Not really. Our neighbours house is a listed building and so they have to put their rubbish out in bags - that really is offensive!

Before wheelie bins came out, there were black bin bags. All the local cats and dogs used to rip the bags open and pull all the rubbish out - now that's street litter;o)

And where I live in Ealing, we still do have the black bags and not bins... people next door hang theirs out on the spikes on top of their gates the day before the collection so they don't get attacked. Very attractive...

Where I live we used to keep our rubbish minimal and put it out on bin day and not before.

Where I used to live it was seagulls who ripped the bags apart and spread rubbish all over the pavement.

I hear what you say, but we are woke up at about 6.30 on a Wednesday morning by the bin men so it has to go out Tuesday night.
The local youth love to play football with our neighbours bags and think that it's funny to empty the recycle bins (smashing bottles) everywhere. It's stopped us recycling as it's that bad.

I prefer whelie bins to just balck bags. We havea real squirrel and fox problem round here, and any bags left out will end up having their contents strewn across the road, which the 2 caretakers have to clean up.

I don't think wheelie bins look all that bad to be honest.

We have one huge rectangular metal bin on wheels for household waste and a wheelie bin for recycling.

We have to use black bags because the lorries they have here can't deal with the wheelie bins. (Yes, honestly!)So we put the black bag in the wheelie bin and the bin men lift it out. If we don't there's a mess, whether the cats of the foxes get there first. The real problem with the bins is rows of terraced houses where the access is only through the house, and they tend to leave the bins on the pavement all the time - a real menace and eyesore, but what else can they do?

They could put them back where they found them!!
They do it here too and it really winds me up!

Meanie would you want to drag a wheelie bin back and forth through your house every week? I know I wouldn't. Our wheelie bin goes out on the evening before collection as, very occasionally, the scaffies come through early. Given there are no pavements in the village everyone puts their bin out and then removes it back into their garden.

Fair point there MG. I thought that Steragram meant that they just left them all across the pavement as they do here - I should have read it properly!
We are lucky enough to have a side entrance here.........

I meant that they leave them on the pavement up against the house wall all week. Not funny when there are three bins per household.

That was in Stafford - haven't seen it round here.

Far better service than we get! Bins stay where they "land" around here, but only after they've chucked half the contents all over the road!

We have to use black plastic bags and put them into dustbins so that animals and birds can't (usually) get at them. Sometimes a holidaymaker with a big dog comes to stay nearby. That dog knocks over the bins, drags out the bags and spreads the rubbish all over the countryside. It's horrible.

The other thing that REALLY gets to me is - our bins are near a public footpath used by lots of dog walkers. One of them puts bags of dog mess in our bin. I wouldn't mind if they tucked it into a black bag of rubbish (assuming one is in there), but they just put it in loose. If it's been raining - or rains later on, water collects in the bins and makes a sort of dog*h1t soup that some mug (me) has to tip out and clean up. It makes me shudder!! I wish I could find out who does it and ask them to take their bags of dog mess home with them.

I'm afraid that I would be following them home and putting it through their letterbox!

The bins aren't where we can see them so I've never managed to catch the culprit. I've considered putting notices on the bin lids.

They are all over the place here and now we have a collection every two weeks, they are dumped outside overflowing. As for the recycling.....Why don't people break down cardboard boxes before putting them in the bin?

It's a big and horrible problem, and I can't see a totally satisfactory answer. Here, we have huge, ugly "bidoni" every 500 metres or so - big metal containers with foot-operated closing tops that everyone throws their bagged rubbish into, and many of them are for specific recycled waste. At least we don't get black bins and plastic bags strewn across the streets, and dogs and foxes can't get at the rubbish, but we are responsible for carrying all our waste there ourselves, which for some people can be difficult. If you leave large items outside the bins, the binmen used to collect that, too, but now there are warning notices, and they'll hunt you down and the fines are quite scary!

Well I seem to be one of the few who are very happy with things.

I do not live in a street or road, but in what is called a walk.
We do not have wheely bins due to access problems.

We have a weekly collection every Saturday of bin bags and stuff for recycling.

They collect the recyclables early in the morning and the bin bags at lunchtime so they do not need to be put out the night before, seems to work very well.

