How many bins do you have?

Cambridge all wheelie bins

1 green bin (free) – garden and food waste

2 blue, extra one is free if you ask. Mixed recycling

1 black bin .

Now the ex has moved out I only need 1 blue bin a fortnight and black bin monthly.

4 wheelie bins –

General Waste, Paper + Card, Glass + Plastics and Garden waste.

Small food caddy, so 5 bins in total.

I’m struggling to put the Tory cancellation of a non policy aside.

It was such a blatant, cynical, evil move based on an an arrogant assumption that the electorate is both too selfish and too thick to see through it.  Like a known paedophile offering free sweets.

I also worry that they may get away with it.

myself I think much more pressure to reduce packing and waste is still the way to go

Or at least legislate packaging be more recyclable.
By far the most landfill waste for me is no recyclable food packaging. It no good saying we need to recycle more if the products are non recyclable.

Anyway 2 bins
Green landfill
Silver recycling

Glass into a box and taken to either supermarket bottle bank or recycles center, same for batteries and clothes.
All garden waste is taken to recycle centre.

The new extended producer responsibility regs for packaging are aiming to do some of that as well as target fast food/ fmcg stuff that makes up the bulk of litter, time will tell how effective the scheme is

1 General, 1 Mixed, 1 green.

but to be honest most modern MRF plants and ERF systems can sort it all out, with any bottom ash from ERF plants getting repurposed and recycled now in a lot of systems.

So any bin regime that requires more than a rudimentary separations is just bunkum to increase profit rather than of any additional green/recycling process  benefit. (its a bit like the waste equivalent of using a supermarket self checkout, you get joe public to the work for you, but still charge the same)

Also worth bearing in mind that over 60% of the UK plastics for recycling is shipped overseas for processing, and a lot of the time, its not recycled back into the same material but then repurposed as a filler material in items which can then be recycled no further so will still end up in landfill or going to incineration eventually.

baled waste card and paper profit is mentally low as well

It makes more sense to keep the really high grade materials in a true recycle loop and just whack everything else through an ERF and get some power out of it.

Given the size of the Southampton population and the amount of waste that goes with that, I still can’t believe we simply have recycled, general and glass. And optional extra cost for a gardening waste bin.

Collected fortnightly, awful smell during heatwaves.

Aluminium is supposed to go in general here because they don’t process it, or transport it to somewhere that does. I presume, perhaps wrongly, that it is recycled if taken to one of the local councicl household waste recycling centres.

Luton

1 x General waste (collected fortnightly)

1 x Recycling (collected fortnightly alternating with general waste.

1 x Garden (Paid for separately collected same week as general waste.

1 x Glass bin (Collected monthly)

Did have a food bin that was collected weekly but that was dropped by the council a couple of years ago.

Bury

4 bins

Brown – Garden and food waste

Blue – Glass and selected plastics

Green – Paper and card

Grey – Everything else

I wish that the Local Authority would expand they plastic collection to encompass more.

Not sure where Rishi’s other 3 bins are. Or what the meat tax is.

Pembrokeshire:
Red reusable bag for plastic, cartons, tins. Emptied every week.
Blue reusable bag for cardboard. Emptied every week.
Food Waste caddy (all food). Emptied every week.
Glass box. Every week.
Paper box. Every week.
Grey ‘residual waste’ bin bags. Allowed up to 3 every 3 weeks. We only usually put 1 out every 3 weeks (family of 4)

You can then have a garden waster wheelie bin.
And you can apply for purple bags for sanitary and carer waste.

We then choose to collect soft plastics and film and take them to Tesco.

Batteries can also be put out for the recycling pick up every week.

So in theory we could have 10 bins! I think Pembrokeshire is top of the national league tables for recycling.

We have a green bin for general waste, a black bin for dry recyclables and a glass box. Garden waste is a charged option that I haven’t gone for as my gardening is not frequent enough to fill a small wheely bin regularly. A chipper would be good though to avoid any tip runs with large quantities of garden waste.

South Staffs

Week 1

1 Black wheelie for general

Week 2

1 blue wheelie for glass/plastic/tin

1 green wheelie for garden waste (£45 for 10 months)

1 blue bag for paper/card

One wheelie for general household non-recyclables (Inc food waste). I’ve repurposed the green recyclable bin for glass and tins which I take up to the recycling centre whenever full. Garden stuff just gets put into piles for either a good old bonfire or habitat. Oh, another repurposed wheelie for cardboard and paper (unless I use it for starting bonfires) which I also recycle myself. I can’t stand this “every third Tues for recycling, every 2nd Friday for refuse” bollocks. Rather do it myself.

Doncaster. Three wheelies and a box for glass.

