Real Story - Fiona Bruce - Rubbish!!

kittiwoz

I think it would be a good idea to avoid all personal attacks and namecalling. I appreciate things can get heated when you are in strong disagreement with others but it is worth pausing and trying to find a way of phrasing your thoughts to make more of a general point rather than making comments on individuals which is obviously going to be inflamatory and likely to take things off topic.

I don't think Lillibet has decided anyone should live their life a particular way. My reading of her post is that these women were complaining about problems caused by using disposable nappies and she was frustrated because the possible solution of using reusable nappies was never presented for discussion. I don't think she is saying that every parent should use reusables but that the women in the article could have dealt with the problems they were complaining of by using reusable nappies but chose not to. Since, for whatever reasons, they chose to use disposble nappies they are not in a great position to complain about them.

On the subject of rights to individual lifestyles although peoples lifestyles have a big effect on their impact on the environment and that is sometimes unavoidable I do think people sometimes hide behind this to excuse themselves from social responsibility. Rather like campaign groups opposed to the ban on public smoking trumpeting their own individual rights and freedoms regardless of the impact on others. I think there will have to be somewhat of a mass shift in lifestyles in the west in order to combat environmental problems but obviously that is something that requires a real commitment rather than just window-dressing which is much easier to achieve.

mandi

Ok , where I live we have weekly refuse collections, however next year, they will be fortnightly.. We have a BIG green Bin for Garden stuff.. ( nice if you have a BIG GREEN GARDEN)

A small Green Bin for Glass..( Needs to be BIGGER _)

and this FLIMSY BAG ( like a wiff of wind and it blows away) for, cardboard, plastic trays, etc

I Recycle everything, well almost, but my council has it back to front, and inside out...

I need a bag thats not going to blow away.. Im on my 3rd already, I need a bigger small Green Bin, and a smaller large green Bin...

So are my council

As for the refuse collection.. Ive been putting mine out fornightly.. Just to get myself used to it,and TBH.. It hasnt been a problem,.

I feel for the Refuse collectors though

Miss_Behaving

Our local authority has just started two week collections and kindly issued a large blue bin for plastics. Apart from the usual 'where do I put another bin?' issues, I had no problems with alternative bin collection until I discovered that the blue bin was only for plastic drinks bottles (without lids), tin cans and drinks cans.

They refuse to accept any other plastic packaging (this still goes in the green bin) or glass. My first collection contained only 6 large plastic milk containers and 2 empty cans. Other neighbours have also expressed their dissapointment that the items we can recycle via the bin are so restricted. Surely it can't be financially viable for the council to collect these nearly empty bins?

mummyof3_2

In the past 6 years I have lived in Scotland and the North East of England.
It was when I lived in Scotland that I got issued with 'another' bin. At first you could put grass, veg peelings, tea and coffee in it. A few months later you could no long put veg peeling, tea or coffee in it as someone had prepared their veg products on the same chopping board as their meat! How the council found that out is un be known. So from then on only grass was aloud.
Now we moved to the North East last October and I was very impressed with the councils attitude to recycling. A normal bin and a recycling one. You are allowed to put newspapers, tin cans, and plastics in this one. But however no grass bin. You can get to council to come out and collect it, but you have to pay.
We don't have a glass recycling skip in my village so the council are running a trial in my village along with another one. They issued us with plastic (recyclably made ) box to put glass in and they collect this once a fortnight.
The council are going greener:T lets hope the schemes they have put in place improve with time.
Oh and got a delivery of a compost bin today - that was payed for by me!:)

aimme13

Well i have no bin or recycling box......feeling quite left out:-(
pop the bag out and it gets collected, i choose to recycle and take it to the recycling place myself (lucky i lve nearby) but nothing to stop others chucking everything in the bin bags. It gets collected once a week no problem. I think the issue seems to be no two councils are doing the same, some do nothing others recycle only a few bits and some seem to have mastered it (maybe!) a bit of consistancy(sp!) is needed!

