A Homemade Life
Welcome to Homemade Life.

To take full advantage of everything offered by our forum, please log in if you are already a member or join our community if not ....

Chilli-head
A Homemade Life
Would you like to react to this message? Create an account in a few clicks or log in to continue.
Who is online?
In total there are 2 users online :: 0 Registered, 0 Hidden and 2 Guests

None

Most users ever online was 112 on 8th October 2020, 7:09 am
Latest topics
» Hungry Birds
by Dirick55 7th December 2023, 6:04 am

» PRESENTATION
by Chilli-head 23rd November 2023, 2:55 pm

» New Kiva loan
by Chilli-head 21st July 2023, 12:35 pm

» A peat-free compost is top in UK Which? magazine trial
by Dandelion 25th April 2023, 9:42 pm

» New gardening year 2023
by Chilli-head 5th March 2023, 10:15 pm

» What have I done in the workshop today?
by Dandelion 2nd December 2022, 1:12 pm

» What are you harvesting today?
by Dandelion 2nd December 2022, 1:12 pm

» Wartime marrow casserole
by Dandelion 18th October 2022, 4:42 pm

» Late sowings in August ... beans ?
by Ploshkin 11th August 2022, 9:29 am

» Come August, come night in the garden
by Chilli-head 4th August 2022, 3:29 pm

» Welcome guest
by Ploshkin 31st July 2022, 9:16 am

» The Jolly July Garden
by Ploshkin 19th July 2022, 11:38 am

» More mead ...
by Chilli-head 13th July 2022, 12:52 pm

» The June garden thread
by Dandelion 25th June 2022, 9:55 pm

» Plastic bags
by Dandelion 5th June 2022, 7:28 pm

» The merry May garden
by Dandelion 31st May 2022, 10:04 pm

» Fooling around in the April garden
by freebird 1st May 2022, 8:33 am

» March into the garden
by Dandelion 1st April 2022, 7:26 pm

» Mow Suggestions
by freebird 29th March 2022, 5:48 pm

» Some thoughts on resilience
by Ploshkin 12th March 2022, 2:23 pm

Statistics
We have 269 registered users
The newest registered user is Omerko123

Our users have posted a total of 48045 messages in 2416 subjects
Pages we like:

Waste collection consultation Hca_button


Waste collection consultation

5 posters

Go down

Waste collection consultation Empty Waste collection consultation

Post by Chilli-head 2nd March 2018, 11:11 am

Our local council here is doing a consultation on waste collection.  The contract is up for renewal so a good time to think about change. They are interested in reducing the cost, and / or increasing recycling.  

We currently get:

  • Mixed recycling wheelie bin - paper, card, metal, plastics including film. Every 2 weeks.
  • Electricals - leave out by the bin
  • Food waste - for some homes, a caddy that is taken weekly for anaerobic digestion.
  • Green garden waste, with recycling, for some of the year. For industrial composting.
  • The rest - black bin, some recyclables recovered, rest for "Thermal treatment" Wink (sounds a lot like burning to me). Every 2 weeks, alternate with recycling.

Their suggestions seem to be:

  • Extend food waste collection to all homes, no cost savings because of cost of extra collections, but keeps smelly and methane generating food waste out of general waste.
  • Reduce general waste collections to one week in 3.  Significant cash saving, hope to force increased recycling.
  • Extend garden waste collection to full year, charging £40 annually to those who use it. Significant cash saving.
  • Collect paper and card separately, with a separate crate for each household, to increase the quality / value of the paper for recycling.
  • Possibly collect glass bottles - at the moment, we must recycle them ourselves.

It seems to me quite complicated as to what is for the best.  There are not just practical issues, but psychological ones too.  The things that have caused uproar are the 3 weekly general waste, especially with regard to animal waste and nappies, and the charge for green waste, which has so far been "free" or included in the council tax budget, so some see it as being asked to pay twice.

Although all the separate collections for glass and paper sound good in principle, I wonder whether asking people to sort more will mean fewer bother, and where we will store the various bins/crates/bags of sorted waste !  I also wonder whether charging for the green waste collection will mean a lot more goes in the general waste bin.  I compost almost all mine, but maybe two or three times a year use the green waste sacks for roots, blighty potatoes etc that I can't or don't want to put on my heap. I don't think it would be worth £40, so presumbly I'd have to drive it to the tip, which is not great either.

