Automatic means mayhem to me!

So, I love doing recycling.

It all helps, reduce, reuse, recycle.

Here in Selby North Yorkshire we have four big wheelie bins for the rubbish which is collected on a revolving weekly/ fortnightly basis.

One week it’s non recyclable stuff ( BOO….it should all be recyclable but single use plastic is a BOO from me) and once collected is repeated every fortnight thereafter.

Then the exciting second week “recycling” collection kicks in, a little bit more complicated. On one of the fortnight’s it’s Green bin for garden waste and Brown bin for cardboard and paper. ( Oh my….how much cardboard waste is produced in a fortnight!). Then the following fortnight’s collection would be Green bin for garden waste and Blue bin for glass, cans and plastics.

What a great collection service we have here, we are luckier than in other parts who use stupid little plastic crates and containers for cardboard glass, tins and plastics, which on a windy day end up on the other side of town when you go out to retrieve the ’emptied’ containers!

Anyways, the glass, cans, plastic bottles and cardboard recycling process starts in the kitchen. We have a multi bin there so two smallish bins are for recyclables, the third, for the BOO waste which goes to landfill or incineration after collection.

Now here’s the bit….it’s the process of taking two full bins of recyclable stuff from the kitchen and placing it into the correct Blue or Brown bin….it’s impossible for me!

I’m no good at working on any form of production line type of work. Now if family did as asked of the two recyclable waste bins in the kitchen, which had one containing only cardboard the other holding glass, tins and plastic, then the emptying into the ‘outside’ bins would be a doddle.

But nope.

So my two indoor kitchen bins meet up with the outdoor big bins and as it’s always now mixed recyclables I have to pick each item out and chuck into the correct Blue or Brown bin preventing contamination from ‘wrong product in wrong bin’… Simple really…nope! Well, not for me. Maybe it’s repetition, although in my gardening business and work there is a lot of repetition which I cope with admirably.

However, even this two to three minutes selection of right waste right bin so confuses me. With big bin lids open (obviously) and holding the kitchen bin with one hand I dip in, pull out an item…cardboard…ahh plastic bottle…ahh glass bottle…cardboard, cardboard…. plastic bottle. Simple..nope, as I dip further in seeking out the next item.

I get so into my ‘automatic’ mode I don’t even look where my hand holding an item is being chucked into which bin. I know where the bins are. I tell my brain “cardboard to the right, glass, plastic and tins to the left” as I chuck the waste into the big bins. So, what interference gets in the way of this so simple process?….

Completed easily, look in big bins and, nooo, it’s all mixed up. Somehow I’ve forgotten which goes where and started chucking all the items into the wrong bins….ending up with mixed recycling in each big bin…. Soo frustrating. Looking in each big bin now just looks like a bigger version of where it all started in the kitchen!

So as these big bins are about four foot tall….I have to lie them on their side kind of climb in seek wrong recycling and rectify…. I bet the Government don’t even realise the lengths I go to to make sure it’s right!

But it’s the automatic production line approach…well..in this instance is just not for me!