To be fussy about my wheelie bin?

We have one wheelie bin for garden waste, no food waste to be put in this bin.
One yellow bag for cardbosrd
One blue bag for paper
One red box for glass
One red box for plastic and tins , no tin foil
One black wheelie bin - small size as there are only 2 of us - for everything else.
Boxes have lids which are liable to blow off in strong winds, and the contents can be scattered over a large area.

Before we moved to this area se had one black wheelie bin and one big blue wheelie bin for all recyclables - great system

In Cheshire we have three big bins but you can choose size depending on your household. We have a dark grey general waste bin, a silver all recycling and a brown garden waste bin.

I don't like emptying my vacuum cleaner directly into a bin either. I can often fill the garden waste bin in a week.

We have two bins. One for recycling stuff like cardboard, plastic and glass. You are not allowed to put anything in bags....It has to be loose. I wash out food containers and tins before chucking them in which is probably a waste of time but I don't like to think of the smells because it only gets emptied once a fortnight.

The other bin is for green waste and as we have three large compost heaps I struggle to fill it.

It's a bit worrying that people are using so many plastic bags. We have a bin for rubbish and a bin for recycling. I wish our council would do a food waste collection. I used to compost all of it but our garden is so small that we have far more compost than we can use, so the waste all goes in the kitchen bin now. We have someone who comes round and cleans the bin once a month.

Everything gets bagged before being binned, even tissues get tied in a nappy sack. We have a green, a blue and a brown bin but we do not use the brown one as they have asked for £25 a year to empty it.

He's still questioning my sanity, still about the bin. There may well be another reason tomorro?

Dramatic Tessa and Jings - thank goodness, two people who would have put the dust straight in the bin. Poor DS was quite excited to see which of us got more support but then went very, very, quiet. He's not very happy about the Russian goal either. I'd better remind him he was born in Wales!
Tegan - my compost rats were most likely attracted by egg shells too, although I did once add some nibbled (by us) corncobs which can't have helped. Maybe washing egg shells and no corn cobs would have kept them away completely.

Black for general waste, blue for recycling, small caddy and larger bin for food and 3 green sacks for garden waste.

How glad I am that our council is still in the dark ages and uses bin bags. Take us less room that W.Bins .and more hygenic

How many bins do people have, I know it varies from council to council. I have 1 black wheelie bin for general rubbish, 2 green bins for recycling, 1 small food waste caddy, 1 slightly larger food waste bin and several green bags for garden waste.

My family in Australia have just 2 bins, 1 for general rubbish and 1 for recycling and garden waste. Every few weeks they also put out large items for collection (furniture etc.) anybody can come along and take it and what is left over the council collects and disposes of. They found it hard to believe when I told them how many bins I had and were amazed when I said if the wheelie bin lid isn't closed the rubbish isn't collected!

House dust in fine loose in the wheelie bin. As is cold fire ashes. But all food waste should be wrapped securely or your neighbours will get the stink as well as you.

You shouldn't put any cooked food in a compost bin. That could attract rats.

Of course you are not being unreasonable, Elrel. You are saving yourself having to do a lot of nasty bin-cleaning, or enduring a stinky bin attracting flies.

Bad luck on the hall carpet re-hooving, tho!

It was eggshells that caused the problem. By the time I realised it was too late.

Tegan I am surprised you have rats if all you are putting in your compost container is uncooked vegetable waste and garden waste. We have had a rat problem in the garden a number of times, but never anywhere near the compost. I also put wastepaper and cardboard on the compost heap. All the shredded paper from our shredder goes into it.

At the moment our wheelie bin rubbish is collected fortnightly and recycling weekly but the council is changing it to every three weeks for general waste with a view to four-weekly if it goes well!!!

Goodness knows what the smell will be like in the summer, even if stuff is bagged!

I never put loose rubbish in the general rubbish wheelie bin, but the recycling bin for plastic paper and so on is different, just tipped in.Food is put in small compostable bags in the little bin.

I have to agree with GJ here, We've composted for years, and have never ever had rats. Only veg peelings, banana skins, orange peel, grass, garden waste (avoiding weeds of course, which may reseed when you use the compost!), egg shells, paper, thin card such as egg boxes torn up and soaked. Never put in cooked food as this is what attracts the rats.

How daft is that Charleygirl- dust is totally organic and composts well when mixed with grass and other green stuff

Tegan, I was talking about the Council green bin for composting. Personally I make all my own- you will only get rats etc, if you put cooked left-overs and meat/fish, etc.

Grass, clippings, veg peelings and the contents of dust bag will not. Honest.

Like Elrel we have two wheelie bins - one for recycling with a fortnightly collection and the other for general waste which is collected weekly. I never put anything unbagged in the general one, not least because the advance party of bin men always consolidate bins that are half full or less, reaching in and taking out all bags and putting them in another bin to be upended into the cart. So anything not in a bag gets left behind, rather annoyingly! When my daughter visits and changes her baby's nappy, the soiled one, in a nappy bag of course, is put on top of the wheelie bin (rather than being left in the house ) until we empty the kitchen bin and then we drop the nappy bag into the kitchen bag. Otherwise it would get left behind in the bin.

I tried composting things till I had rats in my garden. I don't even like to use the compost that I did make knowing that it had had rats in.

Our wheelie bin is for food and garden waste only, I think that putting anything in a plastic bag in it might result in refusal to empty it, or some sort of public humiliation on the village green!

I compromise by wrapping some stuff in a sheet of newspaper, just the one, mind, because of course papers should go into another recycling thing!

I don't bother with a wheelie bin bag but do put most things into smaller bags which are then tied up. I don't put dirty cardboard into the recycling bin [ie if it's got breadcrumbs etc on it] but burn it. Plastic milk containers have to be rinsed; the S.O. puts them straight into the bin and it does my head in..ditto glass jars. As with the drawers in my house, everything going into the bin has to be tidy'ish. But I still have a house that looks as if it's been vandalised most of the time. My vacuum cleaner has vacuum cleaner bags but, if it didn't I would have to put the dust into a bag if I couldn't put it in the green bin.

Granjura - the vacuum cleaner dust did go into the compost.

I too am guilty we only got wheely bins a couple of weeks ago but I fully intend on bagging all rubbish before it's binned and also wash everything that goes in the recycle bin. i don't want smelly bins either.

Katy - here we have a general bin and a recycling one provided. General is collected weekly and recycling fortnightly. The recycling one has a small bin inside the top,for paper and card, the main section is for glass, metal and (approved) plastics. We can also pay, £35 a year I think, for a third bin for garden refuse, no food waste. So, sadly, food waste goes into the general bin, what a waste that is. I tried composting but saw a rat too many!
DD in London has a small caddy in the kitchen, lined with biodegradable bags, bag and contents then go into a larger caddy, bucket sized, for collection. Garden waste is collected from large reusable bags.
A nationwide refuse policy would be good!