New Brown Bin

[TickTock]

Just got our new brown bin delivered recently. I've been hearing a lot of negative views about these. Lots of people with bad experiences, flies, maggots, stench, etc. Anyone on JT got any positive experience or advice to share on the brown bins.

[Newhomemaker]

they are really gross. get a liner for start and put all ur scrap food into paper bags well folded at the top or wrapped in newspaper tightly as plastic makes it all sweaty and i dont think its meant to go in but i cant see how paper can be too bad. also any soupy things should go down the loo the dryer u keep the bin the less smelly it gets. and put it in the shade when it heats up it starts to rot and smell even put a layer of newspaper over the top too to create a tight seal, so no small flies can creep in and make babies.

[TickTock]

Ooooh! you paint such a pretty picture!!! lol! Well your instructions mirror those of the council's so I'll just have to give it a shot. Already had one minor nasty experience this summer with the black bin, the brown one may be a step too far but we have to try I suppose. Thanks a lot.

[dee1]

I layer mine up like a compost one and have so far fingers crossed no problems,and mine is collected every other week.That is what we were told to do.

[TickTock]

I've never done the compost thing, but if I'm successful with the brown bin maybe I'll give it a go. Already got it a third full with neat parcels covered in newspaper. I'll probably get an award for the neatest gunk in a brown bin!!

[alba]

I bought from Tesco two long, green plastic boxes with carbon filters in the lid, one for the brown bin and one for my own composting. They fit under the sink. I have compostable plastic bags (also from Tesco)that fit in them so I can just lift out the bag and put it in the bin. I know they say no plastic but these bags are suitable for home composting so I have been using them and no complaints yet from AES. It encourages me to keep doing it as you don't have to clean out a mucky kitchen caddy each time you empty it and the filters in the boxes help with the smell.

We are lucky enough that our brown bin can go in a shed and therefore isn't in direct sunlight but there have still been flies this summer. I haven't bothered to layer what is inside- I figured that it all gets tipped in together when it is collected so I didn't see the point!

As for our home composting, I just put in a couple of bags of kitchen waste and then a big dump of grass or cardboard. If there is too much I put the rest of the grass etc in the brown bin. It is taking a while for the bags to disintegrate but home composting is a slow business anyway unless you have a tumbler!

[TickTock]

Hi Alba, thanks for joining in. I visited Woodies today looking for those compostable plastic bags but didn't see any, so I'll be taking a trip to Tesco soon. I'm still a bit nervous about this, I drove down one road this week which had the brown bins out and there was definitely a lot of fly activity around some of them. I'll check out those long boxes too. Thanks for the info.

[Purplerain]

hi you can get bags that go into the small brown bin.fill up, tie and put in large bin these keep all the food waste at a minimim.they also degrade in the ground. www.greensax.com you will get their dublin no here.some supermarkets sell them also.hope this is of help.

[TickTock]

Thanks wallpaper. Will check it out. I bought some of the ones in Tesco anyway. However, every time I pop one of my newspaper parcels into the brown bin there are a couple of tiny flies in there, and I keep seeing a couple inside the house now, so I am really getting worried and the b/bin won't be collected until next week. It's making me more nervous but it has to go next week!

[susieboozie]

I had a nasty experience with the small inner brown bin that you use in the Kitchen. Just make sure to empty every night i would reckon. I find flies are an awful problem. I'm using the brown bin a year now. As i am mid terrace my neighbour leaves theirs in the front garden and i can't open living room window in the Summer. I just recommend, dry foods and and the inner liner. I mainly use mine for egg shells, tea bags, dinner scrappings and vegetable peels. I find the bin too big seems it's collected every 2 weeks. It's never more than a quarter full.

[TickTock]

Reporting back on my first b/bin. Unfortunately I forgot and missed the first collection day so I had the gunk saved for 3 weeks. There were some flies and I am sure I saw one wiggler in there. I keep the bin at the side of the house but its near the vent for the kitchen and the flies were getting into the kitchen. Wasn't happy at all with this. After the collection this week I noticed the bin was very wet inside but I'm sure I didn't put anything liquid in it, mainly egg shells, peelings, plate scrapings. I was concerned about raw meat trimmings sitting in there so long. I had lined the bottom with newspaper but it became wet and stuck. I'm guessing it was condensation as the gunk was probably heating up. Now I have to retrieve the wet newspaper and replace it with dry newspaper. It was such a relief to get rid of it as I was on tenterhooks waiting for the inevitable to happen. I think thar was life in them thar brown bins!! It seems quite a rip off to pay for a collection when the bin isn't even half full!

[mollieD]

I had quite a few wigglers in my bin too as I had skipped one collection as the binis never full after two weeks and I am not going to pay every two weeks for a half full bin. What I did was use garden waste in on top of the gucky stuff, grass cuttings news papers etc. I also sprayed the inside lid with fly spray and that sorted those little critters out big time.! They all disappeared in minutes.

[TickTock]

This whole scenario reminds me of the old days when we had to get rid of this type of refuse, but in those days there was always someone around with pigs who would take the gunk and pay us kids a bright shiney sixpence for it. What do you think my chances are of getting a sixpence from the Co. Council for my gunk these days, eh?

[mondubics]

In Dublin city council area they have a pilot study on, to encourage people to use the brown bins, and so have distributed some of those compostable bags here. But they haven't managed to convince anyone to use them.
Problems:-
The bags are big enough to line the whole brown bin, but you can't tie them onto the bin without the first load dragging the bag to the bottom.
When we got the brown bins, we also got these brown 'caddies' (about 5litre).
I have found the Tesco compostable bags come in the ideal size to line these caddies, so I've started using those this week. It will save on washing out the caddy (somewhat), and should keep the flies and smells at bay.
Living alone, it would take me several months to fill the brown bin except when I have leaves and shrub cuttings to put in. They are just too big for ordinary households, given what you can't put in them.
I'm going to enquire as to whether the Irish company makes that size.

[TickTock]

I began this thread in August of last year. At the moment I have a brown bin now only half full and its been a couple of months hanging around. Its time for it to go out now. I've managed to cope with it, but only just. The warmer days are the problem. I'm seriously thinking of ditching using the brown bin over the summer until the colder autumn/winter days. In the old days, most areas of Dublin city had access to pigmen/women where you could get rid of your waste food, not that there was much waste in those days! But these days you just have to keep it hanging around for far too long - surely Health & Safety laws should come into it.