Australia is in the middle of National Recycling Week ( 11-17 November 2024)….a brain child of Planet Ark back in 1996.
https://planetark.org/programs/national-recycling-week
Back then the council provided households with a black lidless crate a bit like this to put our paper cans and glass bottles in
That and an ordinary sized garbage bin was it. Both sat up on the nature strip Monday morning waiting for two sets of garbos (bin men) run along pick them up and toss the contents into the back of the relevant trucks…
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Now we are all proud possessors of these three monsters
(and one man drives and operates a ‘claw’ that empties the bin
into the side of his truck)
The amount of rubbish has increased- the size of ‘the bins’ has definitely increased……and so has the waste management fee in our council rates!.
The state government (Victoria) has been ‘standardising’ recycling so there’s also the possibility of another bin (with a purple lid) being needed in the future 😧
https://www.vic.gov.au/Standardising-household-recycling-across-Victoria
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Visy is the company my council (Shire of Yarra Ranges) uses to dispose of the contents of our recycling bin. There are leaflets and booklets advising what can and can’t (shouldn’t) be put in these bins but – that doesn’t sink in with some people or they just can’t be bothered.
You can read the post Sue (My Quiet Life In Suffolk) wrote on Mid Suffolk’s upcoming changes…..HERE.
Is the same (or similar) happening where you live?
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https://recyclingnearyou.com.au/nationalrecyclingweek/
https://recyclingnearyou.com.au/materials/ – interesting read
Still Waters 
Not much waste here….ordinary rubbish collected once a week, recyclable once a month, monsters once every six months.
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I remember the hard working garbos. I hear you on people who can’t be bothered recycling too – nearby bins always have inappropriate things poking out the top.
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I see big bins around, but we have only been given two little ones — blue for paper and yellow for containers. They go out in alternate weeks. Fortunately, we have accumulated two more little ones, and we tend to need two each week.
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I agree we are producing way more waste than back in the 80s and 90s. I miss the garbos – your photo doesn’t do them justice. A lot of them were footy players and would wear those teeny tiny footy shorts as they ran along behind the truck. Ah, the good old days!
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My husband worked for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Chicago when we lived there so he is almost fanatical about conserving water, reducing waste and trying to reuse everything. It’s not easy, but we try.
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Yup, same thing happening here. We’re going to have 10 fractions – only our municipality thinks sorting is a waste of money and so on, so even thought it should have been implemented months ago, we still have only green and red bins. And the other rubbish is to be brought to centrally placed bins or dedicated areas far away — you think pepole do this? Nope, the red bin’s always full to the brim.
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the increase in rubbish has been difficult to avoid – the increase in food packaging, single use, non-returnable etc, and online shopping with all the packaging that involves. I wonder whether we will ever get it back under control.
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In my area, we have “single stream recycling”… where you put all the things in one container and “someone” then sorts them. I fear nothing is sorted and it all just becomes trash. I am one of those people who washes every container and makes sure that the only plastics in the bin have the correct number. It is sad that people can’t be bothered… there is not a Planet B waiting in the wings.
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How ddo you recycle food? I had heard they were doing something similar in parts of Athens. Seems strange..
We have recycling bins here in Central areas. Everything goes in one bin. Heaven knows how they sort it out. Recently they’ve added bins for clothes and shoes. Great idea. They all used to go into the rubbish. No second hand shops anywhere
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Recycling and garbage varies greatly from place to place in the US. In my small city, garbage collection is done by private companies. One can pay additional fees to have recyclables to be picked up or not. We sort our own recyclables in separate containers and take them to a collecting point.
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I certainly have a lot of waste to be taken away this week…Tuesday is the pick-up/take away because my fridge has carked it. I ordered and paid for a new one on Wednesday last, 13th November, and am awaiting, quite impatiently, the delivery of the new fridge.
So much food I’ve had to toss…and that is the second time this year as I lost everything I had in my fridge and freezer after the Christmas night tornado went through this area…and I (along with everyone else up here on the “hill”…had no power or water for over two weeks.
Fun! Fun! Fun!
Take care, Cathy…I hope all is well. 🙂
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