Rubbish Recycling.... well its rubbish

[vkurup]

A few weeks ago the bin men did not pick up our blue bins and left a note that it was contaminated.. so a bit head scratching later, we realised that it was because we put our juice tetrapacks i.e. the bog standard Tropicana Orange juice packs in it. I always thought the tetrapaks were recyclable, so was surprised/shocked to know that our collectors thought otherwise. A quick read of the recycling instructions at the back of the Tropicana bit says that while it is recycleable, some areas wont do so via kerb side recycling and I need to take it to the community tip - a 5 mile drive.

As we have a lot of flat pack package being delivered, the packaging goes to blue bins. A couple of weeks ago, they too everything but left 2 sheets of Styrofoam out.

This week i realised that they were taking the mick... In the past they have been picking up the brown cardboard boxes that come with most Amazon type sites. So we left some out this week. We had plenty of rain overnight. Next morning they took everything, but left behind all the cardboard boxes!!!. So I read the instructions, and lo and behold it says, that they will recycle cardboard boxes but not WET cardboard boxes!!!

My conclusion is that in order to follow the rules, I will need to buy new things and drop it into the blue bin, anything else goes to landfill. Also, need to check the weather forecast before putting out the bins.
<rant over>

 

[ColchesterFC]

Simple answer is to put all of the "contaminated" stuff at the bottom of the bin and cover it with stuff that is OK. I'm fairly sure they'll only have a cursory glance at the top of the bin rather than going through everything you've got in there.

 

[full_throttle]

or black bag it and put in your normal refuse bin,

 

[Lord Tyrion]

We can't recycle tetra, it's a flaw. Don't hide them as it can cause problems and rejection further down the line for larger batches. You just have to put them in regular rubbish.

 

[Tashyboy]

At the moment the in thing to target is fly tipping, and rightly so. This can be anything from a bin liner of rubbish being dumped to truck loads being dumped. but have you tried to take owt to the tip later. Firstly it is not called a tip anymore. It is called a recycling centre, and there in lies the problem, or one of them. A lot of stuff you want to get rid of you cannot recycle. So if you cannot take it to the tip sorry recycle centre, where do you take it.
Me old man had an 80 th birthday party, I volunteered to take the rubbish to the " recycle centre" it was a Royal pita. I ended up bringing home six bin liner bags which were sat outside my house for 3 weeks til I could fit them in the wheelie bin.
A neighbour had his recycle wheelie bin crushed by the dustbin wagon, the council sent him another. Only it was half the size, he rang the council and complained. They said they were smaller as they were cheaper, and they were encouraging people to think about what they are buying. He said the only thing he is thinking about is putting his recycled rubbish in the rubbish bin. He eventually got a normal sized bin.

 

[ColchesterFC]

Our local one has skips for different things like wood, metal, garden waste etc so you have to sort out your rubbish but then also has a general waste skip which is stuff that can't go in any of the others and goes to landfill.

 

[road2ruin]

Our bin collections are a prime example at the moment of the left hand not knowing what the right is doing.

We get leaflets from the council to say what can and can't be put into bins however the bin men are a law unto themselves. The latest example was being told by the council that plastic bags (or food bags e.g. bread bags) could be used in food bins as a liner. This was done by numerous residents only to find that the bin men refused to collect as they were 'contaminated'. We just bung a long more in the main big which really defeats the purpose but we can't be bothered to have missed collections.

 

[vkurup]

Our bin collections are a prime example at the moment of the left hand not knowing what the right is doing.

We get leaflets from the council to say what can and can't be put into bins however the bin men are a law unto themselves. The latest example was being told by the council that plastic bags (or food bags e.g. bread bags) could be used in food bins as a liner. This was done by numerous residents only to find that the bin men refused to collect as they were 'contaminated'. We just bung a long more in the main big which really defeats the purpose but we can't be bothered to have missed collections.

Ditto.. now we can put ANY plastic bag in the food waste, but you cant put wet cardboard or styrofoam in Blue bins!!.

I am not supporting any fly tipping, but I cant understand why they distinguish between cardboard box and wet cardboard boxes. It was the same recyclable cardboard box, but got wet from the overnight rain and now suddenly cannot be recyled. I have left them in the garage to dry out, and I am assuming they will pick it up in a couple of weeks.