Just to correct things, the people next door put their bags on the spikes only the night before the binmen come at the crack of dawn, so they're not there all week.
And I personally am very lucky - I live in a block of flats, and we have a bin area with those very large 'dumpster' things for our rubbish, and they're cleared weekly. The problem is recycling - my flat's constantly full of bags with plastics, paper, glass in them waiting for me to take them to the recycling unit, which we don't have any facilities for here. On the other hand, Ealing does take any plastic at all, they have large containers for putting everything and anything that's plastic into. And believe it or not, in one week, I'll have 2 carrier bags full of plastic...

they are ugly but as said not as ugly as black bin bags ripped up . its just a sign of the times . i think cars and signs and lots of modern things spoil what would be a stunning road or street but thats life . have you seen them wheelie bin covers that you stick round them with flowers etc on them . it does make them look a whoe lot better . luckily enough our wheelie bins are in an out the way ally at the back of my house .we have 2 bins . one green and one grey so not to bad a colour but i have seen bright blue ones that stand out like a sore thumb .

Here in West Lothian we have a grey bin for stuff going to the landfill, a blue bin for some recylable items, they don't necessarily take stuff marked as recyclable and then we have brown bins for garden refuse. We live in a listed building so I am at a loss to explain why some councils would force owners to keep using black plastic bags. All of our bins live in a bin area at the back of the house and collections are fortnightly for landfill and recycling bins. Once a month for garden refuse. You are allowed an extra bin or a larger bin if that is necessary. We take them to the front gate the night before they are due out and are up in time to place them outside the gate for 7am. There is a system in place that if you are not able to take your bin out for medical reasons they will come round the back for it and return it. I can also add we have lovely cheery chaps on our lorries. I'm so sorry to hear all the problems others have.

It's idiocy Scotsgran! My mate up the road was fined a hundred quid for putting his bin outside his listed home, yet his neighbour, and the rest of us on the same road, can put the bins outside our unlisted properties! And don't even think of putting it next door where it's unlisted - neither bin will be emptied!!

Did he think of phoning Watchdog? They might be able to find out why a council would supply and then refuse to empty a wheelie bin. How did the bin men know that it was a listed property?

Here is how daft it is...We could be fined up to a £1000. if we left our bin out Whether it was full or empty as they were a security risk and some people were fined for this.

Then the Council placed the communal Recycling bins ( wich are the same just a different colour) both on the road side (Very Ugly) and in the gated alley way where some of us were establishing a communal garden. Now the Council can not fine anyone for leaving their bin out full or empty because The Council have THEIR bins in the same place. End result Bins and rubbish everywhere.

Scotsgran - the binmen don't but the council jobsworth who knocked on the door did!

Pimpernel - I'm not even surprised.........

I don't know why we all put up with this nonsense - I can't speak for myself because I don't suffer in this way, but I saw something on the tv about people who had to put up with communal bins and all the debris and rubbish left lying around them. Funny, the Council came and cleared the rubbish, having been deaf to pleas of residents for 2 years, the day before the Watchdog team arrived to film... But Councils are run by ordinary people like you and me, and should be answerable to us as well rather than letting a bit of power go to their heads. Especially when often its their interpretation of the 'rules' which is singularly stupid...

Bins can be decorated with paint or there are sleeves available.
My gripe is that I am paying for a backdoor collection and been asked by the council to put my bin out front for collection

Every Council across the UK has to cut costs to deal with our deficit. We have our green wheelie bin, to recycle we need to walk or drive to our wee car park to dispose of glass, paper/cardboard and tins. Plastics and garden waste requires a four mile drive. B & I are more than happy to do as we want to recycle as much as possible - but what does the little old lady who live on her own, doesn't drive and can't walk far do? In Galloway, an extremely rural area, there is just one bin and everything is sorted at the depot as they've decided this is best use of resources. If folk stopped buying so much stuff that was over packaged or left said packaging at the supermarket it would be a start...

That's what I do MG.....All the packaging gets left at the supermarket. I never bag up at the till, just put it back in the trolley. Wheel it to the nearest bin and recycle before loadin up my rucksack

They can not be decorated or camouflaged. I went back to my childhood refuge in Wiltshire two weeks ago...Wheelie bins and cottages all the way.

Well one of our neighbour's has a decal saying "I Love Dogs' beyond that nope sitting at the roadside they can't be disguised!

great minds think alike mr barrett lol .

The veins in my head are throbbing now....

you can make them look a lot better . punch in wheelie bin covers on google and you will find some great flowery complete covers for £9.95 . i know its not a total salution but its a hell of a lot etter especilay if you can get some plants round your wheelie bin .

