We spent the last week of November in Bristol house sitting for the vicar and his wife, and we started our second ‘sit’ here in Bristol a few weeks ago – which has given us plenty of time to experience the cycle of waste management in this city a few times over.

Not only is the system complicated – it is very ugly.

All homes have a black (wheelie) bin for garbage which is collected every week, or in some places, every second week (well at least it was at the vicar’s house).

Now that is not too complicated. The refuse (non-recyclable rubbish) is placed inside garbage bags that are then placed into the wheelie bin for collection.

But check out the green and black boxes, and the mini brown wheelie bin in this (above) photo.

This is where the complicated process becomes obvious. Every house has these plastic boxes as well to manage the recyclables. In fact, that is not the end of it – there is also a blue bag for cardboard.

The bins and boxes are placed on the curb / footpath the night before the collection.

Bristol gets its fair share of rainy days – 180 on average per year. Mick and I have experienced some rain almost every day since we arrived – Christmas day was the only day there was no rain. The rain is often accompanied by wind, and this results in wayward pieces of (mostly) recyclable products being blown around the streets. It can be very messy.  And some home owners obviously get their rubbish out too late, after the dustmen have been, so the boxes sit there, often until the next week. This next photo shows that pretty clearly – this was AFTER the bins had been collected.

Sometimes the boxes are left by the dustmen because the home owners have not followed the council’s instructions closely enough. The next photo is a classic example – a blue bag in a green box, containing mixed recyclables of cardboard and plastic. Did the dustmen think this was the correct combination?

NO WAY!!

I visited the Bristol Council’s website to find out what the rules were for managing the rubbish in this city.  To me it looked complicated, and the combination of some materials looked peculiar – for example, paper and cardboard must be kept separately.

Anyway, without going on with too much more rubbish myself, I’ll leave it to you to decide if this is a logical and achievable system.

Regardless, I have concluded that this complicated process has resulted in the streets of Bristol continuously looking messy.

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The black boxes (and you can have as many as you need) must be used for:

• glass bottles and jars: rinsed out, but the lids go in a green box;
• newspapers, magazines, catalogues, junk mail, yellow pages and telephone directories;
• paper and envelopes: but not wrapping paper or brown paper,
• shredded paper: put in an untied carrier bag, paper bag or envelope.

They can also be used for disposing of spectacles, batteries, shoes and clothing, and engine oil – but there are very definite rules about how you and what you place them in before they go into the black box.

The green boxes (and you can have as many as you want of these too) must be used for:

• aerosols: empty, without lids
• plastic drinks bottles including: milk, squash, cola, ketchup
• plastic toiletry bottles including: shampoo, cleanser, shower gel
• plastic cleaning bottles including: bleach, washing up liquid
• bottle tops, lids and caps: metal and plastic
• cans: rinsed and squashed food and drink cans
• foil and takeaway containers: rinsed and squashed
• plastic yogurt pots, ice cream and margarine tubs, rinsed
• plastic trays: meat, fruit, biscuit.

 

The blue bag (only one of these per property) must be used for:

• cardboard
• brown paper
• clean food and drink cartons .

The brown food waste bin and caddy (one per property) must be used for:

• bread, pasta, cereal and rice
• cooked and uncooked food
• dairy products and egg shells
• fruit and vegetable peelings or waste
• leftover food and plate scrapings
• meat, fish and bones
• tea bags, tea leaves and coffee grounds.