Kerbside collection

A couple of weeks ago I was very excited to receive a leaflet from the council informing us that our street was next in line for the 'Black Box' kerbside recycling scheme for cans and plastic bottles. This has been an ongoing project for the council for a few years now: black boxes have been rolled out on a postcode-by-postcode basis as funding has become available to run the scheme. According to council statistics, recycling rates have really leapt up in our local area since the introduction of the black box scheme - essentially people now have no excuse not to recycle the specified items. Households being charged per kg of waste they throw out rather than recycle? Bring it on!!

Kerbside collection of paper and cardboard for recycling was introduced in our town several years ago. At present, the box is emptied fornightly. Even for a two person household such as ours this isn't frequently enough: we easily fill our box every week, with the overspill stored in the shed until collection day. Still, it's better than nothing. The black box will also be emptied fortnightly (on bin day), beginning tomorrow, and I'm pleased that it has a better design than the papers box! The lid is securely fastened, as opposed to needing to weighted down with a brick in windy weather. Perhaps the council learnt from the design faults in the previous recycling box design?!

So now the only things we will have to take to a recycling centre ourselves are glass bottles, tin foil and textiles etc. I hope that, in time, glass will also be collected from our kerbside: when we lived in the adjacent county some 5 years ago, the council there collected a mixed box of paper, plastic, cans and glass every week on bin day. It still mystifies me how one council can differ so much from another in a country as small as ours, but hey ho - it all helps.

Our first black box collection is tomorrow - how exciting!