Kitchen Garden Forum

Has anybody any imaginative uses for Council Recycling bins and boxes?
We got a letter yesterday to say our waste collection system is changing and we are going to be provided with
1 x 240 litre grey wheeled bin for non-recyclable waste
1 x 240 litre green wheeled bin for garden waste
3 x recycling boxes for cardboard, glass, cans, tins, plastic bottles
Well at the moment we leave out half a black bag a week at the front door but we are going to be expected to cart this lot down the drive to the roadside and back, I hope they have better wheels than any I've ever seen.
It's a use for the green bin I'm looking for, we don't have any garden waste. We buy one newspaper a week that lights the stove in winter or gets given to charity when we get a surplus. Most packaging and junk mail is torn up or shredded into the compost. We empty a limited number of tins and bottles so I suppose they will go out from time to time. The biggest bulk is probably tetrapaks from fruit juices and long life milk, it seems a shame there is no use for them.
I noticed when I was parked outside the Doctors surgery last week they use different trucks for the different classes of waste, three trucks went past - if they do that up here they'll do more environmental damage with diesel use and vehicle wear and tear than they could possibly make up with recycling.

Morning Geoff

What about a wormery?

My recycling yellow boxes (2) vanished one day about two weeks ago when I was driving past our house or so I thought so without going home I rang the Council to get two more delivered. She said that they would be deliverd with in the next two weeks. When I got home I found that a friend who lives across from us had, because it was windy, had put them up our drive behind the big bush we have there. So I rang the Council and cancelled them. Guess what, they still arrived two weeks later. I have just rung the council to have them collected and have been told that they will pick them up in the next few days. We will see how long it takes to be collected.

We use the spare boxes to store our coal and wood for the log burner.

A friend of our uses the green wheely bin as a water store for the water that comes off the greenhouse and because the lid is down it doesnt go green and inviting to mozzies.

We used to have boxes for recycycling but we have now been issued with a large wheelie bin. The 3 boxes that I had have been recycled as follows:

1. Out the front of the house planted up with dahlias and bedding

2. Up in the lottie planted with carrots

3. Inside the greenhouse planted up with salads.

I was thinking about a wormery but Big Andrew has kyboshed that idea....so i'm always open to using them for something else

Those plastic recycling boxes don't last that long if they are left outside, they fade and go brittle quite quickly.
Of course I do realise there are many different types and makes, but this in my experience.

We must have very good quality ones in Rugby as we've had them for years and they're as good as new

We have had three wheelie bins for some years now and find them very useful: one for general rubbish (very little in there, mainly non-recyclable plastic and meat or fishy stuff), garden rubbish (used for small branches, old root-bound potting soil, ivy cuttings etc) and a large bin for paper and cardboard which also has inserts for glass and tins. Tetrapack cartons and recyclable plastic we take to the recycling station in town when we are there in any case, about once a month. In addition, we compost most green stuff in three large bins.