Life without a bin?

lynzpower

You can put pretty much all cooked food waste into a wormery. ( look at wiggly wigglers for an idea of what you get) My local council do them for a fiver- very moneysaving- as opposed to the 80 quid wigglers want direct.

I had a bit of a dsaister with mine but cant wait to get it started in the new house.

It takes all cooked foood, full scrape of plates, gravy, chilli the lot. the only thing it doent take is citrus and onion skins- too acidic and kills the worms.
But stale bread , pizza ends, the lot goes in and creates lovely soft and rich compost- the smell of it is LOVELY :j

luckylukey

At my old flat, I recyled everything I could - the council gave us little green food bins that any food including cooked meat which I used.

But I have moved into a new flat complex and there are no recycling boxes - none and I dont have a car to take stuff to the nearest bottle bank
do you think I should call the council and ask them about recycling boxes for the complex? I feel so guilty chucking everything into a black bag!

Austin_Allegro

I'm a bit sceptical about recycling. I have a box that the council collects paper, tins and glass from. However, there is no way they can have time to sort it out en route while loading up the dustcart, so I'm pretty sure it all goes on a slow boat to China! I try to consume less in the first place, and reuse jars etc for storage, bottles for winemaking, old envelopes for shopping lists, etc etc.

whatatwit

I live in an area that used to be holiday flats/guesthouses. Now, the majority of properties are in permanent flats or houses.
Our council will not provide us with the re-cycling bins as we are in a 'holiday' area.
The road behind and to the side of us do have the bins.
Anything I want to re-cycle, I have to take to the tip myself.

Where I work, we get a lot of soap powder boxes & conditioner bottles left by customers. The local council, different one to where I live, refuses to provide a re-cycling bin for this, preferring instead for it to be bagged as refuse and go to landfill. (also the council gets to charge £1.05 per binbag).
No wonder they won't provide a bin, they're moneymaking.

hole_in_pocket_2

Becles wrote:

In those days, she probably would have bought food from local shops weighed out and packed in paper bags, or wrapped in sheets of paper. This would have gone on the compost heap.

These days most food comes pre-packed in plastic, so you can't really get rid of that at home. Even self serve fruit & veg at the supermarket has to be put in plastic bags.

We recycle as much as we can, but it's mainly plastic packaging and thick cardboard that goes in the bin.

If you want a good solution to get rid of scraps, buy a dog. We never have any food scraps for the bin

we are lucky the local greengrocers has a choice of paper bags to put to your stuff in.any carrier bags we get are used in the waste bins. if we get any the local council collects paper every two weeks.

the recycle bins for tins/bottles are within walking distance.
no where to recycle plastic though:mad:

veg peelings etc and cardboard inc loo rolls are put in the wormery or composted.

next doors cat and the birds usually sort any plate scrapings out between them.

gb57

Roses like ash - use as a "mulch" or fork in gently round roots. Not sure how much they can tolerate, though. Might be worth looking on a gardening website (BBC Radio 4 Gardener's World?) to check whether it is OK to just dig the ashes into the garden ad infinitum?

AS a family of 8 (6 kids) growing up in a council flat we did not generate much rubbish either, but obviously for the reasons cited above - mum bought fresh fruit & veg, meat etc, without all the packaging - it just did not exist in the 1950s. Mum & Dad could not afford to buy booze (other than at Christmas), milk was in re-usable glass bottles (mine still is!), we did not use a lot of cans etc. etc. I buy my fruit & veg at the local greengrocers, so the only packaging is recylcable (or compostable) brown paper bags. I think most people try to do their bit for recycling, but I also think the government should be doing everything it can to stop producers over-packaging everything. Who needs shrink-wrapped cucumbers???

Penelope_Penguin

catowen wrote:

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!!!!

Hi, Cat! You'll be needing a Green Cone!

Penny. x

Seakay

catowen wrote:

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!!!!

I think that cooked vegetable scraps would be ok, but I wouldn't put meat or fish scraps onto a domestic compost heap because it's unlikely to generate the heat required for quick breakdown, and so you'd be more likely to attract rats etc.
My Dad always said that wood ash was good for the roses, he'd scatter it around them and water on top to prevent it blowing about.

Rachie_B

what plastic items can be recycled ?

my sons school has just started various recycling bins,paper & card ,cans etc

but i am not sure what can / cant be recycled when it comes to plastics ?!

super41

tallulah_beaulah wrote:

I'm ashamed to admit this on OS board, but ds is in disposable nappies, so that adds quite a lot to our waste.

I've recently switched my son to washable nappies and we've noticed the impact on our bin! Hardly anything in it and much fresher as well because disposable nappies in bags get really whiffy after a few days in the bin. Why not give reusable nappies a go?! They're much easier to use than I thought and I feel the long term benefits for DS and the environemnt and my pocket!) will be worth it.