NP no matter what sat at the curb side your wheelie bin looks like - guess what! A wheelie bin... Given this has nothing to do with plants or growing I am about to disappear... all I can ask is that you recycle everything that you can!

like i said its not perfect mg but its a hell of a lot better than bright blue .

It has a lot to do with gardens MG. They are right by the front door in many gardens.

this is true it does depend on if your lucky enough to have a back gate like me with an ally . i can never see mine as there behind my pond near the gate .i still prefer them to faffing about with the old dustbins and bin bags .

definatly not i totaly agree bilbobaggins .

I can't think of anything more disgusting than your description of your poor dad Bilbobaggins. We still need to take our glass to a recycling centre and don't mind doing that but as MG says, what about when we get too old and unable to drive there. I must say having supermarkets charge for plastic bags would dfinitely help people to remember to bring a 'green' bag to take home the shopping. I use containers for dry goods at home so i tend not to buy overpackaged goods in cardboard boxes. We do eat a lot of beans of differnt kinds in recipes and i buy tins which have already been cooked to cut down on the time it takes me to cook stuff. Electricity is at premium prices nowadays. I remember a politician saying buy cheap cuts of meat as they are nutricious and less expensive.By the time they are long slow cooked they are the same price as fillet steak. Washing and drying your dads clothes would be almost impossible on a daily basis on some peoples wages.

Cooking your cheap cuts in a slow cooker isn't expensive though- you can cook the cheapest cut in 6- 8 hours max, and it takes 10 hours to use one single unit of electricity, so there's no comparison really.
Our supermarket has started charging 5p for plastic bags and say it has made a huge difference to how many people bring their own.
I don't throw my packaging away in the shop, but I do resist putting most of my fresh veg into plastic bags.

I agree that is very cheap if you have the slow cooker to start with but when the MPs tried surviving on the basic money from DHSS they would not have been able to buy a slow cooker and eat. It is a good idea though and cheaper cuts often taste better. Our Coop has started charging for bags and I think people are refusing to buy them so that is good. Our local Tesco has put in a huge recycling collection point so they are trying to help cut the waste. We watched a glass recycling lorry driver tip each of the different coloured glass containers in to his lorry. When my husband asked why, he said it was not cost effective to collect them separately. There is still a long way to go before we are brought to our senses about being wasteful. Maybe we need to get domestic science put back on the school curriculum so that kids know how to be thrifty. The boys in my Primary school grew all the veg needed for the school kitchen and so learned how to grow food. i know there is more interest in teaching children about growing their own but adults at home need to be encouraged to do it too.

I agree Scotsgran, children should learn to grow veggies along with their parents.

The children wouldget excited when they see the end result of their handy work.

My Nan had a small garden, but set aside a hug pot for me to plant tomatoes each year and look after them when I stayed over of a weekend, and it was great seeing the end result.

My grandchildren are already good at vegetable growing having had sweet success and the older one can't wait to be old enough to join the school gardening club.

Sixty years on I still remember the seeds I first planted when I was about 6; pale blue nigella, deep blue cornflowers, Californian poppies and white candytuft. I would race down the garden each morning to see if they'd germinated. I got so excited when they flowered. Who needs Playstation or X-Box 360?
Surely gardening and cookery are as important as some of the daft things that get taught in schools today! Both skills seem to be dying out as the parents don't have them.

I think gardening and cookery are vital skills to teach our young people. There is at least one and possibly two generations that do not know how to cook from scratch.

my step daughter asked me how to turn bacon over at 16 years old . your definatly not wrong there . i coul;d gut fish and cook them way before that and im still a good cook . everything is microwave or in tins etc now . not to mention other things like sat nav so people wont even know wear they are if they go wrong . as for litter persay i think cars look like litter and modern signs not just wheelie bins . i wonder if you can get a flowery sleeve for ya car or motor bike lol .