Black bin for landfill, fortnightly. Everything else the other week, blue for card, plastic, tins etc. Green wheelie for 7 months, free but can pay to have a second.

Newcastle upon Tyne

Blue bin (with bottle caddy) – A mix of select plastic, glass, card, paper, tins, tetrapacks

Green bin – Landfill

Brown bin – Garden waste – no food (for a fee)

We deposit all the food packaging that is now recyclable at the supermarket.

Small electrical, batteries, metal, hard plastic, wood, bulbs, plasterboard, waste oil etc all taken by ourselves to the local recycling hub

Food waste composted in the garden.

Frighteningly large amount would go to landfill if we didn’t take the initiative

Chester:
1 x WB for paper/cardboard recycle

1 x  WB for plastics, cans and glass recycle

1 x WB for household waste

(you can pay for a garden waste bin but we don’t)

Schedule is:

Week 1  = recycle bins

Week 2 = Household

Week 3  = recycle bins

Week 4 = Household

… etc.

Works well and seems the best system we’ve had so far.

————————————————————————-

Gwynedd:

3 stacking boxes for paper, plastics/cans & glass

1 x WB for household waste

(you can pay for a garden waste bin but we don’t)

Schedule is:

Week 1  = recycle bins

Week 2 = recycle bins

Week 3  = recycle bins & household

Week 4  = recycle bins

Week 5 = recycle bins

Week 6  = recycle bins & household

etc.

Not a good system as household waste only goes every 3 weeks – if you miss the collection or they miss you then you’re in pretty big trouble. The recycle bins aren’t big enough – especially cardboard/paper

Typical Gwynedd council f***wittery.

Edinburgh:

1. General landfill waste (wheelie bin)
2. “Packaging” – paper, card, tins, some plastics (wheelie bin)
3. Garden waste, an annual fee is charged for collecting this (wheelie bin)
4. Glass, small electricals, batteries, maybe fabrics too (box)
5. Food waste (small bin)

So 5 for me. Each is collected fortnightly except for the food waste that’s collected weekly.

4 large wheelie bins

1 for paper & card
1 for glass ,metal ,plastic bottle/cans/containers
1 for garden waste/compostible
1 for anything else that doesnt go in the 3 above

Black WB – general waste – ours is 90% used cat litter now as new cat refuses to 💩 outside 😂

Red WB – paper/card – this is the vast majority of the waste/recycling we generate now (which is good as it shows a lot of packaging etc has removed over to 100% cardboard). The council will also take extra cardboard boxes stuffed with recycling if they aren’t too big!

Blue WB – other recycling, plastic/bottles/cans etc

all our kitchen waste etc tends to get composted although the council will collect a small food waste bin if you put it out.

There’s also an optional Green WB for garden waste that you have to pay for, again our garden waste gets composted.

We’ve had a bin men strike for the last few months (someone was still collecting GW but not recycling) which is now resolved, fortunately we had enough space to stockpile all the recycling & also managed a few runs down to the local recycling centre (formally tip!) but some people had (or chose) to put their recycling in the general waste for a few months which was a shame.

Only 1 bin

Croydon council here so 3 wheelies (paper/cardboard, mixed re-cyclables, general) plus a food bin which is fine. The foxes have worked out how to knock the food bins over and flip the handles to get in, which can be a problem…

Where it goes once collected I’m not certain as I recall reading that Croydon were shipping containers to Indonesia at one point.

2

3. General, plastic, garden and food waste. No idea which is supposed to go out which week, but thankfully the neighbours do. The plastic one’s usually close to full, the rest hardly ever. Currently have a huge stack of cardboard next to the house – I’m talking at least a cubic metre – as that isn’t supposed to go in the general waste.

The next town over just flings everything in the one bin, and get their homes heated off the incinerator. Lucky sods.

2 sets of disposable bin bags, black for landfill, pink for basic recycling (no glass allowed) we can fold flat larger cardboard if it wont go in the bag.

Have to deal with glass ourselves in in town and no option for garden waste as we arent in a wheelie bin collection area.

1 x General waste (collected fortnightly)

1 x Recycling (collected fortnightly alternating with general waste.

1 x Garden (Paid for separately – £50.00 per year) collected same week as
Recycling.

2 as standard a blue one for recycling and a grey one for general waste. We pay for a green one for garden waste

However the recycling one is rather limited. No glass – your expected to either take it to a bottle bank or it’s general waste. No tetrapak for reasons I’m at a loss to understand especially as 2 miles away l, across a council boundary both were accepted as recycling

I assume OP is collating & making a nice graph/chart from all this data 🤔😂

sharkbait

Chester:
1 x WB for paper/cardboard recycle

1 x WB for plastics, cans and glass recycle

1 x WB for household waste

(you can pay for a garden waste bin but we don’t)

Schedule is:

Week 1 = recycle bins

Week 2 = Household

Week 3 = recycle bins

Week 4 = Household

… etc.

