Tuesday 25 May 2010

Recycle wheelie bins

Well I suppose it just had to happen eventually. 

Salford City Council has finally got round to our block of flats with their silly coloured Recycling wheelie bins, and to celebrate it they have very kindly given me a couple of free shopping bags - which ain't half gonna come in handy on my shopping trips over to Morrisons. 

Oh??  You mean I'm supposed to use these 'shopping' bags to carry my recyclable waste down to these new coloured bins?  And the items have to be lose as I'm not even allowed to use biodegradable bin-bags?  And I can only put certain items in each?  How am I gonna remember what and which?  And you want the items washed first?  Won't that waste water and put up my metered water bill?  And anyway how am I supposed to know which bag and bin is which as I'm colour-blind; now if one was black and the other white then I'd have some sort of a better chance of getting it right.  (No jesting on that last bit as I know someone in a nearby block who really is colour-blind to that extent.  They have to compare as to which seems the darker!).

Not only that, so far the collection of these recyclables has been a shambles.  The stickers on the bins indicate alternate Mondays, Salford City Council's website says it should be alternate Thursdays.  In reality it seems to have been random bins emptied on random days.  But then this is after all 'In Salford', so there's also a good chance that there's a black market trade going on!

And without everything in the recycle bins being wrapped in bin liners it's quite an eye-opener on the lifestyles of your fellow block neighbours.  Like, judging by the large quantity of bottles and cans, someone in our block surely must be an 'in denial' alcoholic.  (Now I wonder who that is?).

Reminds me of an old friend of mine when she said "the biggest problem with having a few glasses of wine with friends at the weekend is the tell-tale 'chink' 'chink' 'chink' when you later pull the wheelie bin down the drive for emptying!".

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Well, the Council should put stickers on the bins saying "This is a red bin" and "This is a green bin" and so on.

Then you will know what stuff goes in which bin. That is, until the local yobs peel the stickers off and switch them around!

I agree with you about the washing of the tins and bottles etc. If they want them clean then they should wash them. Like yourself, I object to paying for the water; and the gas to heat the water, and the Fairy Liquid. Tough! I just chuck all the tins into their box unwashed, and boy, do they stink after a fortnight in the sun! The rats, mice and hordes of flies clean them out at not cost to me anyway . . .