Serialdieter

Hi, I'm a bit of a newbie on this forum, so hope you don't mind me adding my 2p worth. I agree with Volcano. If someone isn't as environmentally aware then recycling needs to be made easier. Doorstep collections (or lack of) seems to be the biggest issue, some councils collect everything, some collect very little. Local authorities need to get their act together and make recycling accessible to all, whether through doorstep collections or additional communal "banks" etc. Until it is made the "norm" i.e. easy then many simply will not recycle.

Jx

Quasar

Down the road from where I live, a short 7 minutes walk, my local Morrison has a recycling area at the back of the carpark. Glass of all colours, clothing and paper have their own containers.

I'm happy to bring my empty bottles etc there (clothes I give to charity shops).

The other day I took a large carrier bag full of newspapers and other paper stuff, only to find the three large containers absolutely stuffed fullk, with newpapers all over the pavemeht. By the look of the mouldy condition of the papers, I reckoned there had been no collection for weeks.

It's all very well for peeps to recycle, but the powers that be need to get their !!!!!! into gear.

SusanCarter

barnabee wrote:

The wheelie bins are examined by the 'sanitary technicians' and residents can be fined for puttting in rubbish that could be recycled. They will only take the wheelie bin if the lid will close and it must not be out on the street before 7am.

What time do you have to have it out by? I'm sure ours are supposed to be out before 7am to be sure of collection. What do they expect people to do if they leave for work before 7am?

sarah0404

I saw the programme mentioned on tv. I rarely watch The Real Story, but I happened to catch it this time. I just didn't get it. How on earth did these people manage to make so much rubbish in a two week period. I didn't get what they were so angry about. This was the programme where the angry mob were lobbing black plastic bags into the back of a bin lorry yes?

I get my bin emptied every two weeks, with recyclables collected the week when the bins aren't being emptied. We've had this system for about a year now, and I haven't noticed overflowing bins all over the steet. Now that bulky things like cereal boxes and plastic bottles are taken out the bins for recycling theres more space in the bins. They can easily hold 2 weeks worth of rubbish. (We are a family of 5 too)

Where my mum lives she has ordinary bin collected one week, recycling the next, and then composting the next. She has huge restrictions on what she can put in the bins too, like no veg peelings, and food waste in the composting bin, no envelopes or cardboard in the recycling bin etc, but still, they still seem to manage fine.

About nappies making the bins stink, I'm not surprised! Human waste isn't supposed to be part of household rubbish. It needs to go into the sewage system to be treated. You are supposed to tip the poo from nappies into the toilet. I believe it even tells you to do that on the packet? That would cut down on the wiff a bit.

Justie

we've had fortnightly collections for a while and I've never seen any problems with it. Our waste bin is hardly ever even half full and often we don't put it out for a full month if we're away yet we never have flies etc round it. Dog waste in winter goes in the bin (double bagged) but in the summer we take it on walks with us and it goes in the dog waste bin in the park - we have to walk the dog anyway so it's not a big deal. Our council recycles paper, card, tins, plastic in boxes (or a bin if you buy it). They won't take glass on health and safety grounds (but the next council does - go figure) but we just take it to the local supermarket when we go shopping). Garden waste gets collected fortnightly - we compost uncooked kitchen waste (for councils to take it with their compost bins they HAVE to incinerate all the compostable waste which seems a waste as otherwise they can compost garden waste and then sell the compost on and save us some money). What we've found is that it's a) reduced our need for tip runs as most of the specialist recycling of plastic etc was only in the council depot which is 9 miles away. It's made it MUCH easier even for recyclers like us to recycle more as it gets taken straight from the doorstep and so we need less space to store it before we get rid of it. All waste gets reduced as much as possible before it goes in the bin with the likes of fish or chicken trays washed and recycled rather than binned so they get smelly.

I can imagine it's a big leap for anyone who doesn't think about their waste though and it is a pain storing in effect 3 wheelie bins but that's a small price to pay imo.