out on top.

Hampshire:

Big black bin for general waste – weekly (but probably only put out once a month).

Green bin for recycling – fortnightly.

Plastic box for glass – weekly (but normally just put it out when it’s full)

2 well 3 as I have a compost bin too, but I keep forgetting to pay for it.

There’s talk of the glass ones being ‘rolled out’ as they’ve done a trial in some streets nearby. As of yet it hasn’t happened.

Still only another 4 to go.

Ooh, we were having this exciting conversation earlier. West Oxfordshire if that makes a difference – 1 grey smaller sized wheelie bin for general rubbish every other week, 1 extra large blue top recycling wheelie bin every other week for everything except glass, fabric, small electricals which can go out separately, 1 regular sized wheelie bin for garden waste (we have to pay for this), glass in a separate recycling box, food waste weekly in a caddy sized thing. Not sure where they recycle the broken bins as it seems to be a favourite past time to see how often they can break the food waste ones and they have split and replaced the green waste one at least once.

We’re going from 3 to 4 wheelies here too – takes up way too much space.
Garden & Kitchen Waste
Paper and Cardboard
Metal and Plastic Packaging
Landfill
There’s no kerbside glass collection though.

We need to get away from the expectation that our waste will be collected and dealt with by the council. Even using communal bins where you have to put a bit of effort into taking your waste to be disposed of may provide a bit of a nudge for some behaviour change.

Errrr.
Outside i have:-
Green Waste – fortnightly collection, 175l bin, usually only 15% full
Burnable waste – monthly collection, 175l bin, could probably go to quarterly collection for the amount that’s in it!

Inside i have:-
Plastic
Metal
Clear Glass
Coloured glass
Deposit bottles – ones i get cash back on.
Card
Paper
Most of those get emptied and taken to the recycling centre (by me) anywhere between 2 and 8 weeks.

We’ve got 7, i’m being repressed!

2 blue (cardboard), 2 green, garden and food waste, 2 grey for general waste and a brown one for glass and plastic bottles.

all collected fortnightly, not entirely sure how we ended up with 2 grey ones, we just sort of adopted it when it was left in our drive way.

five-ish here in East Dunbartonshire. fortnghtly collections alternating recycling one week, grey and green the next.

grey general waste

green garden waste

blue cardboard

brown bottles and cans

small grey caddy for food waste (weekly collection)

2 – green for stuff, blue for recycling stuff – brown bin for garden waste is optional at £40 a year

The only time I’ve seen more full size bins than that at a domestic property was in Germany in around 1993 when the word recycling didn’t exist with local councils in the UK. IIRC it was one for general waste with the 3 others being various forms of recycling.

Food waste is collected every week

Rubbish every second week

Mixed recycling (not including glass) every other week

Lack of consistency across regions is an issue. We get lots of tourists putting glass in the blue recycling bins, despite instructions to the contrary.

Green wheelie for landfill. It rarely goes out.

2x Brown wheelie for garden waste. We pay extra for these.

Blue wheelie for recycling plastic

Purple wheelie for paper

Black box for glass. Yes, I feel like the bin men are tutting at the amount of wine/gin/whisky bottles. 🥴🥴

Grey box for food waste.

Indoors we have a recycling bin for thin plastic wrappers, bags etc. That’s by far the most quickly filled. We recycle this at the local supermarket.

I can add something different! 1 green recycling, 1 black all the rest of the crap. Fortnightly collections.
Garden waste I dispatch to the nearest wasteland by bike trailer. I ain’t paying for that! :D

Manchester

4 bins in total all the same size

Black – general landfill

Green – garden & food

Blue – paper & cardboard

Brown – bottles, some plastics

Collections are weird; black, green, blue, one week, and the brown by itself the other week. We separate it all indoors, so it’s no hassle to put it in the right bin. Doesn’t everyone?

Rother Council (East Sussex) are removing all local recycling points due to cost. Now only the tips will take anything extra. More fly tipping then…..😣

bin wise, we have 2 black wheelie bins for waste – 2 weekly

1 green for all dry recycling – 2 weekly

2 paid for brown garden waste bins – 2 weekly

No food waste any more as that was scrapped too.

3 but I’d prefer 7 if it meant we could recycle things from home rather than taking them to the supermarket.

