Household waste
Mar. 27th, 2016 09:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mtbcParking in Dundee yesterday reminded me that one thing I miss from Ohio is not having to care about parking; it was lovely to always have large spaces available for next to nothing. Where parking was tight there was often fixed-fee valet service. Here, trying to wriggle out of a half-closed car door, then feeling the cost accumulate as one goes about one's business, is not pleasant.
Another thing I miss is easy trash collection. In Ohio we could throw out arbitrarily much. When we lived rurally I even had my choice of private waste collection contractors; I used a plan that let me leave out as many bags I liked of whatever I liked. For city-living in both Rhode Island and Boston recycling was pretty easy: the mixed bin could take a wide range of items, I think in the former even scrap metal.
Here in Perthshire recycling is a bit more of a pain but we still do plenty. The blue bin won't take tetrapaks (but I think that's changing) or glass, but we wash these things out and put them aside and drive them to various destinations; we dropped off our glass yesterday on the way to Dundee. Items like batteries or CFL bulbs or similar can typically go to stores like Tesco; we have a little carton in which those accumulate. We even typically drive dead electrical appliances to the appropriate site. Of course, moldy bread and similar can go into the brown bin with the grass clippings. I do mix a tiny amount of recyclables in with the general waste, for example the payment slip of my credit card statement on which they for some reason print my full payment card number, but nothing significant.
So, it's with irritation and doubts that I discover that our 240l general waste bin is to be replaced with a 140l one; they are collected fortnightly. The larger bin already gets rather full most weeks so to have its capacity nearly halved makes me wonder to what extent we can get away with jamming stuff down inside it. Our family size of four (plus a cat) doesn't qualify us for anything extra. I suppose we will have to try even harder to recycle but, as we already recycle much of what we can, far more likely is that we will just keep extra bags in which to put the less disgusting waste and occasionally drive them to one of the council sites.
I can't help but wonder how wrong-headed all this is: how much does the environment benefit from our having to,
I also strongly suspect that their pressure would be far better applied to the vendors who overpackage products in the first place. Especially at our income level it's not as if we're spoilt for choice. I didn't want half this packaging in the first place.
It was especially annoying after first moving here when we had all the packaging from our move too. After any kind of large clearout in this country I am already used to having weeks of backlog of waste in the garage. Who this benefits I've no idea.
Another thing I miss is easy trash collection. In Ohio we could throw out arbitrarily much. When we lived rurally I even had my choice of private waste collection contractors; I used a plan that let me leave out as many bags I liked of whatever I liked. For city-living in both Rhode Island and Boston recycling was pretty easy: the mixed bin could take a wide range of items, I think in the former even scrap metal.
Here in Perthshire recycling is a bit more of a pain but we still do plenty. The blue bin won't take tetrapaks (but I think that's changing) or glass, but we wash these things out and put them aside and drive them to various destinations; we dropped off our glass yesterday on the way to Dundee. Items like batteries or CFL bulbs or similar can typically go to stores like Tesco; we have a little carton in which those accumulate. We even typically drive dead electrical appliances to the appropriate site. Of course, moldy bread and similar can go into the brown bin with the grass clippings. I do mix a tiny amount of recyclables in with the general waste, for example the payment slip of my credit card statement on which they for some reason print my full payment card number, but nothing significant.
So, it's with irritation and doubts that I discover that our 240l general waste bin is to be replaced with a 140l one; they are collected fortnightly. The larger bin already gets rather full most weeks so to have its capacity nearly halved makes me wonder to what extent we can get away with jamming stuff down inside it. Our family size of four (plus a cat) doesn't qualify us for anything extra. I suppose we will have to try even harder to recycle but, as we already recycle much of what we can, far more likely is that we will just keep extra bags in which to put the less disgusting waste and occasionally drive them to one of the council sites.
I can't help but wonder how wrong-headed all this is: how much does the environment benefit from our having to,
- use plenty of hot water and detergent to wash out the food from the worst-contaminated packaging so that it too can be recycled
- separately drive to various council sites because they tighten what they are willing to collect from our homes?
I also strongly suspect that their pressure would be far better applied to the vendors who overpackage products in the first place. Especially at our income level it's not as if we're spoilt for choice. I didn't want half this packaging in the first place.
It was especially annoying after first moving here when we had all the packaging from our move too. After any kind of large clearout in this country I am already used to having weeks of backlog of waste in the garage. Who this benefits I've no idea.
