Help - I'm being recycled :)

Sorry Gee I couldn`t help but laugh, it sounds worse than being taken over by the triphids ...

I agree they are very unsightly. We have to leave ours out in the front garden which I hate, because they (in my eyes) spoil the rest of the garden. We only have two wheelie bins and I have recently bought a really tall, wide planter to go in front of the bins, but you can still see them from certain angles.

It will be such a shame to have to give up your gravel beds and give your clematis a haircut just to house these ugly monstrosities. I have seen some wheelie bins which pictures of flowers/greenery stuck on, but not sure if this actually makes them look any better!

I know how you feel, Gee. We recycle religiously but the arrival of two more huge bins to replace the smaller ones we already had was not welcome. That's 4 full-size bins to date.They're going to have to go in the garage but that will need a complete clearout to make space and it's a two person job, which OH simply hasn't time for at present. At the moment they're making rather unattractive garden features on the patio!!

I'm sorry you have to make alterations to accommodate the bins. What a nuisance :o(
... and they are very ugly, but I don't know what the alternative would be.

We don't have wheely bins here, but we have blue bags for recycling, which they collect every fortnight ... and by that time there are 2 or 3 full bags, and nowhere to keep them.

I'm lucky in that this house has a side entrance between it and the next house down, so the wheely bins could be brought in that way if we had them.

We have communal bins here...different coloured bags are delivered to each house and the waste is duly deposited in the appropriate bag and taken along to the receptacles...

...which is hard enough...because the plastic (only if it's marked recyclable) and the tins and the paper...

...end up being much, much bigger than the kitchen bin!
(But, at least, I can take them along as soon as they're full)

There's very little left in the normal bin and it mostly goes toward the compost heap and the chickens.

I'd hate my garden to be taken up by a big row of ugly wheelie-bins...as is my Mum's...

I'm thinking, "why can they not get more wise?"

...you have my sympathies

I sympathise with you Gee we also have four large bins, they are so unsightly and they have ruined the neighbourhood as those people who have no place to keep them have them all lined up outside their houses, everywhere looks unsightly and untidy, Remember the days when we just had one Bin and the refuse collector would come upto your house empty the bin and put it back!. These days my husbands puts all the bins out every week for all our more ederly neighbours and puts them back for them too, I hate to think what our little road would look like without his work! Its recycling gone mad!!!

That's what will happen here, I'm afraid, PP, as we are all getting older and they are so cumbersome to move even when empty.

I don't think the the 'flower stickers' help much either, Lijemc, although it could help them blend in if the bins are hidden behind a bush anyway.

I think I am resigned to parting with a couple of gravel beds and laying some slabs down. I can utilize some of my pots to help it look better. I am determined to hide them somehow.

I'm so pleased I'm not alone in feeling like this, I began to think I had turned into a 'grumpy old lady' :)

In our area we have two black boxes one for glass & cardboard one for newspapers and junk mail no lids to them so if you have to keep them outdoors everything gets wet (OH made a lid out of mdf and covered it with roofing felt) the boxes fit on top of each other we have a small brown caddy for the kitchen waste which as a biodegradable bag in it which when full we remove to a large outdoor brown caddy ,then we have a large blue bag in which we have to but cans plastic bottles and other food contains all which have to be rinsed out oh forgot tetra pak cartons go in black box with the glass & cardboard ,then we have black bags which we put in non recyclable stuff and NO food waste the boxes and brown caddy plus big blue sack is collected from the kerbside weekly, black bag collected every two weeks, they give you a sheet of do & don'ts and where to put everything in and the date for the two weekly collection. Phew have I given you all a headache because I certainly have one every time I stand with something in my hand and think where the hell do this go and then OH shouts where do this go black box brown box blue sack then on collection day he's say what is to go out this week depending on how full each item is .we are just getting to grips with it LOL the joys of saving the planet .

We've had our wheelies for years, three of them but although we have a huge back garden and plenty of room, plus the side gate we still have to keep them in the front as we have steps from the driveway down to the house and they are too heavy when full, I doubt the council would appreciate it if I kept breaking them.
I do feel for you Gee and anyone else who hasn't got much room, I keep showing hubby the little cubbies that some people have built to hide them but no luck so far....

I dont have much room, and have asked for the new blue bin to be replaced by one half the size.
Also on the helpful leaflet that came, they said if a householder has difficulty taking the bin out to let them know and collection and redelivery can be arranged.
(Kettering, Northants Borough Council)

Kidsgran, your system seems very much like the one being introduced here, I've received reams of info and I have a 'calendar' of when each is collected. It starts in July so I have a few more weeks to try and get my head around it :)

I did looked at the cubbies that you can buy, Lincslass, but they were very expensive and didn't look particularly unobtrusive! A home made, self designed one seems a good idea :)

My mum, who has Alzheimers and vascular dementia has no idea what goes in which bin! I keep expecting her to get one of those notices saying, 'You are not recycling correctly. If this happens again you will be fined'! This happened to a friend who, on one occasion, inadvertently popped cardboard in with plastic or soil in with garden waste - forget which. The recycling police are out to get you!

