David and the boys had hours of fun, digging to Australia to install our new green cone. As you can see, Conall put it into action before the job was completely finished, but at least he waited for the cone to be in the ground before he popped in the kitchen waste!
(Aedan appears to be shovelling with thin air, but if you look at the 'bigger picture', you can see he had gloves on, which disguise the spade beautifully!)
We now recycle as much as possible, bearing in mind we have no car, so we have to use the kerbside facilities provided by our local council. These, we find more than adequate. In fact, while taking part in an online survey for the local paper last year, (the question being, "Is fortnightly bin collection enough?") I inadvertantly had my comments published in the local rag. Whoops!
I basically said that, as a family of six, we had no problems with the bin collection or recycling. The people complaining appeared to be couples, with no children.
One ordinary bin is big enough for us, it is never full, let alone overflowing even with a fortnightly collection. The glass and cardboard/paper collection is weekly and is plenty, although, had we a car, we would probably supplement this with visits to the recycling centre at various times of the year, Christmas and birthdays, for example. We occasionally get around to gardening, so again, the fortnightly garden waste collection is plenty.
I said that I felt people who had problems with the system maybe didn't take too much care over the kind of products they bought, whether they were cooking from fresh or using processed foods, so the types of packaging they had could be a problem. We crush any plastic bottles, like large milk cartons or the like, before putting them in the bin, they then take up less space. Of course, other, non-food or grocery items, can also have a lot of packaging.
Either that, or they were just lazy and wanted someone else to take the responsibility for their way of life.
Anyway, nobody replied, which was lucky. I hadn't meant to go public, it's only my opinion after all, not fact!
Since purchasing and now installing our composter and green cone, we've found they have a variety of uses. Entertaining the children being just one.
Resting large G & Ts on being another!
4 comments:
So what's a green cone then? Is it just a compost bin, or is there more to it?
As for waste - I know there's only 4 of us, but we too have no problem with the amount of space available to us - I wonder if as you say it's partly a lifestyle thing - in some ways I find it a lot easier to cook from scratch with small children - there's a lot more pressure to stick to a sensible routine, rather than just snatching meals as and when - and I find it easier to cook 'better' meals for more people. A couple who are both working full-time may simply not be organised enough to plan meals that can be cooked from scratch.
The green cone can take all sorts of kitchen waste, cooked and raw, including meat, bread and dairy, whereas the composter only takes raw veg and fruit waste. The cone can also take used tea bags, coffee grounds and bizarre things like egg shells, small bones and dog and cat poo, (that bit I don't fancy...). It can take garden waste, but it's recommended that you use the composter for this.
My bin will be almost empty at this rate!
You're right, it does depend on one's chosen lifestyle and I'm definately have the advantage that I have the time and the ability to cook. I don't mean to be judgemental.
(You should have seen the unedited version of that reply! It was much longer...)
We got our composter and cone from our local council for £15. Bargain!
xx
Ruth says:
Hello! I'm back!
We, too, go big on re-cycling. We have a compost bin in the garden. Our refuse collectors take paper, tin and glass for re-cycling and we can lug our card and plastic to the dump (by car) for re-cycling there. So not much other waste. BUT our kitchen surfaces are normally half full of piles of different sorts of waste waiting to go to the various outlets! I tend to over fill a large bowl per day with food waste - potatoe peelings and the like. This is partly because my children can be fussy eaters and leave a lot of food on their plates (esp my dd).
As for two-weekly collections... Our rubbish for collection goes into a plastic bin and you don't see much litter or discarded rubbish round here. But, in some areas, refuse goes into bags which seem to get torn and rubbish goes over the pavements and roads - and I'd hate to see an ever bigger increase in the rat population. (Saw two gigantic rats near the local supermarket the other day - yuch)
I think you're right, it's got to be a big, plastic bin to make sure you don't get night-time raiders.
Nice to have you back, btw! xx
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