How I agree with you! So many people these days seem to expect to have things done for them. They have no enterprising spirit or imagination, or any desire to learn! Surprisingly enough, MG, I never learnt to cook from either my Mother (born 1920) or my Grandmother (born 1896). Both were no more than basic, mediocre and unenthusiastic cooks. My Grandfather though, taught me a love of plants and gardens (I think he escaped there from his wife and daughter), my own father was an energetic, but never enthusiastic gardener, so didn't really instill any love for either flower or vegetable growing. His interest was (or seemed) purely economic.
So this is something all my own.
Our daughter is not the slightest interested in either gardening or cookery, but she is having to learn to cook for herself because she is coeliac, and HAS to fend for herself or starve. She loves the results of my efforts in both fields, though. I am always more than willing to learn and invent, and to try anything, and am rarely put off by the sort of things that other people find distasteful or disgusting. Maybe I am perverse! Maybe I have a naturally pioneering spirit or maybe just I am enjoying bucking the trend and growing old disgracefully!

Don't get me started on street signs Nosey! At 50% of them are unnecessary.

Only 50%? !!!!!
By the time you've tried to read everything as you're coming up to a junction, it's too late to take it all in and you've probably shunted the guy in front who's trying to do the same thing............ I've been three times round roundabouts before now trying to take all the sign information in..... I've not put "LOL" in, 'cos it's not funny.

...and round here you get them in Welsh first... I wouldn't like to have to cope with them in Italian, so I will count my blessings.

Scotsgran,I got my slow cooker for nothing from Freecycle!

Near us it is gaelic first... causes huge problems fir the tourists.

and italy is one of the worst places to drive to in the cities . no its not funny . we havea placecalled nuns bridges here thats a stunning view but all the sighnsrailings etc realy spoil it .so is life .

Nosey, you are absolutely right about Italian cities being a terrible place to drive - I feel physically sick if I have to drive into town or to the airport.
Steragram & Scotsgran - aren't slow cookers wonderful things? I LOVE mine. Not sure what I'd do without it, and it saves so much money. I'm sure ours has paid for itself many times over - it cost £14 from Tesco 5 years ago. Who wants to use the oven when temperatures are in the 40's?

Very yummy Bilbob.

I also use mine to make stock from the chicken carcass - I usually let it burn if I do it on the stove but the slow cooker does it perfectly.

We have moved a long way from wheelie bins!

Not really so far Steragram, we are still talking about waste and or not wasting things. I make stock with all the bones, never used the slow cooker to do it though...but I will now that you have mentioned it. Bones are the only food stuff I throw out and the seed from peppers.

There was a Team from the Council, I counted five of them, with passes and clipboards and suited walking round the area noting all the bins that were still out and full the day after bin collection this week. There were loads of them, why if you didn't put the bin out on time, would you dump it outside after the collection? The same people contaminate the recycling bins with general waste so they can not be collected and emptied on the correct day. Grr

I haven't got a slow cooker - having read all this thread, if it really uses only one unit of electricity in ten hours, I'm considering getting one - anyone know how many units an ordinary electric oven uses in, say, 3 hours?
Also, anyone know whether its cheaper from the fuel point of view to make stock in a slow cooker or, as I do now, by simmering it for 3 hours on the gas hob?
And, does anyone know anything about those halogen ovens, those round things - my sister says they're cheaper than using a conventional oven, but are they?

You could try making stock in a pressure cooker rather than a slow cooker... I confess I still use my big pot on the hob!

Other than that I refuse excess packaging, reuse what I can, tee shirts become dusters for example whilst tatty old towels move out to the potting shed to be used for all sorts of things... what I can't reuse is, if possible, recycled. We don't have kerbside recycling as it is a rural area but do have a facility in the village where we can recycle cardboard, glass and cans. Four miles away we can recycle just about anything and we store up and fill the car to make the trip or Bulba will go there on the way to somewhere else.
My big wish is for a public transport system... a bus goes through the village to take the children to and from school and you can get to the local town on it but returning by public transport you are dropped over a mile from the village not much use if you have heavy shopping bags. Of course, in the school holidays that bus does not exist at all!

I tried in the pressure cooker, bought one specially to make stock but, you know, oddly, it doesn't give the same good result. Leave it longer than 40 minutes and it gets that overcooked smell, yet the strength and flavour just isn't there...

A friend always uses her pressure cooker and it seems to work for her I haven't tried so can't comment.

I make my stock on the gas hob like you MG & Bamboo, for about 3hrs or so, checking it once and a while. I think meat tastes so much better in a slow cooker and you just don't have to worry about checking up on it. So I reckon it would be Ideal for stock...Can't think why I haven't done it.

