http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/wheelie-bins-to-be-almost-halved-in-size-1-3434195
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » General Edinburgh
"Wheelie bins to be almost halved in size"
(52 posts)-
Posted 11 years ago #
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Mixed feelings on this one. Something clearly needs done if only half the city's residents are recyling. But it remains to be seen if fortnightly collections of a smaller general waste bin are viable for the majority. Just recently, I was renovating a room and ended up with a lot of rubbish not fitting the council's recycling bin requirements. As a result, it took 4 weeks to clear it. Luckily that is a rarity and I had space to store the bags but it wasn't ideal.
I hope the red boxes are recyclable.
The biggest problem are idiots like the oxymoron that is "Really Irritatingly Intelligent Chauvinist"
"I recycle nothing, nothing whatsoever. It's a complete waste of time and effort. Everything goes in the same bin and as long as it's removed from my sight, I couldn't care less what they do with waste."
Irritating as ever. Intelligent as never.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Only 2 or 3 times in the last year have we filled the green bin, but we regularly run out of space in our recycling bins. I am in favour of the change.
However what happens in the tenement areas where they have the huge black bins on the street (which get full to overflowing regularly), where there is no individual restriction of how much you can chuck?
Posted 11 years ago # -
When Child No.2 was in nappies we would never have coped wih half the landfill bin capacity. For Child No.1 we used real nappies, but for various domestic/childcare/technical reasons that wasn't possible second time round.
I really think they need to allow larger families to keep a bigger bin, where requested - obviously they will have more waste than a single person or couple.
And while they're at it, I'd be quite happy for them to fine people who don't separate their waste. People get the nanny state because they act like children.
Posted 11 years ago # -
"People get the nanny state because they act like children. "
Agree 100%
Posted 11 years ago # -
We've been doing up a house and since the change to fortnightly collections have had to make an extra car journey to the tip with a trailer full of DIY waste. It's generally waste that ends up in landfill too because of its nature. Might save the council some money but it's far less efficient to have more people driving around with rubbish.
I'm also not pleased with the number of bins. Ours has to sit on our private lane outside the front door as we can't get it through the house to the garden. The change to a single bin for recycling seems a great idea but that's one extra bin to decorate the street with. There should also be encouragement to switch internal bins to segregated ones to make it easier to recycle.
If you compare to the west coast they have weekly wheelie bin collections with a slightly smaller bin and a single large box for all recycling including glass. It's much easier if the glass can go out with other recycling.
Posted 11 years ago # -
They're increasing the amount of rubbish they will take away.
Old fashioned no-recycling system, 1*240 l bin taken away weekly.
Current system, 1*240 l bin plus 2*36 l boxes, each taken fortnightly = 156 l taken weekly.
New system, 1*240 l bin, plus 36 l box, plus 140 l bin, each taken fortnight = 202 l taken weekly.
So more rubbish will be collected, but split into bins a slightly different way.
Since my recycling bins are always overflowing and the green wheelie bin is half empty, it makes sense to me. Most waste is recyclable so I guess almost everyone will be in the same position.
[I'm ignoring garden waste and food recycling, but it sounds like they don't change between the current and new systems.]
Posted 11 years ago # -
I would go to four weekly on the green bin? No need for new bin. What landfill site will all the old red boxes go to. I also have a spare green bin if anyone wants it, they gave me a new one but did not take the old one away.
Posted 11 years ago # -
However what happens in the tenement areas where they have the huge black bins on the street (which get full to overflowing regularly), where there is no individual restriction of how much you can chuck?
People from outlying areas come and dump their sacks in them...
Since we got a food waste bin (maybe 12 months ago) we have found our average black bin bag disposal is now less than once a week. Dry stuff in the bin bag doesn't start to smell, so it doesn't need chucked out so often.
Posted 11 years ago # -
I pretty much agree with PS and Bruce. Our recycling always full. Likewise food waste. Our other rubbish goes in the black bin, so hard to judge, but definitely seems to go out less.
@tk don't see why you think this increases bins. If you're already recycling, it will reduce them.
Posted 11 years ago # -
It increases outdoor-bins (ones you can't reasonably fit inside). We have 2 bins on the drive and keep the recycling bins in the garage. We'll now have 3 on the drive and 1 in the garage. No big problem for us but I guess for people who have no drive and have carved out a small space from the garden with 2 flagstones will need to adjust to fit another bin in.
I think they couldn't really move to 4-weekly collections because of the smell - especially of nappies etc. (most other decomposable stuff should I suppose really go in the food waste bin). But maggots can get a good foothold in 4 weeks. yuk...
Families of 5 or more get to keep a large green bin, as do families with 2 children under 3.
