In Aberdeen, we have;
Green indoor caddy with liners for food.
Brown wheelie bin for above liners garden waste
Black box for glass/tins
White cloth bag for paper/cardboard
Black wheelie bin for everything else.
Thankfully, my wife takes heed of it all.
My way, I would only use the black and brown wheelie bins, everything else would be ignored.
We currently have a green wheelybin for general waste, a green lidded box for glass and two smaller black boxes for paper and plastic.
I find it ridiculous that we are provided with a lidded box for glass yet an open one for paper, so I end up not bothering to recycle paper.
Last year when we took our glass bottles to the Local Recycling Centre ("the tip") we had to sort them into Clear, Brown Glass and Green Glass.
Now that the 'Bin Men' collect them we notice they just get 'chucked in' any old how.
I would put my £5 down and bet the EU have got something to do with this.
Oooooooh! You are a very, very naughty boy!
Hmmm? Tick tick. Whirr whirr. Thinks...........
I think (either that or I'm very susceptible to propaganda) that they used to try and recycle the glass for new glass, so it was best to separate the colours.Now it is recycled to use as aggregate and it doesn't matter what colour it is.
Edit: a quick hunt on the net suggests they can separate the colours at the recycling facility, so take your pick...data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
Carmarthenshire; 1 blue bag for plastics, paper, tins, cans.
Local collection points in village for glass and garden waste.
Small food caddy in house, larger food bin outside. No problems as long as you empty, pehaps every other day. I know that food waste is converted into pellet style fertiliser. Don't see any issue there.
General waste is collected every other week, in rotation with blue bags. It seems to work very well.
Carmarthenshire makes recycling easier than most, or so it seems.
we have weekly food waste collection.
I think they are a brilliant idea. It means that very little at all goes into the general waste bin, not mess when emptying bin, no mess on the streets from cats ripping open bin bags.
Do buy the liners for your small caddy though. You will soon get sick of messing about with newspaper and having to wash the caddy out because the paper has disintegrated!
I currently like my current service (bury)
Got a black caddy (funnily seem to all made by 'Straight' check yours and you will see) and liners. The liners don't have holes and are strong but a nightmare to tie up. When there are around 5 or so bags left there is a yellow tag which you pop onto the brown garden waste bin and voila you get a new roll. Only gripe is it gets collected fortnightly however the bags are strong, the bin is big and has a lid so animal/insects are not a problem. The 2weekly grey bin only has some plastic bags and tubs in it now, and finds itself going out every 4 weeks instead.
I hate councils that use flimsy bags and boxes that result in the contents being deposited all over the road and so after numerous emails we now have a big blue monthly bin for the cans and glass and stuff and a big green bin, also monthly for paper and cartons (even juice castons). Unfortunately icecream tubs and fruit punnets etc can;t go in the blue which is a shame.
I never bothered with the old paper bag service. And in a street of say 20 houses, i could only see 5 bags out. Now the bin is more of a compulsory thing.
Most people do feel uncomfortable about the foodwaste collection so some tips:
I asked them for another caddy so that, say on a busy cooking day and the liners full and it's snowing outside, tie it up, pop it near the door and use the other extra caddy
Try and put the food at the bottom and garden stuff at the top
Our binmen don't care whether there's just 1 bag in there so put it out when possible to prevent blue stuff from sticking to the bottom
In summer and you are worried about it smelling, use the caddy one week and the general bin the other week.
It doesn't mean you can throw away all the food you like, still try and eat it! It'll just get turned into soil, and sometimes i don't think that happens when too many idiots think that aluminium foil is a food and put it in and the whole load gets turned down so get's chucked out.
I can't stand people who leave the paper bin lids open in the rain. Is it me or is there something wrong with seeing wet shredded paper in the bush?
I like how we don't have ridiculous separating things or vans where they sort it on the road, waking you up on Tuesday morning... all the glass plastic and cans get thrown into one van, and if you wait outside with an extra bag then will happily take that as well. I see some of you have separate glass boxes and paper only bags!! How i pity you!
The caddy has perforations so needs a liner, the liners then go into the green wheelie bin.
Ah, I see ours are water tight. And then you empty into a special food waste mini bin, also water tight.