Ours is an electric hob - no gas in the village and don't fancy the idea of propane cylinders

My last attempt, many, many years ago at using a pressure cooker ended up with a big bang and a haggis-covered ceiling, which time and a warm kitchen did little to improve. That's why it was my last attempt.
In winter, I put our cast-iron or terracotta pots on the top of our woodburning stove to simmer day and night. There's nothing better to increase the appetite than a long, frosty winter's walk, and coming homewards down the hill and smelling first the woodsmoke, and then the rabbit stew with wine and herbs.....Mmmmm!

I now have a slightly better understanding of the gripes about wheelie bins!
We have had a wheelie bin, green it is, for our rubbish for several years and I have no problem with it, and the neighbours bins, being out on the street on collection day.
Today the council lorry came round and gave each household a further THREE wheelie bins, yes three wheelie bins, for re-cycling. A brown one for garden waste, a blue one for paper and a bright purple one for plastic. There was also a much too small box for bottles. Now who is going to want to drag four bins out onto the street for collection. I dread to think what the street will look like on collection day.
Now for the best bit. None of us were consulted before the delivery of these bins but, if we don't want them we just have to phone the council and they will come and take them away. Just how stupid is that!!!!

I would like to think that you minimise your recycling so that you do not need to put any of them out for every collection day. Our paper/cardboard/plastic bin only goes out when it is full. The brown one for garden refuse is very handy and I now have eight of those. Four I use for my composting and four I use to put out for composting by the council who have heaps of compostables big enough to get hot enough to get rid of all the stuff I can not get rid of in my bins. I actually have 25 recycling bins in total. All are around the 40 gall size. After 2 years and having sown and harvested a crop from them I can safely use what comes out of them in my own garden either as a mulch or to pot things up. When my daughter lived in Germany she had seven yes 7 bins, all different colours for different items. We thought it was a great idea. Idk who thought up those trashy small boxes here but I would prefer to take my recycling to the local collection point but there are elderly people who can't so I guess they are happier about being able to recycle too.

And Bulbaholic whilst the colour of those bins is the same across the UK what you put in them is not. Here the brown one is for plastic and glass, blue for paper, grey for Green waste...Then the food waste little box..

The system should be universal

My daughter in Somerset was given a small container with a secure lid for food waste which lives outside. It came with a second table top bin which is used with compostable liners. It is very handy and means you do not need to have kitchen waste in the landfill bin any more. I agree it would be very much more sensible if there is a universal colour code for waste.

Out of the mid blue yonder with absolutely no warning 3 - yes three bins were dumped in our tiny driveway today. A seriously hideous magenta one for plastic bottles and tins - note only plastic bottles! One for paper and cardboard and a 'brown bin' for green waste, along with a crate for glass. We were not informed that this was happening or asked if we wanted. Checking through the paperwork that arrive I discovered that we could ask for these to be taken away... guess what we did! There is no way we want for bins cluttering up our garden - we already recycle everything you can at the recycling centre in our car park 100m down the road...

If this rainbow or wheelie bins is what you are all having to deal with then I agree 'litter'!

Watch out MG if you all refuse them ...They may site them on the street as they have done here.

Arg... we are happy to recycle... but why suddenly dump 3 bins and a container for glass on us with no consultation... See my So's comments above :-)

We already have an acceptable recycling point in the village car park 100yards away!!!!

The system is creating rubbish all over the UK....Councils hitting targets.

Who is creating rubbish all over the country. If I could catch the litter louts that leave the local Macdonalds and festoon the countryside with their rubbish i would report them in an instant. Why don't people accept that like all new systems there will be teething problems. The councils have a duty to recycle and it is surely in our best interests, never mind the interests of the workmen and women who pick up our refuse, to cooperate. If that means writing to the council to explain your point of view or going to see your local councillor about it then do that. I remember trying to push a pram along pavements in Edinburgh where YOUR refuse was strewn across the pavements by animals breaking open black bin bags.
Can we go back a few years and look at the history of the problem.
Pre 1970's all rubbish was collected from metal bins provided by the householder and dumped in landfill.
post 1970's the first solution to the handling problems associated with the metal bins was that householders should use black bin bags.
Since the millenium those are being phased out and being replaced, first with one bin the contents of which went to landfill. In order to prevent that valuable resource being used up councils developed the multi bin collection.
I will vote to keep it at all costs. Foreigners don't say we are a dirty nation without cause. As an older member of society I find these bins a great improvement on what went before.
We probably all saw the TV programmes of people in India and China picking over rubbish sent out to them from this country. I would ask are we husbanding resources and helping the world or are we going to continue our neglect of our country and keep it looking messy. I hope I have not hurt anyones feelings but the question at the beginning was "are wheelie bins nothing more than street litter". I have to say if they are, they are our street litter, and it is up to us to stop littering, but not by getting rid of the best solution to our refuse problem that has been offered so far.

