What a Load of Rubbish

Imagine my surprise when we discovered that the rubbish collection here in our lovely borough is only once a fortnight.  (Translation for Americans: once every two weeks).  Not only that, but we are allowed only one medium sized wheelie bin for our regular rubbish.  Now, we are a family of 5, the smallest of whom is still in nappies.  I just can't see how this is going to work.  So I called up the council and pleaded my case.  I was told, in no uncertain terms, that I must adhere to the limits.  Never mind that 2 weeks worth of nappies will fill up half of that bin.  According to my local council the only things that should be going in that bin are the nappies and a certain kind of plastic wrappers.  Everything else is recyclable.  Really?  I can think of a few other things that shouldn't be recycled (dryer lint, used Kleenex, etc. but who am I to argue?).

Which brings me to the next point:  Recycling.  The council has set up a convoluted recycling scheme with multiple buckets, bags, bins and barrels.  Food waste in one, tins and glass in another, cartons and cardboard separate from household paper.  One bag for junk mail, but not envelopes.  A bag for dead batteries and one for clothing that is clean and useable.  Three green bags for garden trimmings.  I think I need a spreadsheet to keep track of it all!

In the meantime, I'm trying to figure out how to organize all these items while I wait for them to be picked up.  At the moment, I am simply shoving all recycling into a spare kitchen cabinet.  It looks like this:

There must be a better way.

And what about the garage full of cardboard we were left with after Tom assembled our house full of IKEA furniture?  Well, that required three trips to the local recycling centre which in and of itself is a sight to see.

Leave your unwanted fridge here.

Yes, one of those is actually for recycling used postage stamps. 

Now I've seen everything!

Did you know you can actually recycle your old bras?  Yep, here you can.  I guess everything actually can be recycled after all!