Or how to stop wrestling with recycling bins
If you, too, wrestle with recycling bins whose opening is far too small—forcing you to drop your rubbish in one piece at a time, a chore that takes ages and often leaves your fingers smelling foul—then this might be of interest.
But why is it so badly designed?
I shall start by tackling the question EVERYONE asks: why do recycling bins have such a small, impractical opening (often too high, too narrow for large boxes, and with a flap that slams shut every time)?
Opening height
I am not especially tall, so the openings on above-ground bins sit slightly too high to feel “comfortable” for me. Of course, the height of the bin largely determines its capacity: manufacturers must strike a balance between opening height, maximum capacity, and overall bin dimensions.
Opening size
The opening is too small to empty a caddy, bucket, or sorting bag in one go. That makes tipping waste more awkward and time-consuming. But one reason for the reduced opening is to stop certain users from dumping inappropriate rubbish in the recycling bin—for example, full unsorted black bags, tyres, dishwashers, and so on (yes, people really do this).
More importantly, the opening will not take large parcel boxes, only small cardboard packaging. You are sometimes told that brown corrugated cardboard must go to the tip—but why? Can you cut and fold it into smaller pieces and put it in the recycling bin anyway?
There appear to be several explanations (which may differ depending on where you live):
- brown cardboard is too large, too thick, made differently from small packaging cardboard, and often covered in plastic tape and/or metal staples: it can jam machinery at the sorting facility,
- it takes up too much space (mostly air) in the bins, meaning they have to be emptied more often,
- it is not sorted at the same facilities, so it is better to separate it from other waste as early as possible.
Some sorting facilities only distinguish between cardboard and large cardboard. So folding and cutting large boxes to fit in the recycling bin does not seem to be a problem.
Self-closing flap
Finally, for self-closing lids that get in the way when you are throwing rubbish away, I found several reasons:
- to stop rubbish blowing away,
- to reduce odours,
- to stop rain getting into the bin, washing out the waste, and making a mess on the pavement,
- automatic closing stops users forgetting to shut the lid.
So it seems inevitable that waste bins must meet these constraints, but the solution manufacturers have chosen is far from ideal when it comes to ease of use. Plenty of people complain about this and wonder why recycling is deliberately made harder by these bins.
My solution
As the family member tasked with emptying the bins, I soon grew weary of this recurring, tedious, messy job, thanks to the poor design of our sorting caddies.
After a few hours of head-scratching, sketches, careful sums, and several passes with the jigsaw, I am delighted to present: the waste slide story
The project plans are made with OpenSCAD and are available on Codeberg: they can be adapted to the dimensions of your recycling bins.
In my case, I sort waste into IKEA HÅLLBAR caddies: the slide is spot on for tipping my caddies quickly into the bin without getting filthy.