Hello, we have been in our home for 6 months. We are still learning the culture and language and are nowhere near to perfection. Today we returned home to find the lid of our recycling bin open and the bin was full. All the other bins on our street were empty. i am puzzled and wondering if we have inadvertently offended someone or broken a rule that we do not know about. Is anybody able to enlighten us? Should we contact a neighbor for information? This has not happened before. Serious input will be very welcome. We love it here but do not want to inadvertently create problems.
Have you looked up the rules for the tri in your area? In different areas there are different things that are accepted for recycling and if the stuff in your bin was too full of the wrong sort of things it would be rejected. Leaving the lid up is the sign that they looked and didn’t like what they saw.
Did you have glass and paper in it?
3 Likes
Hi, Jane,
Sorry, I was not specific about the type of trash. It was recycling. There were glass bottles in it. The rest of the stuff was in plastic bags. I don’t think that we did anything different than usual. Is it wrong to use the bags ? We only put paper, plastic and cardboard in the recycling bin.
I noticed that the explanation that you gave was from Agen. Do you live in that area ?
Thank you for your help.
I don’t think Jane does live near Agen but as rules are specific to each place, that’s why she posted the link she did.
They do sound quite fussy; one example is that if there’s aluminium foil in a yogurt pot, it will be considered to be a mistake. Even if it got there on its own.
We don’t put our recycling in plastic bags, it goes as individual items. It might be worth asking neighbours or even going to see the mairie or mairie annexe to see if they can give you more information.
2 Likes
Glass might have been the problem as that should go either in the normal rubbish or in the green deposit banks you find all over the place and if you visited a Tri-collect station, you would see the workers who sort the stuff doing a lot of it by hand which glass would make very dangerous for them, plus plastic bags are not usually accepted either if it looks as if they contain stuff. Here we have to put everything recyclable in the bin loose.
2 Likes
Has the link shown you where you went wrong?
Even without looking at the link, I knew that Glass was a big no-no 
2 Likes
Glass and paper here!
Not only that, but some of the paper bins have had their round, rubber-shielded holes replaced by nasty metal letter-box-style openings.
It may be because some people put bottles in them, having failed to read the notice properly.
Ahem.
We too are in Lot et Garonne, so I’m assuming our scenario is similar.
Recycling in yellow lidded bin goes in loose, not in a black plastic bag. Household waste (bin with black lid) goes in black plastic bags.
Glass is kept separate from household recycling and goes into the big containers to be found on various street corners.
1 Like
It may just be the first time it was checked.
1 Like
I live in the Aglomeration Agen area and recycling glass is the property owners responsibility using the local glass recycling bins which are green in colour.
The same goes for newspapers and magazines which should be placed in the communal blue recycling bins.
1 Like