Random. Related to WFH.

How do you deal with all this waste sorting/recycling business?

I live in what's considered a small apartment for 4 people and a cat and in our tiny kitchen we have separate trash bags for:
- plastic/paper/metal
- glass
- deposit bottles
- commons/unsorted

- and it's very likely that starting '24 we'll also have an orange 'food waste' bag

I swear to God, sometimes I feel like the Wall-e, the trash prince, living in a recycling centre/dumpster. This kind of taints the pleasure of WFH.

How do you deal with that? Question to those who sort waste and, preferably, live in a small aptmt.

Honestly, my life is just better when I’m not producing a lot of waste. Practicing a more recycle-minded, small footprint lifestyle is better for everyone. I’m a hypocrite but I’m trying lol.

I feel like the governments play jokes on you by telling you to nitpick over your garbage

Hasn't there been tons of news stories by this point how all that waste isn't actually processed like they idealized it would be?

If I want to recycle something I just repurpose it myself, least I can trust myself 🤷

My lazy arse found some delivery services who work like a supermarket.

Picnic could be known, they deliver to the flat and have pretty much everything you need.

They take care of returnable bottles (Pfand in Germany), e.g. single bottles.

Usually I order crates - water / beer / ...
from a beverage supplier, they take the crates back.

Last but not least: Theres a rather unknown, regional delivery service from smaller farm shops / butchers / ... here.

They have a rather unique system - you pick a place of delivery and they deliver sometime in the night between 22 o clock - 6 o clock in the morning.

You get a cooled loot box delivered to your destination of choice so to say.

The genius thing is... They also take back *any* kind of glass and paper, you put it in the lootbox and place it in the destination spot when you ordered a new delivery (at least I never had any kind of complaint - though I return mostly what they delivered plus some extra glass).

They take care of the waste.

Waste is seperated, in Germany its Gelber Sack (composite material/plastic) / Papier (Paper) / regular waste. We have a Biomüll for organic / composable waste, but never used that shit.

My solution for that is a house helper which takes care of that weekly plus the usual cleaning.

Yeah. I'm a lazy lazy lazy fuck.

But the house helper definitely saves me from drowning in depression...

Cause a messy flat reallly makes my depression worse. Like ... Exponentially.

I have different bins for each type, but the standard division here is
- burn able trash
- big trash
- glass
- cans
- pet bottles
- cardboard

However, in practice I just have my burn able trash and a separate organic waste bag because otherwise the trash stinks up everything.
I do not use cans, glass, or pet bottles often so I only need to dispose them every 6 months or so.

I think the main annoyance is not fucking up the organic waste, otherwise it starts to smell. I’m on a 50 square meters apartment, which is considered “big” here.

I found some smart trash bins that do airtight seals to help with this, but they were too expensive.

I don’t mind though, fuck going to the office.

@ars1 @IntrusionCM @Nanos

that's nice and all, but how do you fit all those bins in your kitchen? Do you have a separate room for them?

Bins here, bins there, trash bins everywhere

@netikras in the kitchen, yeah. I need a bigger bin. But yeah it’s messed up, I am tempted to dump them in the veranda.

Kick out the cat

I put papers inside a paper bag. Generally don’t have glass bottles-don’t drink wine etc. plastic bottles go into another paper bag, next time I go to market I get my deposit and get to use paper bag again for my shopping.

Unfortunately clean plastic covers go to normal trashcan.

@retoor I pitched this idea to my wife 4 years ago. She was not too excited.

I don't expect much change in this department. She's a cat person

Buy a dog. Scottish collie

I dispose garbage like it's the 90's

@netikras bin there, done that.

@netikras

I have two bins in the kitchen, waste and plastic.

35 l is good. Anything smaller sucks.

Imho they should stand free in the kitchen. I once had two integrated in a cupboard under the kitchen sink.... It was nicer cause it was hidden, but cooking became a very annoying "taking the bins out of the cupboard, cause trying to maneuver large quantities of waste without making a mess is impossible".

EG when myself has peeled a fuckton of vegetables. The doors get messy, the floor of the cupboard gets messy, its not cleanable without taking it all out.

Kitchen floor is way simpler.

(Sorry for the long monologue, but you asked. :-P).

For glass and paper: In the old flat I had a small coffee area. I let a cake countertop be cut to size, added some table bases and then pushed it close to the wall. Wasn't easy as it was between the door to the room and the wall with the chimney - lots of nooks. :(

Then just added a curtain to it and behind the curtain went paper / glass and everything that wasn't pleasn't to view.

New flat has a pantry where I can store shit.

I recommend getting crates for glass and paper.

Best stackable and durable.

Otherwise it becomes too fast an unbearable mess.

I usually have one with shredded cardboard, one for glass, one for not shredded cardboard and one for returnable bottles.

All nicely hidden. :)

3 stackable 25L trash cans for paper, plastic/metal, normal trash plus a bag for bottles (separate for returnable & throwaway)

Normal trash + plastic taken out 2-3x a week, the other stuff when I'm drowning in it.

Bins under the kitchen sink that get pulled out when you open the door is probably the best solution.

This looks great. (linking straight to the image because the site was too broken) https://cdn.apartmenttherapy.info/i...