Recycling: Would a well-designed recycling bin encourage you to recycle more?

Marcos

Marcos

Marcos

Soldato
Joined
3 Jan 2004
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Bournemouth
I know i'm guilty of doing little recycling, biggest problem being organising and storing recylable packaging until theres enough to make a trip to a the recycle banks.

This thread is also a form of research for a product design project i'm working on, so any input on recycling (the part you do at home) or any suggestions on products that would encourage you to recycle would be great.
 
Here in Belfast the recycling bins in town are so badly designed.

You have a small stiff lid that opens up for each category, and then you dump your stuff in. But the lids are disgusting and sticky and I just end up throwing the stuff into a normal bin.

Last time I touched one I had to go and find that nearest bathroom they are that bad. So if they were better designed then yes I would recycle the litter I have on me while in town.
 
Yes, the only thing the counsil gives us a plastic sack to put in paper, someone collects it on bin day, there should be a bin with different compartments.

People should be fined for not recycling. This is 2006 not 1974 .
 
we get a kerbie bin about the same as a normal bin apart from being about a wuarter tall you just dump all paper glass etc in it and let the council collect / sort it, as well as this we get a regular sized brown bin that is used for garden waste
 
binaryknight said:
we get a kerbie bin about the same as a normal bin apart from being about a wuarter tall you just dump all paper glass etc in it and let the council collect / sort it, as well as this we get a regular sized brown bin that is used for garden waste
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Yup, when I lived at my mums, in Lisburn they had a similar thing. Basically took no thought at all and IMO worked really well for home recycling.
 
Here in Toronto, Canada, we have the whole recycling thing as part of the way of life. :)
We have blue plastic boxes in most residential homes for newspapers and one for bottles. We have metal street bins which have compartments for newspapers, bottles and other litter. It is very well organised. :) Sometimes it is difficult to decide if something is actually recyclable or not though.
 
We are given kerb side containers to put the recycling but they are so useless as taking it away, we take it to the local recycling bank on our way to our weekly shop.

We basically recycle everything that is recycleable and we produce about 1/2 a bag of rubbish as week as a couple.
 
We have a brown wheelie bin for garden waste, and a black one for household waste. They are collected each week on a rotational basis.

We also have a blue box for cans and glass (they have to be clean and separated) and a blue bag for paper. These are also collected biweekly.

Works very well imo, and because the household wheelie is only emptied every other week, people are forced to recycle if they don't want an overflowing bin.

The trouble is in this country, that a lot of people can't be bothered, and will dump anything in the recycling bin. It leads to a lot of waste, because they can't sort 100% stuff at the recycling plant, and they end up just dumping it. I was watching a programme on it a few months ago, where various recycling contractors were just shipping containers of rubbish over to China.
 
We have the brown bin for garden or any green waste. The black bin for general waste and then a little black plastic box which we are meant to throw in all tins/glass/plastic.

The little black box is collected once a fortnight, as a family we already recycle about 6 bigger copntainers a fortnight anyway, 2 of each (glass/plastic/tins) and we take them to the local recycling area. We have also noticed a massive difference in how full the wheelie bin gets each week too, it used to be a squeeze to fit a weeks rubbish in it, now its rarely more than 3/4 full.

Back to the original question, probably not actually as we recycle 100% of the materials that we can as it is, 1 wheelie bin a fortnight probably wouldnt be enough either.
 
Black wheelie bin for regular rubbish
Green wheelie bin for organic waste / newspaper etc
Blue kerbside box for plastic bottles
Black kerbside box for glass

Imo, a bin with compartments may be easy for us to fill but it would be a pain / time consuming for someone to empty without just dumping the whole lot in together negating the whole purpose of the compartments (correct me if I'm wrong TerraS).

Our scheme seems to work ok... truck pulls up, guy picks up blue box and empties it into special area of truck, ditto for black box. Another truck does the green and another the black wheelies... They alternate; green one week, black the next...
 
There was a recycling bin for sale in our local Co-Op the other day which looked quite good. It looked like a normal largish bin from the outside but inside had 3 separate sections for each category of item.

Andy
 
Black wheelie for regular rubbish
Blue wheelie for organic / newpaper
Black kerbside for glass

The kerbside went missing the first time it got put out, the blue wheelie bin was nicked from the garden within the first week. Council said I have to buy replacements if i want them.

Net result? Everything goes in the black bin.
 
yes, look at germany recycling bins, can't exactly rember what they are but they where a hell of a lot better than are rubbish stuff..
 
cheets64 said:
People should be fined for not recycling. This is 2006 not 1974 .
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Not exactly the best way to encourage people to recycle is it? You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar, after all!

The best way of getting people to recycle is by positive financial methods not by fines. Hell if I saved money by recylcing then I'd be greener than Greenpeace but at the moment it's easier and more convienient for me to stuff it in the wheelie bin and just compact in down to fit more in.

The trouble is how do you measure what people recycle? As per Sequiola's post in another thread if you charge per black bag who is to stop me putting my rubbish in the single guys bin four doors down at 2am?

Perhaps they can weigh what you recylce and give you money off your council tax rather than charge per black bag?

Brainier people than me are needed to sort this out.

Perhaps if a standardised recylcing system was introduced so that every area recycled in the same way it would avoid the current confusion.

Also, what about doing more at the processing end? If a lot of waste is dumped into landfills perhaps coucils should come up with methods of reducing waste. Yes it may cost more in council tax but then again what doesn't?


Obviously we can't keep just chucking reuseables away.
 
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