I agree we ALL have a duty to recycle Bulba and I recycle everything we can but why, with no consultation, suddenly dump three extra wheelie bins on us. In the rest of Moray they have boxes for recycling - we would have accepted those, not 3 more bins though. This morning 99% of the bins are still sitting where they were dropped off by the council and I suspect they will continue to sit there. The majority of the people in our village are elderly, pulling one bin from the back garden to the roadside is hard work for some of them. We have no pavements so they are basically lining the sides of what is already a narrow road; perhaps we can use them to slow down the traffic which we have been trying to do for years without success! When I phoned the person whom I spoke to said 'You do realise your green bin will only be emptied once a fortnight' my response was 'If it was emptied once a month it would be fine by me'.

I asked the question and am in two minds about them scotsgran. While it is fine for you to have 25 40 gallon recycling bins to use if you can house them properly. Obviously space is not such an important issue for you.

In my little back yard 3 40 gallon bins are a major issue especially as I don't need them as I manage my waste and recycling as I go. I can quite easily not put my waste bin out for a month. Because there is no room for a lot of people to store their bins some are forced to have them lined up outside their front doors, the bins actually become litter on the pavement.

Also rather than reducing waste it seems to have generated more. The inconsiderate litter bugs now have three bins to throw their crap in rather than just the one, recycling does not come into it..The same people use the communal bins in the same way. they are stuffed to overflowing then they dump rubbish by them. As the bins are emptied every two weeks now, the litter blows everywhere for two weeks. report it to the council but they will not come out other than to stick a label on the offending bin saying "Litter Crime"

People are really the problem...but the bins are litter in themselves

I agree Pimpernel people are the problem but the bins are litter in and of themselves.

Point taken Pimpernel and MG. You did phone the council MG and I would say that was probably the cheaper option than paying through your council tax for every householder to receive a letter or leaflet asking them to request a bin. I hear your against argument what I don't hear is a solution. Maybe someone can suggest an alternative. Perhaps locking bins with an electronic device which bin men can use to open the bins when they come in to your street. Those boxes might seem like a good solution for you Mg but if anything they would be much worse in the situations Pimpernel is describing. I would hate them. They are provided in my daughters village and she has to carry then down a long lane out of sight of the house. It was a nightmare when she had two under fives to worry about. Nothing is perfect but if we don't communicate our problems to the LA in numbers great enough to be heard you have to accept that it is a work in progress and keep making suggestions on how you want to see it improve. What are Parish or Community Councils doing about the problems. Are they even aware of them being problems. Should the elderly and infirm not have their bins collected from and returned to where they are used. It happens here.

As the vice chair or our local community council I can assure you this topic will be discussed strenuously at our next meeting. The LA did not advise us this was going to happen so we were in the dark as much as any other resident. There are houses in the village that have several steps up into their garden I know I wouldn't be able to pull the bins up and down them. One man already leaves his green bin at the roadside because of this so I assume he will leave the other 3 too. There isn't a perfect solution and I do realise that what works for one person does not work for all.

I am happy to hear that it will be discussed MG. Sometimes bad decisions can be put right with a bit of come and go from everybody. Negociating steps with wheelie bins or taking them through a house are definite problems which need to be addressed. The solution in the cities - to site communal bins in full view of the populace with access for any casual passer by has been a major disaster for those concerned. Hopefully people will begin to think of better solutions for the different scenarios presented by the different properties we have in this country. As you say one size does not fit all.

Bamboo, I have only just noticed your question about the economics of slow cooking - yes, it is much cheaper to slow cook for 8-10 hours than to stove top cook for three. A slow cooker only uses about the same amount of electricity as a 100 watt light bulb.

thanks Steragram - I've been researching slow cookers, blimey, what a difficult task that is - the info you've just given me I was entirely unable to find anywhere. But I have a gas hob, so its gas that's being used for 3 hours, not electricity - not sure how that compares. And if you want to make stock in it, how long would you need to cook it for? Any recommendations as to which one to buy?