Are your wheelie bins always full on bin day?
By moonchild1au
@moonchild1au (6237)
Australia
June 29, 2010 6:13am CST
I know this may sound like a strange question but I can be known as strange. `Here in Australia, our normal rubbish bin is emptied on a weekly basis and our recycle bins are emptied on a fortnightly basis. My recycle bin is normally full or overflowing on bin day but my normal rubbish bin is only ever 1/2 - 3/4 full...due to me going through & trying to de-clutter, my normal rubbish bin has been getting pretty full as I get rid of things but there is only 2 adults, a 3 year old & 2 dogs in the house so we tend not to create that much rubbish...how about you?
2 responses
@RawBill1 (8531)
• Gold Coast, Australia
29 Jun 10
It is great to see that you are not producing much waste. Ours are also rarely full. We have the same service as you do and our recycling bin gets full to overflowing every now and then, mostly with cardboard scraps as we get a lot of boxes in our home and cannot use all of them.
We are two adults and two kids ages 10 and 8 and our regular bin is nearly empty most weeks. Even with running a business from home, we generate very little rubbish. I forgot to put the bin out last week and it is still not even half full. One week, I went to put it out on bin day and thought it felt light, so I looked inside it and it was completely empty! 
As most of the food that we buy is fresh produce, it has no packaging and our food scraps get composted. Any plastic that we get in the form of bags or wrapping, I save up in a large plastic bag and donate to the archery club that I belong to. We use plastic to stuff the bales that our targets are placed on.
Any paper that comes into the house, no matter how small and including junk mail, we shred and use as packaging for our business. 
As most of the food that we buy is fresh produce, it has no packaging and our food scraps get composted. Any plastic that we get in the form of bags or wrapping, I save up in a large plastic bag and donate to the archery club that I belong to. We use plastic to stuff the bales that our targets are placed on.
Any paper that comes into the house, no matter how small and including junk mail, we shred and use as packaging for our business. @moonchild1au (6237)
• Australia
30 Jun 10
You're definitely doing well there!! I have started throwing my vege peelings in the gardens for composting but I am worried if I put them in my vege patch that it will attract more bugs to eat my vege plants :( Sometimes just to fill my normal rubbish bin, I have to do some gardening to fill the bin with weeds as that's not gonna hurt the environment to put weeds at the dump.
@RawBill1 (8531)
• Gold Coast, Australia
30 Jun 10
If your soil is healthy, then the plants will also be healthy and strong and should not attract pests. The best way to improve the health of the soil is to leave the weeds in the garden or dig them in and to also put all of your veggie and fruit scraps into the garden as well. The weeds are growing in the garden as it needs the nutrients from the weeds. Nature is good at improving the soil's quality, but we have learned that weeds are ugly and bad so we pull them out. When the soil is healthy again, there will be less weeds.
Adding worms to the garden or having a worm farm will also help massively. You can then put all your scraps into the worm farm.
Adding worms to the garden or having a worm farm will also help massively. You can then put all your scraps into the worm farm.
@jugsjugs (12967)
•
29 Jun 10
I have always filled up all of my bins before the time they are ready to be emptied out by the bin men.I also tend to fill up my mums bin aswell as a few other peoples bins in the neighbourhood aswell.We do recycle rubbish all the time,but still as i have a large family aswell as the larger wheelie bins they are always full aswell as over flowing.There are 2 adults aswell as 6 children in my house,3 dogs,5 cats,chickens,avary birds,rabbit aswell as a chinchilla.
@moonchild1au (6237)
• Australia
29 Jun 10
WOW! I knew you had a big family but I just didn't realise how big...my friends manage to fill their bins every few days & they only have 2 adults & 3 kids plus a cat in the house.