My sympathy Gee we have the same system here, my problem is we have a long steep drive so when they first arrived and I saw how big they were I had visions of the them dragging me down the drive not the other way round :o)

We have two green and one black bin, everything except polystyrene and food waste goes in the green bins, because we are on a country lane on a hill we have an open box affair ( as have others along here)
only way to stop them blowing away...
..I still have a dustbin with a bag near the house for food waste, each week I put it in the black bin but its only collected every other week as is the recycling bins. I wouldn't want them any nearer the house as the black one can get a bit 'high' in the summer even though the waste is double wrapped.....imagine fish skin or chicken carcase in a hot bin, in the sun for two weeks! Crazy........

We have no bins for normal household rubbish, have to put black sacks out, we have a bin for glass paper etc, and if you want a bin for garden waste u have to pay yearly for the use of it.....dont think I would want any more containers, good luck with yours

We had to build the box originally for the black bags, leave them out even for a short time and the crows ripped them open

Oh dear what a pain, hope you can get it sorted without ruining your garden.....

We have orange bags for paper, tins, plastic packaging and plastic containers They are collected weekly at a different time to the black bags. We also have a green wheely that we pay for yearly. I put glass in a bin near some flats a short walk away when I am passing and also some, always empty bins, at Homebase. An excuse to go in the garden centre. The wheelies are so ugly to be in the front garden. My cousin's wheely was huge for domestic waste, very stinky and hard to push. I wash everything that goes into the rubbish to stop smells and foxes/cats tearing the bags open. Birds will often eat left overs, chicken bits, noodles etc, and there is the compost heap too, and the toilet as well.

I have just ordered a garden 'wheelie' from the Council, £30 per year but reduced this year as the scheme isn't being introduced until August now! I am still trying to get my head round what goes where in the two other bins, the only one I'm clear on is the third and smaller 'food' bin :)

Yesterday we started to clear the two gravel beds opposite the front door so I can push the bins through and hide them away. Grandson and son in law (bless their hearts) are laying slabs down so I will be able to put some pots out there to make it look more presentable. So far we have 11 rubble bags of thick heavy clay which was under the gravel (recycled elsewhere). I can't think of anywhere I can 'lose' the clay so I think I will have to order a skip - unless anyone wants to start making pots :)

They don't realise what trouble the put people into by making them have so many huge, ugly bins. I have the use of next door's green wheelie for 3 weeks while they are in USA to put clippings off the shrubs into. It takes up so much room, partially blocking the side entrance. Good job you have family help to sort things out.

Goodness, just had a shock at the price of skips - we would only need it for 2 days at the moment but have to pay the full cost and it may stay in situ for up to 3 weeks! Think we may have to find another solution :(

I know its a pain getting organised Gee but our wheelie bins are the best thing the council have done for us in recent years, I 've had the garden waste from the start, we have to pay £25 per year but at the cost of fuel and the fact that the nearest waste disposal site is a 20 mile round trip it does work out cheaper in the long run, the recycling and rubbish bins are emptied on alternate weeks, our streets are a lot tidier since we had the bins as the darn birds used to get at the bags and tear them open, also some people were unable to grasp that one could actually learn how to tie them up in the first place, lol..
Skips are a terrible price, we had lots last year when emptying my parents old house, have you anyone local with a little truck who earns their living clearing out peoples garages and suchlike, my girl had a man clear lots away for her last week, he had to make two journeys but the price was half the cost of a skip...

Thanks for the encouragement, Lincslass, I'm sure I will get value from money from the garden waste bin as I just don't have enough space for all the debris from the garden and have to rely on son in law to take stuff to the tip for me and, like you, that's a bit of a trek! Our dustmen have been brilliant taking stuff too as long as it's all bagged up. It's not the councils fault that I built raised gravel beds along the length of the front garden - it will be fine :) I think son in law may come to the rescue and take all the soil to the tip for me too but it will take a good number of trips :(

We have a sort of scavenger man come round our way about twice a week. He takes almost anything you ask him to take. He helped clear a lot of stuff out of the garden shed a while back. No cost at all. His truck is always piled up. The green wheelies are a real help. There is a waste disposal site out in the countryside that we pass often. They are helpful when they see we are older. They just take the stuff, no questions asked. The green wheelies are so useful. Next doors borrowed one is additional to our own one, while they are away for 3 weeks.

I suppose aesthetics cost; councils usually work to "cheapest is best". I've seen "wheelie bin covers" that you can stick on to camouflage them, but I would assume the food waste bins to be a different size and shape - the ones that I've seen round here are.

ps: just Googled it, even Amazon has some

We have flimsy orange plastic bags for recycling, collected weekly along with the wheelie bins - doesn't stop some people overfilling their bins every week. Couple next door to me would fill my bin as well as their own (bin had to be at the front as no access to the back garden except through the house) - really looking forward to being able to keep my own bin in my own back yard!

After a lot of hard work clearing the raised beds, getting the debris to the tip in stages (lovely son in law to the rescue) and a bit of devious cutting up and putting in the wheelie bins (please don't tell on me!) I am now happy with the new system. I am amazed at how little food waste I have, even with regular visits for my ever-hungry grandchildren and I have work out what goes where (well almost). I still think the wheelie bins are ugly and that the lids open the wrong way but, apart from that, we are getting on well together :)

Try googling decorated wheelie bins and select images for ideas of disguises.