Posted 11 years ago # -
With three of us in the house we normally only use about a third of the current bin space. If the Council would start collecting more plastics our residual waste would become minimal as food trays, etc probably make up the majority of our general waste.
Our neighbours meanwhile never recycle, already have an oversize bin and it's often overflowing, I suspect no amount of carrot will get them recycling so I'm in favour of the stick approach of smaller bins, and would even go as far as smart bins which charge if you go over a certain weekly average. I also disagree with encouraging the use of disposable nappies by giving bigger bins.
What point do they come and take away the bigger bin and replace it with a smaller one? or will it be a case of big bins slowly creeping back into general use?
Posted 11 years ago # -
"I also disagree with encouraging the use of disposable nappies by giving bigger bins. What point do they come and take away the bigger bin and replace it with a smaller one? or will it be a case of big bins slowly creeping back into general use?"
Agree!
Posted 11 years ago # -
"I also disagree with encouraging the use of disposable nappies by giving bigger bins."
Real nappies aren't practical for everyone. So how would you propose they dispose of nappies that don't fit in their bin?
Real nappies aren't necessarily all that much more eco-friendly than disposables - their manufacture takes a bit of input, and it means a full additional washing load every other day. Plus, living this far north and in such a soggy climate, you either live permanently surrounded by drying nappies or you use the tumble drier much more.
We used them for first child but couldn't for second. I wouldn't have found it fair to be penalised for that.
Posted 11 years ago # -
I think my point is partly that it's a choice. The fact that a standard disposable nappies takes about 500 years to degrade in landfill combined with the average baby using 6000 of them makes a vast amount of waste in a way which extra washing machine cycles don't.
I'm also thinking about the fact that if we chose to use disposables we would have space for them in the reduced size bin unless we were also producing other extra rubbish.
Posted 11 years ago # -
There is also a half decent disposable nappy recycling programme, we enquired about it when we found we were filling our green bin primarily with nappies. It wasn't that expensive but more money than I have spare at the moment.
The growing of cotton is a terrible for the environment too...
Posted 11 years ago # -
makes a vast amount of waste in a way which extra washing machine cycles don't.
Waste water needs treated using energy, running the washer/drier needs energy. Drawing power requires either nuclear or fosil fuels. Both of these waste products will take more than 500 years to deal with.
Posted 11 years ago # -
I don't think anyone has suggested penalising parents for disposing of nappies.
I've used both and chucked more than my fair share of nappies in the bin. But just saying to parents 'you can have a bigger bin' ignores the issues about disposal of nappies and sends the wrong message.
One extra washing machine cycle every two days or so for nappies does not compare to the landfill impact of disposables.
Comparisons of the production of the two needs to be separate from the disposal issue.
Also most nappies used by multiple children/families. We bought ours second-hand, used them for two kids and have sold/passed them on to others.
Posted 11 years ago # -
An extra few KWh of energy for every nappy user in Edinburgh would have a large impact fairly quickly, its not just the washing machine, its the tumble dryer unless you like living in a damp house surrounded by nappies.
If the council actually wants to deal with the problem then it needs a bin which is taken out the waste stream and properly recycled. The option is only £12 a month the council could presumably subsidised this out of the money it needs to spend to prevent it being fined for landfill volumes.
Posted 11 years ago # -
I'm not saying real nappies aren't better than disposable, just the the whole-life difference may not be all that great, and, more to the point, it's not a realistic option in lots of circumstances. A large family with one in nappies is obviously going to find it difficult to cope with their landfill bin halved in size. Maybe they're fine in a typical week, but anything out of the ordinary and they need a trip to the dump. Not easy if you don't own a car.
Incidentally, maybe you lot all knew this already, but I found out recently that the biggest user of electricity in Scotland is Scottish Water. Obvious when you think about it, really. But I wonder if that shouldn't be the nature of campaigns to conserve water? In Scotland we all know that we're not running out of the stuff, the reservoirs are full and always will be, so all the water reduction stuff from further south really isn't necessary here. But if the energy saving argument were better expressed, if it were put in terms of climate change, I think that would be much more influential than just a general "save water" message.
Posted 11 years ago # -
"its the tumble dryer unless you like living in a damp house surrounded by nappies."
somehow we managed without a rumble dryer - as did our mothers and grandmothers before us.
personally, i didn't experience it as a hardship, or even a particular challenge. and had the 'luxury' of using disposables if/when i felt overwhelmed/nappy pail was full.
Posted 11 years ago # -
"somehow we managed without a rumble dryer - as did our mothers and grandmothers before us.
personally, i didn't experience it as a hardship, or even a particular challenge. and had the 'luxury' of using disposables if/when i felt overwhelmed/nappy pail was full."
