Sligo Bin Charges

starbelgrade

I'm not sure what other county councils charge around the country but I'd be interested to find out.

I know that some charge a flat yearly rate, which seems to me to be a bad idea... surely the whole point of charging is to force people to recycle more, but if there's a flat rate, it gets rid of the incentive to do so?

I put out a bin around once a month, so I pay between €100-120 per year (& claim back tax on it). Recycling costs me about €30 a year... a car load once a month up to Ballast Quay.

So what does it cost you? And do you know what's charged in by other county councils? And do you think it's a fair charge? Also do you think it's fair that the charges vary around the country?

Xiney

I'm not used to paying for rubbish collection, and I was pretty ticked off when I found out I was going to have to start!

We don't drive, so we can't recycle our glass - that's something I really don't like.

However, we put out recycling about twice a month and rubbish once a month (or longer), so if I were to estimate it'd be around 100 euro for rubbish and 50 for recycling per year. Which is a lot more than what I'm used to paying, but it's not really that bad I suppose. I'm really good at fitting a lot into those bags - I get my money's worth for sure.

TequilaMockingBird

Its 28.99 per month in Clare.

starbelgrade

sueme wrote: »

Its 28.99 per month in Clare.

That's steep - nearly €350 a year. Nasty. And again, the worst thing with that is you could have someone dumping everything into the bin while someone else recycles & they still get charged the same (and probably pay extra for the pleasure of recyling).

As for Xiney getting her money's worth.. I do the exact same with the black bins & can be seen climbing into it at least once a week & jumping up & down on the rubbish... I reckon I get at least double the amount of rubbish in it by doing so.

Up at the place on Ballast Quay on Friday, I saw a woman pull up in an SUV. She pulled out a small cardboard box of tins, emptied them into the skip & drove off. Now, I dunno where she drove in from, but I'm guessing that with the size of an engine on an SUV & the tiny amount of recycling she did, she wasn't exactly doing a whole lotta good for the environment! Meanwhile, it took me nearly an hour to get rid my stuff. And I only live around the corner!

TequilaMockingBird

I send my bin every two weeks, and it is jammed. I have a child (rubbish creater) and lots of garden waste aswell. I could compost the garden/food waste but I've seen too many people get rats with composters, so thats a no-no for me.

Then recycle every second week too.

I jump on my bin too, its a pretty sight...

starbelgrade

There's a few good ways of keeping rodents out of composters.. the easiest is to compost only garden waste & bin the food waste.

Another is to never put the following into a composter - cooked food, egg shells or raw food scraps. All these can be composted seperately in a covered bin.

Putting chicken wire, under & around the composter also helps.

As for jumping on bins - it may not be a pretty sight, but it sure is fun!

TequilaMockingBird

starbelgrade wrote: »

Another is to never put the following into a composter - cooked food, egg shells or raw food scraps.

Which would leave....? No food?

Xiney

We had a compost heap in Manitoba. There are bears in Manitoba.

Of course if you put it in the garbage they find it there too, so it's not like you can win.

muffler

The waste in Donegal is collected by private contractors. Its €10 for the standard wheely bin. Damn thing about it is that there are recycle bins and they cost the same - plastic, paper, tetrapak etc. Considering that the contractors are charged by weight when disposing of the waste its a complete rip off that the recycled stuff is charged to the householder at the same rate as the standard domestic waste.

TequilaMockingBird

It probably works out the same here Muffler, the recycling bags here are about 2.50-3e, but they are the same size as a small black bin bag, and we don't get a bin for them - so they can't be jumped on!

Xiney

if you keep all your papers folded and in a good order at the bottom of the bag, and add your (crumpled!) cans and bottles to the top, you can fit a fair amount in the 2 euro Barna Waste recycling bags.

Also, if you get some of those twistie ties, you can secure the bag with more in it than if you tie it closed using the bag itself.


Rubbish hacking!

takola

I know in Limerick we paid €180 every six months (That was for the small wheeley bin, I'm not sure if you had to pay more for the big wheeley bin) and they would hand out recycle bags when you paid that so we'd only ever have to put out the wheeley bin once every 4/6 weeks.

I've only just found out about the recycle bags you can buy and have collected here and neither of us drive so we haven't been recycling since we moved back! I have to find out what the collection day is for the recycling, I'd rather pay the €2.50 per bag and have most of the rubbish recycled. The amount of plastic we throw out is ridiculous! At the moment we put out the bin every 2/3 weeks. It still works out cheaper than it did in Limerick even though we're putting our bin out more often.

TequilaMockingBird

[QUOTE=takola;55537874
I've only just found out about the recycle bags you can buy and have collected here and neither of us drive so we haven't been recycling since we moved back! I have to find out what the collection day is for the recycling.[/QUOTE]

Your local shop should sell the recycling bags, and have a list of which roads are collected on which days.

takola

sueme wrote: »

Your local shop should sell the recycling bags, and have a list of which roads are collected on which days.

Cool! Thanks!

starbelgrade

sueme wrote: »

Which would leave....? No food?

I put food in all the time - the chicken wire's a good deterrent. Also, the composter's buried about 25cm below the ground. I works pretty well & I always use gloves, so even if there are rodents, there's no risk. If you're not too fussed by the possibilty of the odd rat or mouse, that's the way to go, otherwise, just leave the food out of the equation.

Squeak!

"There are bears in Manitoba."

There's cows in the field beside me, but so far they haven't managed to scale the wall!

Gillie

€10 for a barna waste bin bag that I only need every second week.
€2 for a barna recycling bag

bobcar61

I pay about €10 a month for the waste disposal and also €3 a month for a car load of recycling about one a month(I jam the car full to get my moneys worth)

magnumlady

We pay 10 euro for a wheelie bin bag, 5 euro for a bag half the size.
2.50 for a recycling bag.
I've no problem with paying for rubbish collection but before we moved to the village we had to put the rubbish in the car and bring it to the village as the dustmen didn't come up our lane.