I was not sure of posting this as it makes us look bad, so sorry about this.
Over the last few, what, decades, domestic waste collection has changed. And mostly without us noticing!
It all started a long time ago, we used to have a "dustbin" and any number of black bags taken away by the council. They had a legal obligation to remove all domestic waste.
Then one day it was "green wheelie bin", and they provided one. There were sizes for different houses. At this time we had five kids, and, I think, a lodger. We made plenty of domestic waste. We got a big bin.
So it was wheelie bin and extra bags.
Then the council said they would not take extra bags - it was because the vehicles were all set up for wheelie bins now. It made it much more efficient. So I asked.. "If it is more efficient, how much can I expect to see a reduction on my council tax bill?", and I did not get a sensible answer. I asked how they know it is more efficient, with no helpful answer!
Anyway, they said they were not restricting the amount of waste we produce, but it was a limitation of the vehicles, so I suggested "fine, empty the wheelie bin, then put the extra bags in the empty bin, and empty that". It was a simple and practical solution, but for some reason they were not happy to do that, suggesting their "reason" for not doing it was not as they said.
The answer was simple.
We purchased another wheelie bin!
For some time, many years, this worked, even when we moved house. And many locals had an extra wheelie bin.
Then, one day, with a note saying the would now only collect one wheelie bin, they stole our extra wheelie bin! I meant to sue them for the cost.
I gave up!
This is very unlike me, but I decided to give up!
Just to be clear, I was not giving up on recycling or trying to avoid it. At the time the council only did the one type of collection - the general waste green wheelie bin. My issue is they stole one of our bins and refused to actually collect all the waste we produced.
So I simply engaged a commercial bin collection at the house.
I kept meaning to bill the council for this on the basis they had a legal obligation to collect all domestic waste, and were failing. I never got around to it.
When we moved, 3 years ago, we kept the commercial collection, simples. Why not?
Left out of the loop here
The problem is we have been left out of the loop here. For decades now we have simply put all rubbish in one bin, with black bags, and that was it, as we have for decades before.
Whilst others have gone through many changes of many coloured bins and bags and so on, we have not.
Turning over a new leaf...
As Wales have now made even commercial properties do waste separation, we have to get in to this, all of a sudden. This is a bit of a shock.
It does not look too hard, honest. Cans, bottles, card and paper, etc.
It seems laws have changed over the many years. We have not had to notice.
So yes, we are finally doing the domestic waste separation - thrown in the deep end. I am almost shocked you cannot just pay someone to do that for you - seems an obvious commercial opportunity.
It means a place in the house for the various bags, and bins, and containers. Finding what day they collect each. But I am sure we will manage.
Thanks to one of my daughter's for help with this.
Doing things right.
As someone says, I like to do things right, and we do have solar power generation we feed in to the grid and a green energy tariff and so on. I don't drive, and have not for decades. We had not actively tried to avoid waste separation, but to be honest I have not looked in to it either. It all kicked off with the council being arseholes and stealing our bin, and then it was a non issue as we got a commercial bin.
I am not entirely convinced the pushing responsibility on to individuals just going about their lives is the answer to climate issues, when so many big industries dwarf anything we can do, to be honest, but I do understand we do all need to take things seriously, and I already do quite a bit - just not this specific bit until now. Sorry. And I chose to post this to say sorry to some extent.
Update:
Wow, it is crazy, there seem to be no standards. I decided it would be a good idea to get some partitioned and/or stacked bins for the house. Make sense.
But the labelling and colours do not match what the council have. And the categories do not match. E.g. we have a green plastic tub for glass, but tins go in with plastic. Yet almost all bins you can by combined glass and tins in one bin, so would have misleading labelling, and nothing matches the colours.