Ten bins per household ‘too much to ask’ in quest to recycle more

16 comments

1. >household refuse; food waste; paper; plastics and tins; glass; cardboard; household batteries; textiles; small electrical items; and green waste bags.

   Given they collect several types of item most councils leave it to you to dispose of properly like batteries, clothes, glass and electrical items, I feel like having a lot of bins is a fair compromise.

2. It seems crazy to me that, instead of spending the necessary amounts on sorting and processing technology, that we have put all the onus for recycling on the households.

   Wouldn’t it be great if we created an organisation that we all contribute to that could undertake tasks like this on behalf of us which would be more efficient and less burdensome? We could call it, a local council.

3. Would require investing in a lot more collection. Never going to happen.

4. Some European countries have community bins for extra things like this.
   You have your own general waste but recycling is done in these subsurface bins (the bin sits on the massive underground container) and they come to collect them when they are full with a special truck.
   Great for the inner city and subs.

5. Hey now. I thought Sunak had made more than 7 bins illegal?

6. Sorting and sifting is done mostly automatically in a MRF (materials recovery facility) nowadays. Its all lasers, magnets, compressed air, conveyers. Its magic to watch.

   Having householders have many bins and doing the sorting and sifting themselves saves the council money as they don’t need to use a MRF any more and pass the task to householders at the expense of your space at home and your time.

   Its cost cutting in the guise of being green. They can and do literally do this themselves already

7. Also, people are going to make mistakes whether it’s residents putting stuff in the wrong bin and the binmen throwing the wrong thing in the wrong part of the lorry.

   Having all these bins just increases the chance of something like this happening and it all having to be sorted regardless.

8. My council is stupid enough to charge extra for garden waste collection. People just put the waste in the general waste bin if it’s a small amount.

9. I live in an area where we have 6 bins (trollibocs system plus garden waste and black bin) and the council also provide (optional) bags for stuff like clothing and electronics (which goes to a local charity) and a small bag for used batteries/vapes.

   If you’ve only got 2 bins I can understand why it might seem daunting but it is honestly fine. It’s really not that onerous. Sort as you go. People losing their mind over bins is so bizarre. I saw someone literally describe it as ‘woke bins’ the other day. Like, what😅

   The main issue is even the bin men don’t seem to understand which box the loo rolls go in🙈

10. Currently I’ve got a box for plastic and cans, a box for glass, a bag for cardboard and a food waste caddy and a green bin for garden waste (which I pay extra for). And a general bin.

    It should be cans, paper, card and glass in one bin, food waste can stay in a caddy. The garden and normal waste could be another two bins. That would be far more manageable.

11. Hilarious how doing something simple like sorting some rubbish is “too much to ask”. This is why the planet is fucked. People’s expectation of convenience is so insanely high that there’s essentially nothing that can be proposed beyond “fantasy techno-fix”.

12. I have a question…..where the hell are we going to store 10 bins ?

13. If we had one nationwide scheme we would end up with the NHS. Cheaper in big picture terms but inefficient at the local level. You would also have stupid prices for small details at one end of the scale and massive change nationally before it was needed as politicians satisfy their egos. As usual the middle ground is probably the way to go which would be consortia of councils working with the processing firms to streamline the system.

14. When we visit Europe each village has multiple, communal sorting bins so instead of trying to fit multiple sorting bins into our tiny kitchen and 3 weeks worth of rubbish into a tiny wheelie bin and everybody’s overflowing rubbish constantly blowing around because the outdoor containers they gave us are open topped and people fly tip and burn their rubbish due to the collections and container sizes being so divorced from reality, people can just pop to the bins 100 yards away and dispose of the amount of rubbish they actually need to as they produce it. Result the village in Spain or france isn’t covered in litter like ours and nobody is having a sneaky rubbish-fire.
    It’s not fucking rocket science.

15. A lot of it is just performative anyway given that it isn’t actually recycled and sold to other countries to deal with. Out of sight out of mine etc

16. Well it’s fucking pointless when moat councils just dump the lot of it in the same landfill and call it recycled.