It's getting tough out there. Feeling the pinch?

Floss

Katiehound said:

Equally our rubbish is collected every 2 weeks, the cardboard/paper goes once a month & the other recyclables also go once a month. Obviously we don't pay sufficient council tax to have the bins emptied more often . In hot weather that was a real pain- other bins  (all parked in an alleyway) were 'alive!'

I don't think I pay over the average council tax - I am Band A & pay just under £1k a year - but my council is unitary & quite small and they have a good balance of priorities without the massive childrens / social services drain.

YorksLass

Katiehound said:

I do wish the recycling rules were universal. For example I can put all my plastic pots & trays in (except black & brown : another moan at suppliers!) but a friend can't even put the clear soft fruit punnets in theirs. It's a crazy situation.

I understand there are moves afoot to make this the case - but I'm not holding my breath!  We have large communal bins for our maisonette blocks, two for recycling and three for general waste that are supposedly emptied on alternate weeks.  More often than not, they're emptied at the same time and the recycled stuff goes in the same wagon with the general waste.     I did once query this with our council and was told the reason was that the recycled stuff was generally contaminated because people weren't using them correctly.     I still put my recycling in the appropriate bin but it seems I'm wasting my time - give me strength!

When I said earlier that we don't have any food waste, what I meant was that anything edible gets eaten.  Of course we have things like egg shells, teabags etc and these go in a small pedal bin that's lined with the food bags the SM sometimes uses to wrap odd items that might leak.  (MSE because I don't have to buy the bin liners.  ) Once full, I tie up the bag and put it in the general waste bin.  Not having a garden I can't use such things for compost although I do use as much as I can for the planters I have on the patio.  I take soft plastics to our local Co-op and small electricals/batteries etc go to the Sainsburys shopping centre that has bins for these.

@weenancyinAmerica - Thanks, but I don't worry about BB dates, it's just that the cocoa powder has been lingering for far too long - dated BB Nov 2015!     

On the subject of bread, I make my own white and wholemeal loaves.  Once baked they're sliced the next day with half going in the bread bin and half in the freezer.  I do like to ring the changes though so there's always an assortment of other bread items in the freezer - eg wraps, pittas, oven bottom cakes, breakfast muffins - and these tend to be bought YS rather than full price.  And there's usually a pack of part baked petit pains in the cupboard too.  

Siebrie

Too Good to Go seems to be really taking off here, which I’m really pleased with. The somewhat larger village next to us has a large Muslim community, and their shops and bakeries tend to join on Fridays, giving us a nice haul for the weekend . I am testing out the bakeries (there are 7 on the app) and there is 1 we really like, which gave us 1 large white baguette, 1 large brown baguette, a flat white bread with sesame seeds, a multi seed loaf, 7 soft white buns in a flower shape, and a delicious fruit pie for just €3,50!

The baguettes and the loaf are in the freezer, the buns were eaten for dinner with through-the-fridge hm soup, and the pie was dessert two days running. The flat white is half way eaten and will fill the lunch boxes tomorrow.

joedenise

We use Too Good to Go quite a bit, we tend to try to get Morrisons bags as they usually have quite a lot of fruit and veg.  Yo! Sushi in our local Tesco have recently joined and we ordered a bag on Friday to pick up Saturday afternoon after 1pm and they cancelled at 12.35pm when we were already on our way so didn't actually see it until we got there so a bit annoying, just glad I needed some other shopping in Tesco.

Ordered a bag from Morrisons to pick up this afternoon and get a cancellation message this morning!  It gets quite frustrating the number of times bags have been cancelled recently - but will carry on trying to get them as they are such good value.

greenbee

Our recycling and rubbish alternates. Garden waste (extra) is on a completely different day of the week every two weeks. No food waste collection - and as I've just moved I don't have my compost up and running. However, I bought a food waste bin so I can seal the food waste in something small I can keep clean and avoid the big bin getting stinky. Cat poo (bagged) goes in there too.

My mum is only a few miles away, with food waste collected weekly regardless of whether it is recycling or rubbish week. It avoids the problem of smelly bins and means fewer complaints about the fortnightly rubbish collection. 

Like Floss I take soft plastic to Tesco (or use the doorstep collection with my veg box if there is only a little). Batteries and small electricals can be put out with the bins in separate bags. 

Anything fit to sell or donate or pass on goes through all the options until I find a taker. I will probably have to get a skip in the NY to get rid of some filthy underlay and carpet that has failed to shift on Freegle and used loft insulation that will need to come out of the garage roof when we treat it for woodworm. 

ladyholly

We have weekly recycling and food waste collection and fortnightly general waste. Recycling also includes batteries, small electrical and shoes. Garden waste is fortnightly in the spring & summer, monthly in the autumn, none in the winter and cost £55 pa this year. 

-taff

We are not low waste but we are high recycle. All food waste like teabags and veg peelings go in the hotbin. All meat waste - carcasses, bones etc, after they've been used for stock - go to the foxes, including any things like cheese rinds [rare] if the cats don't get ot them first. [parmesan rinds go in the freezer for soups] Any leftover bread is left on the side to dry and then smashed in the pestle anf mortar for breadcrumbs.

Everything that can be recycled is recycled so soft plastics to tesco and water filters, batteries etc, plastics, tins, glass go in the recycling. We have half a carrier bag of non recyclable stuff every two weeks. That could be less if I put my mind to it.

However, this is also dependent on what I buy. If I bought stuff like orange juice I woulnd't have anywhere to recycle the tetrapak so it would up our general rubbish. Luckily it tastes like battery acid to me so I never get it. Anything we take to the tip that can't be sold or given away gets put in mostly, their recycle bins. 

We've just had our birthdays [I'm the ninth, OH the tenth] so we are tooled up for Christmas as far as booze is concerned, and I have enough wool for the next two years too. OH is not a spender, he buys some plastic crack every now and again. I am the more spendy, that's also because i get things he doesn't think to. And I add them to the housekeeping he pays.

Auti

Sorry -taff - but I have to ask ‘what is plastic crack?’ 

YoungBlueEyes

Yeah what's plastic crack...? 

And belated happy birthdays :cheers:

TheFrugalPaladin

Not sure of it’s the case here but plastic crack usually refers to Warhammer gaming miniatures. A hobby that gets real pricey real quick if it gets its claws into you. 

Also, hello! Long time lurker, first time poster here