Alan Marriott with his wheelie ban, plus internal and external food caddies, at his home. Picture by Jennifer Burton.
WIGHT LIVINGWHATEVER we feel about the onslaught of the wheelie bins, they are coming.
We may choose to see them as the green monsters from the mainland coming to spoil our pretty island or we can choose to embrace them as a powerful symbol of our green credentials; a beacon of Ecoisland.
They perhaps remain the most contentious part of the IW Council and Island Waste's drive to cut down on the massive amount of unfiltered junk that goes into Lynnbottom landfill tip each year.
Landfill taxes have concentrated the mind, with the IW Council predicting that by 2014, £1 million could be handed over to the exchequer from this tax alone if we don't tackle the amount we are ploughing into the Downend soil.
Apart from the dreaded wheelie bins, the other bugbear about an idea which should be as popular as Mom and apple pie, as the Americans say, is the thought of fortnightly collections.
People have thrown up their hands in horror at the thought of smelly trash hanging round in one of our globally warmed summers, attracting flies, maggots and rats.
So, to test out how we will all get on with this new world of rubbish, news editor Sue Pert and myself took delivery of said wheelie bins and the accompanying food caddies at our respective homes, and undertook a two-week trial simulating the waste collection arrangements due to come into force in February next year.
It is fair to say Sue was a little more sceptical than myself at first, citing maggot-fear and wheelie-bin anguish among her main doubts about the new regime.
But, fair play, she was more than happy to give the new system a chance and, after a briefing from Lynn Clarke, of Island Waste, we were all set for a two-week trial of the new system, taking in both weeks of the "fortnightly" recycling system.
We were issued with the requisite three bins, wheelie, kitchen caddy and outside food caddy and the immediate issue became one of space for the bins in the kitchen.
This new system is all about sorting the wheat from the chaff and recyclable items are now much more numerous than before. Food packaging, cardboard and plastics are just three of the items now added to the newspaper and glass we had become used to sorting.
Add to this the food waste and other non-recyclable waste and you have potentially the need for three receptacles within your kitchen.
Now in an ideal world, we would always trot daintily to the outside bin area on a pretty regular basis. But on a wet November evening when you have put on your best tartan carpet slippers, who can honestly say the rubbish doesn't go straight into the kitchen bin.
To have this multiplied by three will create issues of space, particularly for people with smaller kitchens, but necessity is the mother of invention and Lynn Clarke suggested a carrier bag should be enough to contain a couple of days' worth of other waste.
What this other waste actually entails was an issue that had Sue and I scratching our heads. It took several calls to Lynn to ascertain what we should do with things like crisp packets, polystyrene, pet food pouches and other food-contaminated items (ansewer: they are all non-recyclable).
Strangely, the list of items that cannot be recycled also includes dead animals and animal waste, so recently deceased Tiddles the tom cat and his excretia will still end up under our soil.
Once the sorting issues were answered, it became clear it was mainly a question of being a little more rigorous about washing out yoghurt pots etc at the end of the washing up, ensuring the leftovers from your plate didn't just get tipped straight into the standard kitchen bin and regularly moving the food waste into the outside food caddy, to avoid unpleasant odours in the house.
I found space in the outside bin area not to be too much of a problem with the wheelie bin and food caddy replacing the two standard bins and black box I use at present. Yes, the wheelie is taller and more visually intrusive, but many of us keep our bins hidden away and the big green monster had a similar footprint to an existing dustbin.
The problem will be, of course, for those withour anywhere to store the wheelie bin, but we are told extensive surveys are being carried out to determine who will have one and who will be issued with bags to place by the roadside on recycling week.
My one issue with the sorting was the fact that as a gardener, I simply put all my peelings and other uncooked food into the existing green caddy for transfer to the compost heap. Now I will have to keep a separate caddy for those peelings as cooked food is no good for compost.
So, yes, it does take a little more time to be a green citizen, and, yes, it does take a little getting used to the sorting and cleaning, but if we are to keep our beautiful Island looking lovely, it has to be worth a bit of effort doesn't it?
Suzanne Pert's tale of the trial
I FOUND it was surprisingly easy to adapt to a different way of disposing of rubbish.
What I did not expect was how little waste I had which could not be re-cycled or go into the food waste bin.
Over the two weeks this amounted to just one carrier bag full, mainly with paper and containers which were 'contaminated' in some way by food or food residue.
These were items such as empty crisp bags, a plastic container for a pork- roasting joint, expanded polystyrene and containers from stock pots.
There were also one or two unexpected items which fell into this category, such as empty pill bubble packs, cling film, bubble wrap and sweet wrappers.
On the food waste side, much of this came down to common sense with one or two areas of uncertainty, such as pistachio nut shells (they could go in).
On one day, for example, items put in the food waste bin were a squeezed lemon, garlic peelings, onion peelings, celeriac peelings, stale bread, outer leaves of a lettuce and three slices of left-over tomato.
Over the two-week period I was surprised — and pleased — to have the equivalent of three large bin bags full of items for re-cycling.
Another plus was that empty wine bottles and newspapers could be put into the bin straight away, rather than having them hanging around the house until the next 'black box' collection.
Into the re-cycling bin went all junk mail, empty boxes and bottles, (glass and plastic), washed milk and olive oil containers, plastic bags and plastic food containers and even aerosols — providing they were completely empty.
The fact that I now have to have three bins, including the mini food waste bin, in my somewhat small kitchen is an aggravation, but perhaps I will get used to that over time.
Another concern is that when the refuse collectors empty the food waste bin they will return it to anywhere within a 20ft radius, as they did with the black boxes.
Instead of my clean black box, which I could take into the house to fill with papers and bottles, I was being left someone else's yucky box which had been used to take grass cuttings and other garden waste to the tip.
I solved this by putting a large painting of my house number on the box, so I suppose I will have to do likewise with my food waste bin and wheelie bin.
Only other whinge is to ask why the food waste bins are not the pretty green colour as shown on the council's information leaflet and in Alan’s photograph — they would have matched my kitchen!