We are continuing our Around the World Posts. Anyone can join in and send photos about anything of interest that you would like to post about in your home, garden or the area you live. This allows us to be able to see our similarities or differences in the world. Just send me an email with pictures and description.
This following post is from Cheryl in Australia
Hi Grandma Donna,
First I want to say how much I enjoy your blog, it never fails to encourage or uplift me in some way.
My name is Cheryl, and I live in Lismore, New South Wales, Australia.
I thought I'd do something a little different in my post and share with you all how we dispose of our rubbish in my community.
I'm betting there are lots of differences around the world in this area, and my particular community is leading the way in recycling and re-purposing of household waste.
The photo above shows our three bin system.
The yellow lid bin is for general recyclables, like paper, cardboard, glass, aluminium cans and hard plastics. We can even bag up styrofoam and place it in this bin now to be recycled. It is collected from our kerbside once a fortnight (2 weeks).
The green lid bin is for “green waste” lawn clippings, tree prunnings, weeds, food scraps, anything that is compostable, including dog poo! It is collected once a week from the kerbside.
The small red lid bin is for our rubbish, basically anything that doesn't belong in the other two bins. It is only collected once a fortnight as well.
Recently our local council has developed new technology and strategies to deal with even more common household waste.
The photo above shows a new recovery satchel that has been introduced.
We can put old batteries, old mobile phones, CD??™s, XRays and old glasses into this satchel. When it is full, it is sealed and placed into the yellow lid bin to be collected, they sort the satchels from the rest of the material at the waste centre. (We call it the ‘tip)
In addition to these satchels, we are now also able to recycle what they call soft plastic. Things like clean cling wrap, soft plastic packaging, bubble wrap, plastic shopping bags and any other soft but clean plastic. I have a small bin (pictured above) in the kitchen to collect all these items. The items have to be bagged in a plastic bag and tied up. This is then placed in the yellow lid bin for collection, and again sorted at the Recycling Centre.
I wanted to also include in this post my compost bay. I only tend to use the green waste bin for weeds, or large prunnings.
All my green waste goes into these bins. When one bin is full to the brim, I start filling the second bin. In the meantime, I turn the full bin about once a week to encourage air circulation and microbes to break down the waste. If it's too dry I add a bit of water, if it's too wet I add a bit of shredded paper, it breaks down into the most delicious chocolate compost which I use on my vegetable garden.
If we have a big house clean, and have loads of rubbish, we can take it to the “tip” in a car or trailer. Our council has four free tip days a year, but you must separate your waste into recyclables once you get there! They have large dump bins for almost every item. Of course no matter what there are always items that cannot be recycled, and they have their own bin too!
If you have to dispose of waste outside of these free tip days, you have to pay by weight to dispose of it. Which can be quite costly.
The green waste that ends up at our tip is processed and turned into rich compost which can be purchased from them.
They also have what we affectionately call a 'tip shop' where you can buy anything that they salvage from the tip. From furniture to toilet's, old pavers and bricks, toys, timber, old bikes…you name it, it can be found at the tip shop, it's all very cheap.
So that's my little addition to how we do things differently “Around the World”
I hope I haven't bored you too much with how we get rid of our rubbish LOL
I have a little blog over at http://asimplygoodlife.blogspot.com.au
where I ramble about all sorts of random things, come and say hi if you have the time.
Thank you again Grandma Donna
Cheers Cheryl
Thank you Cheryl, this is a very informative post. You are way ahead of us in our area with recycling. My husband and I recycle but our city does not recycle as many items as your area does. I am very impressed with how you do your recycling. Thank you for posting this great post. Grandma Donna
