New System of household recycling (no more sac jaune...)

Absolutely! Our opposite neighbour, who is a bit special, neither drives nor walks, but does generate quite a few empty bottles and rubbish. She is taken shopping once a week by volunteers - including us. I’m not sure we will really want to take her rubbish too when our bins move next year.

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It doesn’t work for me, I don’t want to have manky hands / smelly bins in the car while I’m off to do something else so at least 50% of the time I make a separate trip.

I have a wheelbarrow, which is non-polluting… and will use that to take my stuff to the bins. I’m also noting elderly friends who might need a helping hand.

Have barrow, will trundle… that’s me.

Let’s face it … my neighbours are wonderfully generous with their fruit and veg etc… so it will be nice to be able to return the kindness.

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Lest anyone be under any misapprehension… I am not in favour of the new system proposed for our commune (and eventually the rest of the department I believe)…

For me, it will be twice as expensive than at present and blasted inconvenient…

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You are lucky you had the extra 18 months, down here (Perigord blanc) it has been in for a while and we weren’t even the first. I did come across an article about one commune who have just refused it and they have to pay more but have kept their weekly pick up! It was pioleted (sp?) in Normandie and was apparently a huge disaster (big increase in vermin, fly tipping etc) and yet SDM3 here in the Dordogne decided to go ahead anyway :face_with_symbols_over_mouth:

This all seems very weird.

Does anyone think there could be graft involved in these companies getting these contracts? Why else would a worse service that actually costs more and causes more polluting journeys be chosen?

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I agree with you, I’m in 24300, but it is not just in this thread that it would be useful. I think the subject of adding at least that to names has been discussed before.
Edit: Just looked to see if I could do it, but it is not allowed. :slightly_frowning_face:

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Seems to be the 'modern way"

We tried for door-to-door outside the village and communal bins in the village… but were refused this “mix and match” solution. It’s one thing or the other… we were told.

As our village streets are too narrow for the modern rubbish lorries to do door-to-door, the whole commune has been lumbered/scuppered.

Back in the day… Bin Men would visit each house in the village, on a weekly basis… and take the sacks up to where the lorry was parked… that was back in the good old days… we knew the workforce and appreciated their efforts.

Nowadays… there is just one man who drives a huge lorry, everything is automated…

Mind you, with the new system coming in… we are assured that there will no longer be over-flowing bins… that they will be emptied before they are completely full… (???)
I won’t be holding my breath.

That used to work for us when we had the communual bins as you could put bags in them at any time, as they had lids (although the rules did say otherwise i.e. only put stuff in the night before the collection day, but this was ignored). However, now it’s just a collection from a patch of grass on a corner it’s really not neighbourly to put stuff out early, thus we have to make a 1km round trip at some point in the evening before collection, just in case the collections are earlier than we would be passing en route to elsewhere the following day. Yes, one can use a wheelbarrow in summer, but on a wet, cold, winter night that isn’t going to happen.

Living next to the border of 3 communes makes things fun. The household waste collection for our commune is Friday, but ours is on Thursday as that’s when the bin lorry from the neighbouring commune trundles along the road that separates the communes.

The farmer who owns the land that the collection spot sits on has helpfully put an old oil drum out that takes a few black sacks, but that’s 750 metres away. Not a problem in winter when there’s only 1-2 bags that haven’t sat in 35°C all week as I can take them in a car.

In peak season, when I might have 10-12 very ripe bags to dispose off, I wheel our bins to the top of our drive and then tow my trailer to take them to the drop-off point.

The fun bit is when our neighbours or a passing local dumps a bag there a night or two before collection and the wild animals get into it. My car carries numerous bin bags and disposable gloves for this very task.

I’m not a serial killer, honest.

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Well done Sunbeam! When I walk along our country lane I collect bits of rubbish that have been kindly thrown out of car windows. There is not that much, but each can or plastic packet is pollution.

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Here in 23 300 we have had individual household bins for about eighteen months along with large communal, barcode operated, bins outside the HLM’s, schools and other places A largish yellow top for re-cycling, a black top for landfill waste, a small green one for compostable stuff and one for glass.
Collections a twice a week.

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In the diagonally opposite end of the Creuse (23500) we still get yellow sacks which go into the big yellow bins by the side of the road. Black bags similar into uncoded, free to use big bins. Collected every 2 weeks which is normally fine.

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As our bins are on a Route Touristique, they are used by passing traffic, not always correctly.

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Because it saves staff time, which is where the costs come in. If it costs the householder more that doesn’t worry the waste company as there is no requirement for environmental considerations (like minimising vehicle km) to drive policy.

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Our tap water appears to be fine, but kettle, coffee machine and steam iron stay much cleaner with filtered water :clap:

I agree with you that the manufacturers should bear the cost of recycling their own packaging. We understand from our family in Germany that ALDI and LIDL have already made huge progress in making their packaging recyclable. Even in the United Kingdom, IKEA’s packaging is mostly recyclable.

In areas along the Rhine, you have a country on one bank conscientiously recycling their waste for decades whilst the country on the other bank has a problem with yellow bags. The new reforms are long overdue in France because even the current rules are flouted.

As an example, we recall the time when a half-eaten pizza was thrown into the communal recycling bin in its original cardboard box, in our flats. At that time every recycling bin had a list of permitted contents posted in French. The very next day the contents list was posted in English so the concierge obviously suspected us. We complained because my other half is German and knows all there is to know about proper recycling.

And on the same subject, we cannot understand why so many healthy vegetables are sold in steel cans in France. Admittedly steel (and the tin coating) are very suited to recycling but at what cost to the environment? All of these tins are easy to extract from the rubbish because they are magnetic but they have to be melted down and this uses an enormous amount of energy.

so then, did the concierge change the notice to German? :wink:

No Graham they got the message after that!