What is the best solution ? Well, create less waste in the first place of course.  The number of people complaining that their bins are already full with fortnightly collections does make me despair, how do they generate so much ?
Chilli-head
Chilli-head
Admin and Boss man

Posts : 3305
Join date : 2010-02-23
Location : Bedfordshire

Back to top Go down

Waste collection consultation Empty Re: Waste collection consultation

Post by FloBear 2nd March 2018, 11:32 am

The trouble is, if people are asked to do too much separating they don't bother and can contaminate recyclable materials rendering them unusable.
Those who complain about being charged for a green waste collection should be shown the figures and asked what services - police, libraries, or whatever, they would like to see reduced so that they can continue to have this 'free' service.

Food waste needs to be once a week for everyone, I think, and general waste is fine fortnightly, not sure I'd want it extended to three-weekly esp. in the summer months. I read somewhere that the breeding cycle of the housefly is 8 days which is why collections were originally weekly.
FloBear
FloBear

Posts : 868
Join date : 2015-02-10
Location : Forest of Dean

Back to top Go down

Waste collection consultation Empty Re: Waste collection consultation

Post by freebird 2nd March 2018, 5:55 pm

We have fortnightly collections, with landfill waste and paper/card alternating with all other recyclables. Food waste is collected every week. Green waste bin costs £75 per year, collected fortnightly.

I considered having a green waste bin, but decided instead to put the money towards a shredder. Best thing I could have done as it has tripled my compost production.
freebird
freebird

Posts : 2244
Join date : 2011-10-19
Age : 67
Location : Powys

Back to top Go down

Waste collection consultation Empty Re: Waste collection consultation

Post by Dandelion 3rd March 2018, 9:53 pm

FloBear wrote:
I read somewhere that the breeding cycle of the housefly is 8 days which is why collections were originally weekly.

That is so interesting!!
Dandelion
Dandelion
Admin

Posts : 5416
Join date : 2010-01-17
Age : 67
Location : Ledbury, Herefordshire

Back to top Go down

Waste collection consultation Empty Re: Waste collection consultation

Post by Dandelion 3rd March 2018, 10:03 pm

Our rubbish/recycling is more simple. General rubbish one week, and mixed recycling the next. In the recycling we can put glass, plastic bottles and containers (but not lids), card and paper. I think you can buy green bags for garden waste (not sure of the cost) but the contents of the green bags go to landfill, which seems lazy and a bit dishonest to me (because people assume that the stuff gets composted). We do have a site outside Worcester which makes compost on an industrial scale -I was able to visit it when I did my Master Composter training. To get garden waste composted you have to take it to one of the county's household waste centres. Our general waste should have been collected on Friday but wasn't because of the snow - we now have to wait another month for it to be collected. We're OK, because we don't tend to put food waste in the bin (now the children have left home there isn't much!), and we obviously don't have things like disposable nappies. but I suspect some local residents are going to be very unhappy about this. At least there are fewer smells and flies at this time of year!
Dandelion
Dandelion
Admin

Posts : 5416
Join date : 2010-01-17
Age : 67
Location : Ledbury, Herefordshire

Back to top Go down

Waste collection consultation Empty Re: Waste collection consultation

Post by Dandelion 3rd March 2018, 10:07 pm

If I was going to change our system, I would like to be able to recycle more - things such as lids (which are made of recycleable material, but our recycling is sorted partly visually. Anything flat is reckoned to be card or paper, so margarine tub lids for instance are too confusing). I would love to be able to recycle polythene bags, plastic film and foil from the kerbside. It's just that our system won't allow it, not that it's impossible.
Dandelion
Dandelion
Admin

Posts : 5416
Join date : 2010-01-17
Age : 67
Location : Ledbury, Herefordshire

Back to top Go down

Waste collection consultation Empty Re: Waste collection consultation

Post by Ploshkin 4th March 2018, 9:20 am

The most important issue with regard to waste is to generate much, much less.  This is down to the manufacturers and retailers just as much as the individual.
We have weekly collections alternating between General waste + food waste and recyclables (not glass).
I frequently don't remember to put the bag out the night before and the lorry whizzes through at 6.00am but even if I miss a collection I often don't have a full bag to go out (4 weeks worth).  A lot of that is down to producing a large proportion of our own food.  I've never had food waste collected.  We just don't have any.  If anything escapes the compost bin or the dustbin that is Mr P it will be devoured by dogs.  The very occasional food waste (e.g.bones not suitable for dogs) goes in the (gasification) boiler.
We're fortunate not to have any smoke restrictions here so can burn if necessary.
Ploshkin
Ploshkin

Posts : 1779
Join date : 2013-07-18
Location : Mid Wales

Back to top Go down

Waste collection consultation Empty Re: Waste collection consultation

Post by Sponsored content


Sponsored content


Back to top Go down

Back to top

- Similar topics

 
Permissions in this forum:
You cannot reply to topics in this forum