Forum Topic

Are You Recycling Your Food Waste?  25% of the borough are still not using the special green boxes

Bassam Mahfouz ("The Idiot"'s) assertion that 25 per ecnt of the Borough's household is a deeply flwed statement based on the type of flawed logic that has underpinned hos decision making and policies wihthin Ealing.From my own road I know that 95 per cent of households do not put out food waste in the green bins. That 75 per cent of households have requested and received a bin does not mean that they are used, it just means that they requested one and received one.I use my green bin to store food before I put it out on the compost heap (thank you Ealing Council for a useful free plastic bucket).Do not confuse the number of people with green food waste bins with  the number using them!

Svetlana Ogrodka ● 3804d23 Comments

Husband has checked and used the recycling banks here which are not listed on the Council website.  Useful in between kerbside collections.  Especially useful for flat dwellers with very little space.Please use www.fixmystreet.com or the Council website reporting facility to report full banks so that they are available to more of us when we lug our recycling there and fly-tipping - the official name whether it is the right recyclate or not left on the ground because the bin is full - does not occur.  There is a lot we can do to help ourselves.

Philippa Bond ● 3788d

Used South Ealing tube last night and forgot to check.  Durr!

Philippa Bond ● 3794d

Because I don't think they match what I noted on the Council website the other day for that area.

Philippa Bond ● 3799d

When I last looked the neighbourhood banks opposite South Ealing tube were different to those listed here!

Philippa Bond ● 3800d

So how do you qualify for clear sack recycling?http://www.ealing.gov.uk/info/200970/recycling_services/277/clear_sack_recycling_serviceSince this is for red routes and flats above shops and blocks of beween 13 and ? flats isn't this often collected early?

Philippa Bond ● 3800d

Not on a red route or in  a flat. I wonder if there is a limit as to how much they will take in one day as I did have a lot this week, for some strange reason.

Simon Wycombe ● 3801d

To find the nearest street banks (official name for searching = Neighbourhood Recycling Banks.  You can find these on the Council A-Z and  after reading what and how it should be presented you see a list of areas to click on at the bottom of the page. Good luck.

Philippa Bond ● 3801d

Please don't shout!  I do hear you.  I think all of us do.I remember it was really terrible when the contract changed and we all had waste and recycling out and they hadn't collected and we didn't know whether to leave it out a little later or to take it in and put it out the next day or what.  There was no information.  Also I am always being told of promises to collect later which never happens.If you are putting your recycling out in a mixed recycling bag are you on a red route or is it because you are in a flat?  Are there other people near you in a similar situation that you can get together with as there is strength in numbers?You MUST report non-collection because the Council should know that the contractors have failed to collect.  I believe it is easy on the Council website.  (I'm lucky and haven't had the problem - touch wood.)  If this is an ongoing thing then please contact your local Councillors. If you don't then the Contractors are getting too easy a ride and the Council think that everything is hunky-dory when it obviously isn't.http://www.ealing.gov.uk/info/200033/councillorsHowever to make things better for yourself try and reduce the amount of waste that you make - both recycling and residual - and know where the closest street banks for recycling are.

Philippa Bond ● 3801d

IS IT JUST ME OR DOES ANYONE ELSE COME HOME ON RECYCLING NIGHT CRINGING, LIKE YESTERDAY, THAT THEY HAVE NOT TAKEN IT ALL FOR SOME UNKNOWN REASON.THEY DON'T SEEM TO LIKE THE LBEALING MIXED RECYCLING BAGS EVEN THOUGH IT SAYS ON BAG, PAER,CANS, PLASTICS ETC CAN BE PUT INSIDE.I FEEL LIKE JUST DUMPING IT OUTSIDE THEIR OFFICES.

Simon Wycombe ● 3801d

http://www.letsrecycle.com/news/latest-news/news-in-brief-02112015/Another rollout.  So it can and does happen.

Philippa Bond ● 3801d

The big problem is that people are buying more than they need and wasting a lot of it which is costing them a lot of money and with food because they don't understand the labelling and think food has to be thrown away earlier than it does.Most people actually do recycle and it is actually not recycling and not separating out any food waste that causes vermin and health and safety risks.  It is the minority who don't.