3 bins plus…

Bin for normal rubbish

Brown for organics

Green for paper

Glass goes to bottle bank.

Plastic with plastic bottles for recycling/refund

Big bag for recyclable plastic

For my bit of Hampshire (Winchester):

3 Wheelie bins and one plastic box collected:

Recycling (paper,plastics, metal) –  fortnight collection

General waste – fortnight collection

Garden extra fee – fortnight collection

Box for glass- monthly collection.

We do get the choice of large or small wheelie bins.

Wiltshire: 5

• General waste (small wheelie)
• Plastic and cardboard (small wheelie)
• Glass (small box)
• Compost (small box)
• Garden (small wheelie)

Each is collected every 2 weeks.  Only the mixed dry recycling really needs to be.  We’re a family of four.

We also take soft plastic to Tesco and clothing/batteries/etc to the recycling centre every few weeks.

3:

Grey = non recycling – fortnightly

Green = recycling – alternative fortnightly (anything but glass or electrics, need to take them to bottle bank or tip/recyling centre)

Brown = Garden waste – not sure how often but free in Leeds

The fact that there are soooooo many different colours and schemes in this country is **** rediculous!

Stirling (4 – 7 depending on your definition of a bin)

Grey wheelie for landfill. Collected every 4 weeks.

2x Green wheelie for cardboard (I applied for the 2nd). Collected every 4 weeks. Have a box on the microwave to collect this before the big journey outside as the wheelies are kept in the side entry away from the back door.

Blue wheelie for recycling plastic and metal. Collected every 4 weeks, except a collection was skipped due to industrial action and so we have a backlog with overflow going into the grey bin.

Brown wheelie for food compost and garden waste. Collected every 2 weeks. We pay for the garden waste collection.

Food compost caddie at back door and a smaller one in the kitchen because the brown wheelie is kept in the side entry away from the back door (the smell and the flies are bauffin).

Brown Box for glass recycling. Collected by the council every 4 weeks but I also pay a private company to collect in the middle of the cycle.

Also have a bin bag for polythene, wrapping etc in the utility room. This gets taken to the supermarket every few weeks. And a small box for electricals/batteries that also go to the supermarket for recycling.

Just north of Peterboghorror – South Kesteven council.

3 bins –
grey. recycling. What we can put in it has been gradually reduced over the years.
black. general waste
green. garden waste. we pay for this one (about £40), but am relatively happy to do this, rather than all the trips to the tip that would be needed.

We also have a bag for the plastic that can now be recycled via supermarkets.
We used to use a local Terracycle place that accepted tons of stuff, but they lost the building they were using so had to scale it back.

3 wheelie bins for us in Skipton. Green for general waste, blue for mixed recycling and an optional + charged brown one for garden waste.

Sheffield – 3 (we could pay for a green garden waste bin but don’t)

Black – Big; general waste, done fortnightly. Only gets anywhere near filled if I’ve cut the grass or hedge
Brown – Big; cans/bottles/some plastic. Unclear as to “which” plastic. Never gets more than 1/4 full. Quad weekly in rotation with
Blue – Small; paper/card. This is the only one we ever routinely fill. Again done every 4 weeks.

Random plastic gets taken to Tesco as the recycling area at the Sainsburys we use has been closed down, so that’s a separate trip (they’re actually only 30m away from each other, but separated by a railway line).

“Soft plastic” whatever that is, can go in carrier bag recycling at Sainsbos, but I’m continually confused as to what can and can’t go in that.

**** knows what’s supposed to happen with Tetrapacks. Possibly Waitrose in town, but I’m buggered if I’m going to drive there just to drop off recycling.

Can’t help but feel that the best way to do it would be to chuck everything in one bin (or at most separate organic/non organic) and get the people who are actually experts at it to separate it out. Yes it would cost. So does 7 bins times Xty million households and you’d end up with much less cross contamination.

…but yes to shared French style Poubelles…

And one standard nationwide.

Salford here, 4 wheelie bins:

Black, general waste goes to incineration, every 3 weeks.

Blue, paper/cardboard, every other week.

Brown, glass/metal/plastic bottles only with no lids, every other week (blue/brown alternate).

Black with pink lid, garden and food waste.

Optional smaller green food waste box for those who don’t want/need the pink wheelie bin.

Soft plastics bags etc get stored to go to the supermarket but there’s no council collection for this.

