Empty bins, full recyling - does anyone else have this problem??
Nick and I have been having this discussion lately at home. You see, we only throw out probably one small kitchen-bin full of rubbish once a week. However, we seem to end up with a huge cardboard-box full of recycling multiple times per fortnight.
I don’t know how any household could fill one of those things with rubbish per week!! We recycle all we can, compost our food scraps (and not a few teabags…) so as to do our bit for recycling and reducing landfill. Not to mention sweet, sweet compost!
Now, our normal wheelie bin is collected once a week, but our recycling bin is collected only once a fortnight. Does anyone else wish these two things were reversed?
October 27 2008 10:04 pm | Reduce and recycle and reuse
October 28th, 2008 at 5:48 am
Hi,
Here in Canberra our recycling bin is also a wheelie bin, bigger than our garbage wheelie bin. For our family at this stage of out journey the balance is just right, our recycle collected fortnightly is usually full. Our rubbish bin could usually afford to be a bit smaller though ; )
October 28th, 2008 at 10:11 am
Hi Tammy,
Our recycling and normal bins are both wheelies, but they’re the same size - humongous!
Just goes to show how much waste the gov expect us to make…
October 28th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
I know we used to find that we’d often have a full recycling bin long before we’d fill the normal bin and that’s with a minimum of all those good things that you mentioned that guys do.
We just didn’t produce that much garbage.
I have heard too that the Brisbane council is going to trial weekly pickups of the recycling bins in some areas (or they may have been doing so already).
There is some thought though going into weekly removal of garbage too, it’s to do with the life cycle of the fly, if they were to revert to fortnightly pickups the majority of people would have fly problems, on a weekly basis it curbs the spread of flys.
October 28th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Jess
I fully agree. Our recycling bin is generally choker full by the end of the fortnight where as the normal rubbish bin is rarely full each week.
The only time we filled the normal rubbish bin for probably about three weeks in a row was when we moved house. It’s amazing how much rubbish we ended up moving even though we already were very picky in what we packed.
October 30th, 2008 at 7:56 am
Hi Jess,
In the inner city of Sydney (Sydney council) you have a crates for recycling (one for paper and another for everything else like glass, plastics etc).
Our household has a goal of producing zero waste going to landfil, so some weeks we have nothing at all in our wheelie bin.
Lucky that the recycle crates are picked up weekly as they are always over flowing.
Would prefer wheelie bins for recycling too because if it is windy, paper flys off everyone’s crates causing rubbish in our streets. Yes you can put a brick on it but fell people bother.
Thanks Jess
Sarhn
October 30th, 2008 at 9:39 am
Hi Sarhn,
Wow, I didn’t know that Sydney used crates! I think separating stuff is a great idea, but using a wheelie is so much easier, and obviously neater. Let’s hope the council comes around!
Thanks for your comment
November 3rd, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Out here in Caboolture, we also have a smaller rubbish bin, but full sized recycling. Our recycling bin is usually full, while the rubbish bin has very little in it. I definately think we need a bigger recycling bin though! I just need to focus on getting some of the rubbisn in the recycling bin down though I think.
November 4th, 2008 at 12:03 am
Hey Rinelle, you live near my parents! I grew up in Elimbah
They have the mini-wheelie bins and big recycling bins too…