My land fill rubbish challenge

mah_jong

memories have flooded back!!!!

As a child we lived in a place so far off the beaten track that there was no collections at all. So ....... everything was reused/recycled/squashed long before it was fashionable. Have fond memories of mum having washed out an empty tin, opening other end and laying it on the floor and then jumping on it to flatten it........ A trip to the village once a week, meant a stop at the bin on the main road and a carrier bag of rubbish deposited in it.

Mind you there was not the same packaging those days. But still a feat given a family of four!

pthompson

JAMIEDODGER wrote:

...put my rubbish out tonight for binmen to take tomorrow...

:-( We can't put rubbish out the night before, else it'll be strewn all over the road by foxes. Don't others have that problem?

mah_jong

pthompson wrote:

:-( We can't put rubbish out the night before, else it'll be strewn all over the road by foxes. Don't others have that problem?

how on earth do they topple over the wheelie bins???

Nikki

We had to go and buy a couple of bins from b&q as we were fed up with creatures ripping our bin bags to shreds. Next to no one on our estate owns a bin and our council don't provide them. I'd have thought using wheelie bins would make life easier for the binmen, but then our council wouldn't dream of spending money on something worthwhile.

Aril

Hi everyone!
Our local council run a scheme which takes paper/cardboard [but not currently corrugated although they're trialling this] and garden waste one week and plastics and tins the next. I take all my stamps to Waitrose, all old bags to Sainsbury's [I use a ruck sack and long life bags as much as possible], all tin foil to the Red Cross, all decent quality clothing goes to the charity shop [too idle to car boot] or for my son's I pass it onto a friend's sons, all paper is reused and then taken to the dump for recycling as are any metal objects and I collect all the scrap paper from my work and take it into my son's school. If clothes are beyond wearing I either rag them or get them recycled [our Bluebell Railway takes the old clothes from our scouts jumble sale]. I close the recycling gap by buying second hand and reusing whereever possible. I also have a compost heap.
As you can tell it's a passion of mine!
Regards
Aril

pthompson

mah_jong wrote:

how on earth do they topple over the wheelie bins???

LOL. I'm trying to imagine the sight of the whole of your street with a wheelie-bin outside each house.

Do you live in Bracknell by any chance?

MrsB_2

What's unusual about a whole street full of wheelie bins??? We live in Newcastle (but come under Gateshead council - odd) and every house on every street for miles around has wheelie bins - including the council estates.

pthompson

MrsB wrote:

What's unusual about a whole street full of wheelie bins???

Nothing wrong with wheelie bins. What's wrong is mah_jong's idea of putting them out the night before the binmen arrive -- and presumably them staying out all day until residents get home in the evening. That can't be a pretty sight.

competitionscafe

We put black bags outside on the pavement - not a pretty site although you are suppossed to put them out on the morning of collection most people put them out the night before. If seagulls or foxes get hold of them they make one hell of a mess (seems to be more of a summer problem) haven't seen either for a while though - it was more of a problem when they messed up the deliveries over summer and bags got left out for days in the heat.

You always get idiots though - next collection is Monday morning (last one was yesterday) and somebody has dumped their black bag out this morning so it's going to sit there for 3 days. Council changed the days recently and sent a letter (which cost them about £10,000 to send 1 to every household) which said don't put your bags out until after 9am - so I put them out just after 9am (binmen had already been) and a few hours later 2 men in uniform (litter wardens from council) knocked on my door and had a go at me for having rubbish on the street - they knew who it belonged to because they had rooted through the bag and found an envelope addressed to me - nice job they have!!

I also put the bags out late one night and disturbed a man who was opening the bags and rooting through them - he was very scruffy looking so probably looking for food rather than an id thief - he scarpered, but was back as soon as I went inside (could see him from the window). A friend also saw a well dressed man (so probably not homeless) rooting through her bins one night - probably looking for ids to steal?? She phoned the police but they weren't particularly interested.

I emailed the council re recycling and someone phoned me back yesterday (I was out so only got a message) - however trying to phone them back is proving tricky as I can never get through.

MrsB_2

pthompson wrote:

Nothing wrong with wheelie bins. What's wrong is mah_jong's idea of putting them out the night before the binmen arrive -- and presumably them staying out all day until residents get home in the evening. That can't be a pretty sight.

Sorry - misunderstood what you meant. I read it as though you were suggesting that it's unusual for most homes in a street to have wheelie bins. Think my blondeness is showing through.