Agree with a need for standards here… Prestwich, right next door, has green for paper, blue for mixed and brown for garden/food.  Though saying that, as different areas of the country have different recycling capabilities it would be difficult to have the same collection scheme countrywide.

West Berks

1x black wheelie

1x Green box for cardboard

1x Green box for bottles

1x Green bag for plastics

There’s also a green wheelie for garden cuts but I don’t use it as the council recently introduced an additional charge for having it collected.

So out the back there’s a long line of plastic green wheelie bins that don’t get used, and the council won’t take them away because apparently they belong to the household and it’s our job to dispose of them and not the council.

Angus, Scotland. 1 general waste and 1 mixed recycling. Each emptied fortnightly.

We could get one for garden waste and food waste, but we compost ourselves.

Spelthorne – Surrey

Green – Recycling Bin – glass, paper and card (clean and dry), metal cans and tins plastic bottles, pots, tubs and trays. Bi-weekly collection

Brown – Garden Waste (Extra £52 per year). Bi-weekly collection

Dark green – all other household rubbish. Bi-weekly collection

Food waste caddy.  Weekly collection – This goes to an anaerobic digestion facility at the recycling centre in our district.

There is also kerbside collection of small electricals (irons, power tools, toasters, kettles, laptop PC’s, mobile phones etc) on bin day, which is handy.

What needs to happen is a lot more transparency (and regulation of) what happens to the stuff once it’s collected. Just because you put it in a recycling box doesn’t mean it doesn’t end up burnt, in landfill or shipped abroad.

Hertfordshire.

Black wheelie bin for glass/metal recycling, collected fortnightly.

Brown wheelie bin for landfill, collected fortnightly.

Black box for cardboard/paper recycling, collected fortnightly.

Green foodwaste bin, collected weekly.

Green wheelie bin for garden waste if you pay more but we have a small garden and a council dump within walking distance so I don’t.

The only one that comes close to full is landfill, and that’s because of nappies.

East Cheshire

1 large wheelie mixed recyclables

1 large wheelie ‘general’ waste

1 large wheelie garden waste that food waste can also be dropped into.

All fortnightly, garden waste about to become a chargeable service – £56 p.a.  We’ve been told that you can’t put garden waste into the general if you opt not to pay for the garden waste service.

Really good to hear about battery and small electrical collections.  We don’t have these yet but most supermarkets take batteries in store now.  These items are the biggest health hazard to the waste sector with fires etc

We have three – landfill waste, all recyclables and a garden bin that is optional. I feel cheated.

New Forest – none of those new fangled wheelie bins for us.

Black plastic bag for general waste
Clear plastic bag for recyclable waste
Plastic box for glass
Green nylon bags for garden waste (will be wheeling bin from next year)

Not having wheelie bins in a pain in the ass and when putting out rubbish to be collected the horses and cows get at it and spread it across the road, that’s if rats don’t get into the bags first. I therefore have to put the bags into alu bins.

2 big wheelie bins, one blue (recycle paper, cardboard, plastics) and one black (anything else), both emptied fortnightly (on different days).

We live in the country, so no other collections offered so we also separately box glass and then take it down every few months to a local glass collection site.  Anything else I’ll take to the tip as/when.

We’ve a big garden, so some waste (wood etc) is burned and other is composted which we then use on the garden.

Clackmannanshire: 4 wheelie bins + glass box + food caddy (small electricals can be left with the glass box)

• Green WB – general waste
• Brown WB – garden waste
• Blue WB – mixed recycling (no paper, card or glass)
• Grey WB – cardboard
• Blue box – glass
• Blue box – small electricals
• Food caddy

We live on a hill, and only have a small flat area for bin storage. The forth wheelie bin (grey) only got left last week, i need to rejig my storage!

Three wheelie bins here…

Black – Landfill
Green – Garden waste and food waste. Although I think this is only collected 7 or 8 months a year.
Red – All the recycling. Card, paper, tins, plastic, glass, tetra pack.

The only thing they don’t take is plastic bags. So overall pretty good.

The only ones that matter. Bass.

5 here residual wheelie, green wheelie, tins and plastic bag, paper and card, glass boxes. Works well enough for me.

agree there should be more standardisation but there are limits due to housing stock, demographics and vehicle suitability.