Life without a bin?

tallulah_beaulah

I recently heard something about my grandmother that I thought would interest fellow OSers. She didn't have a bin, she simply didn't have any rubbish.

Any glass jars were highly valued and reused, anything paper was burnt, kitchen scraps were fed to the chickens. She was passionate about gardening so I think a lot of things got composted and dug into the garden too.

The most fascinating thing was her use for wine bottles, they were rare to come by and she used them to make hinges! She made hinges for her garden gate by burying a wine bottle in the ground, then a long stake went into the bottle then was bound to the gate. The stake rotated in the bottle to make the gate open and close.

With all our landfills and excess packaging these days, do you think it would be possible to return to life without a rubbish bin? Any tips you can share about putting items of "rubbish" to another use, either inventive or blindingly obvious?

comping_cat

I find i stick a lot of supermarket packaging in the bin, also left over food (normally the children not clearing their plates!!!) we havnt got chickens, and i would love to know how i could reuse that rather than putting it into the bin!!!!

nickyc_2

guess it depends on where you live but my council provides brown bins for all garden rubbish and also any food scraps..so anything left on the plate goes in that bin, along with things like fish bones and the odd carrott found at the back of the fridge way past it's eat by date.

bizzylizzy

Since I have been recycling all glass, paper, plastic bottles and cardboard I have found our bin is less than half as full as it used to be.
I always think twice about what I put in the bin but I find other plastic is a problem and throw that away.
I will be interested to see what others think.

newleaf

My bin mainly contains plastic waste and tins these days. We recycle all paper and glass, and compost everything suitable. Our recycling collection is set to expand to include cans and plastics next year, I think. That will be great!

comping_cat

nickyc wrote:

guess it depends on where you live but my council provides brown bins for all garden rubbish and also any food scraps..so anything left on the plate goes in that bin, along with things like fish bones and the odd carrott found at the back of the fridge way past it's eat by date.

I didnt think cooked food could be put in the compost bins? I know i had a fridge magnet with mine, and it def says no cooked food on it, but i always feel bad putting the scraps in the normal bin!!!!

tallulah_beaulah

It does sound like there are some great recycling programmes in some areas. My in-laws live near Blackpool, their local council won an award for their recycling. They have about four different coloured bins in their kitchen for different types of waste.

I keep being stunned by the amount of rubbish I have to put out. I'm ashamed to admit this on OS board, but ds is in disposable nappies, so that adds quite a lot to our waste.

finallydebtfree!!

since we have had the recycling bins we hardly through anything away, its mainly just the packaging from products that cant be recycled. we compost all or fruit/veg waste, take our glass to the local recycling centre and our blue recycling bin takes almost everything else. we rarely have left overs in our house.

we could do with our recycling bin emptying every week and the normal one once a fortnight notthe other way round! i am actually amazed at how much we recycle now and cant believe how much we used to throw away!

nickyc_2

re cooked food........it couldn't at first but they've since changed the scheme and now are running a "scrape the plate" campaign.

Also have collections for paper, tins, plastic, glass etc...sadly not all plastic but what they'll aacept seems to increase every year.

lil_me

I would be concerned over a few things, burning paper, why not recycle and save enviroment in 2 ways and the possiblity of the glass bottles smashing.

I recycle all paper, cans, glass, in one bin and food waste which is allowed to goes into the council compost bin (nothing meat, eggs etc allowed) Plastic isn't collected yet but when it is I will. Save me a trip to the collection point once a month! I also reuse what I can, I send carriers to thelady who does the fruit and veg delivery and charity shops. I get quite tetchy about it according to my partner as I shout at him for putting things in the bin which can be recycled and will pick them back out of the bin. Only problem is I recycle so much and the bins only small for glass, cans,paper etc. I might see if I can get a second one.

ocemeer

now i haev a range and wood burner tend to burn alot even some of the newspapers and recycle the rest but then just have ash in the bin. does anyone have any ideas what i can do with the ash.
Feel a little guilty about buring all of the stuff too.