Philippa Bond ● 3801d

it's fine and dandy if you live in a nice spacious house with all mod cons, a side access and a garden.People are not idiots and most are not that lazy but when you live in a small flat or small terrraced nome with no rear access and all the normal things like children and pets, pressure of time, space and all becomes a complete balancing act.An awful lot of people live in very cramped conditions and it does not inflict just those near the poverty line, quite a lot of affluent people live in similar cramped space.Most people will do what they can but a line has to be drawn.  For some the wheelybin is a godsend but for others it takes up so much space that other recycling has to be sacrificed for the space. For many recycling can be too impractical and time consuming and lead to vermin and health and safety risks. It needs to be chucked asap.The current initiatives are too half cocked and too far removed from simple pragmatism for many to be bothered with.

Mark Kehoe ● 3802d

Putting a composter down at the end of the garden where you don't visit it very often can be a problem too.  If you can it is good to be able to put it somewhere where you can give it a whack when you pass by.  That it something that deters rodents as they like to be somewhere warm and quiet with a good food supply.

Philippa Bond ● 3802d

I have found that a plastic composter standing on a hard surface (like paving stones) deters rodents and foxes.You should note that even a compost heap with no food will become home to rodents as the weather gets colder as it is nice and warm inside that compost. There are also bugs and worms and beetles for the rodents to eat.

Lionel D. Drew ● 3802d

The recycling and waste facilities for new build flats is part of the planning permission.  It is also part of the planning permission for conversions. There is a problem with landlords and agents not providing the information and not providing the containers.  The Council however does not always take proper note of the permission and so the website may suddenly tell you that you can't have the containers that you want. It is the responsibility of all of us to recycle and to reduce our waste as much as possible.  It is to our benefit to do so.  We can share containers.  It is not just the kerbside boxes and bags that go missing - wheelie bins can too!Some blocks of flats have communal food waste recycling. I am not at all convinced that LBE has it's flats recycling sorted. There will be differences between buildings but the less waste you have the easier it is to deal with. You can always ask your Flats Management and the Council for better facilities.  www.lovefoodhatewaste.com is a useful website Personally one of my favourite solutions for a chicken or turkey carcase is to put it in the slow cooker to make stock.  It is then greatly reduced in volume - you can't put bones down the sink waste disposal - and there is nothing quite like home-made chicken and turkey stock particularly in soup when you have a cold. Make sure you have a marble slab or other heat resistant place to use the slow cooker.You can also use a freezer to keep something particularly smelly like prawn heads and tails for several days until you are ready to take your rubbish out. That is something often done in hotter climates.

Philippa Bond ● 3802d

A lot of the new flats being built, (there is rather a lot of new flats being built in Ealing) don't have the food recycle facility and any food waste has to be disposed of via the sink waste disposal unit or disposed in the general rubbish communal bin's.There are currently 500 flats here and a further 300 being built at this moment so the figure of 25% not recycling food is not the fault of the residents here.Even general recycling here is very very poor but that's another issue.The flats mentioned can be seen from Ealing civic centre.Hard not to see them.Only option for the residents here is to store their food waste in their own flats and take it to the nearest council facility,that aint going to happen.Where I lived before in W Ealing,the (kerb side collection)food waste/recycle box containers were often lost on a weekly basis,the council did replace them (thank you)but many neighbours just gave up on the recycle system.Funny how the brand new containers were the ones to go missing.HarryJay.

Harry Jay ● 3802d

Svetlana - what sort of composter are you using?

Philippa Bond ● 3803d

Pretty much anything will compst if it is organic, uncooked food, cooked food, paper, cardboard, wood chips, etc.

Svetlana Ogrodka ● 3804d

With respect, cooked food will compost very well. It is good usable organic matter that forms compost.

Svetlana Ogrodka ● 3804d

Cooked food waste should go in the bin, vegetable matter in composting.

Graham Weeks ● 3804d

What are you doing with chicken carcases then?  Or don't you eat meat?  Generally with garden composting you don't put in some foods.  The biggest problem is that there are a lot of people who don't understand Best Before and Use By dates and throw away a lot of perfectly good food unnecessarily.

Philippa Bond ● 3804d

With respect, rats will eat the broadbean and pea seeds out of the very ground you plant them in. What do you think happens to most food waste? It gets composted! I am hardly gaoing to give away valuable composting material for the council and its contractor to make moeny from down the road as compost.  Anyway, a good compost bin deals with critters.

Svetlana Ogrodka ● 3804d

You will encourage rats and foxes to visit your compost..

Graham Weeks ● 3804d