In our old house, we had one, big recycling bin. Everything went in it – paper, cardboard, glass, tins, plastic, the whole lot.
Here, things are a little different. We have a canvas bag for plastic and tins. There’s a plastic bag for paper. There are plastic boxes for cardboard and glass. We even have a small bag for battery recycling – very smart.
But it’s not as simple as it sounds. The plastic bag is for paper, but brown paper needs to go into the box with the cardboard. This has led to some confusion (only to me, I’ve heard no muttering from the other residents). If colour is part of the equation, then what counts as cardboard?
Big things that goodies from Amazon come in – yep, definitely cardboard. Tissue boxes that are brown inside when you tear them – cardboard again. But how about the outer packaging from a microwave meal? If colour was irrelevant, then into the plastic box it would go, but these are white. Are they just really thick paper, and should go into the bag rather than the box?
I’m sure the blokes that come to collect it don’t give a hoot, but it’s odd the things that can keep you awake at night…