The Green and Yellow Bins. Time to swap collections?

I propose… you find a neighbour who doesn’t recycle as much, and swap recycle bins weekly.

coffeeman said :

or people could stop choking their recycling bin using 2 simple measures….

– boxes, before they had their contents they were flat, make them flat before you put them in
– plastic bottles – crush them – works particularly well with the milk variety

You will be surprised how much extra space you have. If you have really big boxes, take them to the local depot on your way somewhere – no need for a special trip.

Why not stop the whinge about recycling bins, and ask for “green waste” bins instead, though this may just end our rates through the roof.

You might want to re-read my original post. I do all that, and more (I have bought reusable mesh bags to put my fresh produce in for example), but I still have over-full recycling bins.

And I’m not whinging, I’m making practical and cost-neutral suggestion – swap the green and yellow bin collection rates. No extra trucks, no extra staff, no extra hassle. Juts more efficient recycling.

Another option (like what is happening in some Adelaide councils) would be to switch to a three bin system. The third bin would be for green waste and food waste, and be collected weekly to manage concerns about odour. If you then switched to a fortnightly collection of the residual waste to landfill bin, you could use those savings to partly defray the cost of the combined food/green waste service.

Why not stop the whinge about recycling bins, and ask for “green waste” bins instead, though this may just end our rates through the roof….

Or why not stop the whine about “green waste” bins and compost it in your own garden., no extra pressure on the rates at all.

Ewww, fortnightly rubbish collections – even if you only had one bag or two that would be rank in the heat. And if you forgot to put the bin out on the collection day then there would be stuff in there for nearly a month before it was cleared – gag!

A family of 5 including 3 teens is always going to put a strain on the fortnightly recycling collection which seems fine for most households. Canberra Connect advised me that you can get a second recycling bin for about $50 a year (about $1 week, cheap at twice the price!) which still gets collected fortnightly (so the trucks don’t have to deviate into your suburb from their bi-weekly routes).

Details here: http://www.tams.act.gov.au/recycling-waste/my_bins/new_bin

another thought – maybe the Govt is trying to send people who are filling their recycling bins over full a message.

Consider the amount of foods you buy that are packaged vs the foods you buy that are not as an example. The packaged foods, particularly those that have large containers or boxes are the heavily processed foods (the word food taken lightly here). Perhaps this is a type of tax system on the processed food eaters?

Buy your food from the unpackaged end of the supermarket or better the fruit and veg store, your meat from the local butcher and remove the processed foods from your diet and you will see amazing things happen…

1. Both your bins will heave a sigh of relief
2. Your garden could have an enviable level of compost available to it should you choose
3. you will be healthier
4. you can stick one to the government by not paying GST on your food.

sorry – this will never catch on.

or people could stop choking their recycling bin using 2 simple measures….

– boxes, before they had their contents they were flat, make them flat before you put them in
– plastic bottles – crush them – works particularly well with the milk variety

You will be surprised how much extra space you have. If you have really big boxes, take them to the local depot on your way somewhere – no need for a special trip.

Why not stop the whinge about recycling bins, and ask for “green waste” bins instead, though this may just end our rates through the roof.

magiccar9 said :

Unit complexes often have it worse off. In my area there are 10 townhouses to a complex. We are given 5 or 6 bins communally between us. Now we have families with young children (including a family of 5). Our recycling bins are filled before a week is up, leaving recycling spilling onto the ground, or in the ordinary trash.
We tried contacting the government about this, their reply was to pay for extra bins as the law only specifies 0.5 recycling bins per townhouse (apparently).

The government is pushing recycling and reductions in landfill but aren’t willing to meet residents halfway….

Yes we have the same issue in our complex – except that all the outside (road facing) units got an individual bin and those of us inside the complex had to put up with 2 bins between 7 of us. we got no love from the ACT Government so have had to fork out extra $$ to get 2 more bins supplied which seems to suffice for now (luckily we have small houses so no big families and associated volume of rubbish).

given the Gov policy of coverting us all to recycling rather than general waste, I should think that it is sensible to swap the 2 over – but summer might make this a health issue.

Ditto. We often completely fill 2 recycling bins – and the rubbish bin is never more than half full… Obviously wouldn’t need to pay for the second recycling bin if they collected every week.

Elsewhere, this resulted in people discarding dirty diapers into recycling bins.

http://freakonomics.com/2013/05/20/how-dirty-diapers-end-up-in-the-recyling-bin/

Same story at our house,a lot of recycle material goes in the green bin when the yellow one is full after a couple of days.
Perhaps the recycle facility could not handle the extra capacity ?

Unit complexes often have it worse off. In my area there are 10 townhouses to a complex. We are given 5 or 6 bins communally between us. Now we have families with young children (including a family of 5). Our recycling bins are filled before a week is up, leaving recycling spilling onto the ground, or in the ordinary trash.
We tried contacting the government about this, their reply was to pay for extra bins as the law only specifies 0.5 recycling bins per townhouse (apparently).

The government is pushing recycling and reductions in landfill but aren’t willing to meet residents halfway….

Just filled the yellow one today, the green one is less than half full. Does that mean some driver’s will get paid extra whilst the others take a pay cut?

I have the same problem there only so many tinnies you can fit in the recycle bin so sometimes one or two boxes of empty cans go in the green bin

We have a similar problem. I’m not a big fan of having rubbish collected once a fortnight as it can get a bit smelly. I think people should pay extra for a second green bin (as the system currently does) but shouldn’t have to pay for a second recycling bin.

I completely agree! I tweeted at TAMS once asking if this would be the case and the reply was to pay for a second recycling bin.
We only put two bags of rubbish into the non-recycle bin (granted, there are only two of us + two dogs), but we fill 1 1/2 recycling bins each fortnight.