Likewise although I do only have one child at the moment and confess to using disposables overnight as the reuseables always seem to leak by morning.Posted 11 years ago # -
When I look at the contents of the rubbish I throw out now (possibly 1 x supermarket sized bag a week), it's nearly all plastic food trays or pots that can't be recycled. I do try hard not to accumulate such things, but it's hard when you want some ham and the only way to buy ham is in a plastic tray!
Pre-packed pizzas (which I almost never buy) are bad for using polystyrene bases.
M&S used to have a big "Plan B" campaign about reducing waste, but they're one of the worst offenders for unneccessary packaging for visual purposes only, particularly on fruit and veg. Which is a shame as they have some of the best tasting fruit on offer.
Posted 11 years ago # -
I'm always seeing red boxes on the street containing plastic cartons that I had thought couldn't be recycled (at least in this city). Likewise envelopes in blue boxes. What happens to it all? Does it get manually sorted out of the system?
I do think Edinburgh could be much better at providing information on exactly what can and can't be recycled. Hopefully as part of this new bin initiative they are planning on increasing the amount of plastics that can be dealt with.
Posted 11 years ago # -
We've got the big black bins in our street. On the respective recycling collection days, almost every door has a box of glass, or bin of garden waste.
I'd like to see the 'packaging' recycling bins expand a bit. We find it's about 50% of our waste, but there aren't nearly enough of those street-corner packaging bins - they are very often full. Especially the ones nearest the local shops...
Posted 11 years ago # -
"somehow we managed without a tumble dryer - as did our mothers and grandmothers before us."
Going far enough back for cloth nappies, not many of our mothers/ grandmothers also had to work when they had a child in nappies. They spent large amounts of time dealing with laundry. You think they wouldn't have given their right arm for a washing machine and tumble drier?
There's a smugness prevalent among parents whose circumstances permit them to make choices that are "better" than others. That should be resisted.
Posted 11 years ago # -
as did our mothers and grandmothers before us.
Slightly spurious argument, my grandmother did without a spin cycle, any form of non-public transport, a house with more rooms than children and a whole number of other things, including a job outside the house. This is not a lifestyle I'd enjoy.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be I'll tell you that.
If your organised enough to manage without; cool, I know I'm not it takes days for jeans to dry in my house and the number of drying* days is really quite small. Also worth remembering all that water goes somewhere and in winter the heating will be working harder.
*Days where I'm comfortable that the weather will remain stable enough for me to get washing out and for me to do something and not return to washing wetter than when I went out.
Posted 11 years ago # -
if we were down south where we weren't allowed to dry laundry outside, and our 60ies build flat had condensation in the windows, then i couldn't have dried nappies either.
Luckily, the two tenements we've lived in both dry clothes brilliantly and quickly on pullies, and the current one has a drying green that we put clothes out on most days.
I don't see why a reference to mothers and grandmothers is spurious. my grandmother grew up a peasant in an east european village, and raised her 7 kids in a new England farmhouse. My mother raised her kids in a apartment in LA, a highrise in central toronto, and a rowhouse on what would be called a 'scheme' (i was out of nappies by the time we moved to a bungalow) . And here's me in a tenement with two kids. So what? I know who has the easier ride.
Posted 11 years ago # -
I don't see why a reference to mothers and grandmothers is spurious.
The suggestion that we don't need labour saving devices because an ancestor didn't need them is daft how far back do we go? My grandmother didn't have a bike let alone a car or a washing machine (laundrette), should I walk every where and drag my washing down Gorgie as she did? Her grandmother probably didn't have an inside toilet, her grandmother would have been a crofter on the west coast. Go not much further back than that and my family weren't even allowed their name let alone a bloody tumble dryer...
My grandmother was (relatively) time rich and (very) poor compared to me now. So now I choose to use electricity and enjoy my free time go for a cycle or taking the kids to the zoo or a multitude of other things.
Posted 11 years ago # -
"The suggestion that we don't need labour saving devices because an ancestor didn't need them is daft"
perhaps some labour saving devices we sdon't actually need? it's a personal choice. have I said 'everyone must use cloth nappies'? No. The point is that we are talking as if disposable use isn't a choice, but required. and that by definition anyone with small kids will generate more landfill.
I used a mixture of both, depending on a wide range of factors. But I have used both and can speak from experience of using both.
But the idea that disposables are a huge time-saver strikes me as over-exaggerated. It doesn't take me any longer to chuck a load in the wash, than it would take me to take the rubbish down three flights of stairs and to the nearest bin.
Posted 11 years ago #
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