Works well and seems the best system we’ve had so far.

I’m Chester & Cheshire West so guess much the same as you?

Grey Wheelie = General

Grey Wheelie with Red lid = Glass, Plastic & Tins

Grey Wheelie with Blue lid = Paper & cardboard

Green Wheelie = Garden waste

Brown Caddy thing = Food waste

So 4 Wheelie bins & 1 Caddy thing

Recycling and general waste alternate weeks but food waste every week.

Given we were at last time of looking in the top 10 councils for recycling and our neighbouring council “Wirral” were in the bottom 10 WTF don’t they just adopt best practice?

My In Law’s in South Gloucestershire have these stupid open containers for paper cardboard etc that just let it blow everywhere if its windy or get soaked if raining?

I’ll have to ask my girlfriend what Flintshire council do but I’m sure it will be different to everyone else’s :D

Rural west berks:

Black general waste
Green waste which costs 60 odd a year
3 X boxes for paper, cans and glass
1 X big floppy plastic bag for plastics
1 X food waste caddy thing

Works pretty well. Most of our waste is recyclable and they’ll take extra I’d you have it. Collections alternate between black bin and recycling/green. Food waste is every week.

Rural west berks:

Black general waste
Green waste which costs 60 odd a year
3 X boxes for paper, cans and glass
1 X big floppy plastic bag for plastics
1 X food waste caddy thing

Non-rural West Berks – we only have 2 boxes, one for paper/card and one for glass. Cans go in with plastics in the floppy bag. Rest is the same.

4.

• General waste
• Recycling
• Big plastic box for glass
• Garden waste (which we chose to have)

Further proof that the Tories know their voter demographic are either gullible, stupid or just don’t care about honesty in politics.

West(ish) Berks town.
Landfill
Recycling
Green waste (optional extra charg)
Food waste

As for the Tory non existent policy- 7 deadly bins or 7th bin of a 7th bin.

****

Germany, so…
Black bin for general waste
Green bin for paper/card (even in Germany most of my waste is free papers etc., so that fills up PDQ)
Yellow bin for recyclable general packaging etc.
Bottle etc return machine at every single supermarket to get deposit back on most bottles etc.
Bottle bank on the way for any glass that can’t get a deposit back
Another recycling point 5min walk in the other direction that has a small electrical item waste bin and old clothes bin (although used batteries and ink/toner cartridges etc. go in respective bin of any shop that sells batteries or ink/toner)
I have yet to try the web form to book a day for the bin men to take away CRT monitor/tv, or old mattress from the doorstep, so that I don’t have to go to the tip.

I fully expect that anything that I put in the clothes bin will probably actually end up making floor covering/protection for builders/painters and not to clothe a less fortunate person, and similarly half the other recycled stuff will probably only get a second rate re-use too or burned in the incinerator across town to make some leccy/heat, but at least I’ve done my bit to avoid landfill after 1 use.

Four – green general waste, blue mixed recycling, brown garden waste which we have to pay for, and small food waste bin which gets used a couple of times a year for stuff that won’t go down the waste disposal. Small electrical goes on top of a bin to be collected seperately.

As the general waste goes to an incinerator I sometimes wonder whether the two big bins should be for burnable and not burnable.

Nice to see that not only do recycling policies vary by area but even the bin colours aren’t standardised.

3 bins here:

Black for landfill

Blue: card, paper, steel cans and plastics (tetrapaks not permitted)

Brown for composting (absolutely no kitchen waste even the peelings!)

Aluminium cans I keep back, crush and get cash (bank transfer) for every 18 months from the scrapyard.

Just the 6.

General, garden, plastic/metals, paper, glass, food.

None.

Here in the Green Nirvana of Brighton we have a selection of Poubelle type bins at the end of every street. Just chuck your crap in the relevant bin as you pass. Or near…

Wouldn’t want them outside my gaff!

None, due to being in Spain

We have Communal waste bins for:

glass
cardboard
cans and plastic
And one for anything else

Anything to good to bin gets left by the anything else for people to take(re-use)

It seems a really good system and everyone seems to wholly embrace it, bins outside the houses seems so mad a concept to me now.

No graphs or other visuals I’m afraid.  Quite heartened that most of us seem to be recycling most stuff that days.  Quite disappointed but not surprised there is so much variation in systems.  Feels like 5 give or take is common…. I envy those with 3 or less!

Small wheelie: General waste, every week

Small wheelie: metal, glass and some plastics, every fortnight

Large wheelie: garden waste, each fortnight

Large wheelie: card/paper, monthly.