New South Glos recycling scheme

The new South Glos recycling scheme kicked off today in Sodbury, with the first roadside collection of plastic bottles. We didn't make a very good start in our household. Our bag was still sitting outside the house after 3pm, so we decided they weren't coming to collect it today and brought it back inside. 20 minutes later, the collection vehicle turned up. Murphy's Law!

Our first food waste collection will be in one week's time, so today I set up the food waste caddy in the kitchen. I followed the instructions in the Council's leaflet for making a paper liner. The instructions were very clear and it was easy to do. This is a temporary solution as I plan to buy compostable bags for use in the caddy, which will keep it much cleaner.

Compostable bags can be bought online from many suppliers but what you may save on the retail price is more than offset by the cost of the postage. The South Glos website says the bags are available at Morrisons in Yate, so we will try to buy them there. I only hope they have stocked up, in anticipation of the new recycling scheme. 

Wherever you buy them, do remember that they must have the OK compostable logo on them. Also useful to know is that the kitchen caddies are 5 litre capacity but the most common size of small compostable bags on sale is 7 litres.

We are still trying to work out what to do with our cardboard, which can no longer go in the green bin.We recycle a lot of small pieces of cardboard from things like food packaging but we don't usually have any cardboard boxes in which to place them, as suggested by South Glos. Their other suggestion of putting the cardboard under the food waste bin is not going to work with a lot of small pieces on a windy day! No-one wants to see Sodbury littered with cardboard packaging.

South Glos are selling an insert which can be used in the green wheelie bin, to store the cardboard until collection day. I was shocked to discover it costs £20 and that there is no picture of it on the Council website. How many people will be willing to shell out that kind of money when they don't know what they are buying? So it's off to Ian's Fruit & Veg for me, to see if I can scrounge a cardboard box.

Do you have any tips on how to make the new recycling scheme easier? Please leave your ideas in the comments.