Anna Carey goes digging in the bins to find stylish and effective recycling solutions for the kitchen.
Recycling has never been easier. Gone are the days when the eco-friendly had to make arduous treks to remote regions of the outer suburbs just to safely dump their carefully cleaned and sorted cans and cardboard. Green bins are now the norm in most residential areas.
But with this convenience comes a new challenge. Going out to the bin in the back garden every time you finish a carton of juice or a packet of cornflakes is awkward, so you need somewhere in the kitchen to temporarily store recyclables. The problem is, what do you use for storage? The obvious and easy answer is another kitchen bin, but that can take up a lot of space. While I'd like to have an entire row of beautifully enamelled Oscar-the-Grouch-style bins for each recyclable item (paper, glass, plastic and so on), keeping such a collection would force my household to do all its eating, cooking and clothes washing in a tiny corner of the kitchen, hemmed in by a Dalek-like army of bins. And we've got a large kitchen.
BREAK IT UP
A compartmentalised bin, with different sections for different sorts of rubbish, makes a lot more sense than a large family of bins - and there are a few excellent examples on the market. One of the cheapest is the Trio bin from the American plastics company Rubbermaid, which is widely available in garden centres, homeware shops and Wicklow's Eco Shop in Kilmacanogue Co Wicklow, where it sells for €39.50.
As its name suggests, this particular bin is divided into three brightly-coloured segments - one for general waste, one for recyclables, and one for potential compost. When open, it looks rather like a giant Trivial Pursuit counter. It also has a little sibling, the Duo bin, which, unsurprisingly, contains just two segments. All the small segments can be removed from the bins if you want to use them to cart their contents to the recycling bin or centre.
GLAM IT UP
While these two bins are easy on the eye, there are even more glamorous compartmentalised bins on the market. Brabantia is well-known for its sleek, shiny and quite robust bins, and the Twin Bin, which contains a 23-litre container for regular waste and a 10-litre container for compostables, sells for €149.95 in Arnotts, Henry Street, Dublin 1, and is one of their most popular models.
The latest glossy recycling bin to come on the market is the intriguingly-named Simplehuman Butterfly Recycler (€159 at Roches Stores). It's a narrow bin, perfect for small kitchens. The two halves of its shiny metal lid pop open when you step on the bin pedal, revealing two separate, and surprisingly large, containers within. This bin is so narrow that those with larger kitchens could consider getting two in order to have four separate receptacles.
STACK EM HIGH
Of course, you don't have to get a purpose-made bin for recycling. In fact, if you're trying to recycle a wide range of materials, some of which can't be put in your council's green bin, it might make more sense to keep your recyclables in a set of storage drawers and save space by going vertical. Argos, Woodies and Atlantic Homecare all do a wide range of affordable plastic storage units which can contain up to six or seven different drawers. Such units are available in everything from brightly-coloured plastic to wood. If you don't like the plastic drawers supplied, you can always take them out, buy some more stylish baskets and use them instead - but make sure you first line the baskets with plastic or a washable material, to stop them getting too scruffy. Another option is to get some stackable plastic recycling bins and pile them high, putting waste into the bins' front flaps.
BUILD IT IN
All these solutions, however, demand at least a little bit of floor space. If you've got a small kitchen, or you'd simply like your recycling to stay out of the way, why not hide your receptacles in a drawer or cupboard?
And if money is no object, you can't do better than a custom-made Bulthaup kitchen. As befits a company from Germany, where separating rubbish has long been the norm, Bulthaup has always been aware of its customers' recycling needs. As a result, they've come up with wonderful innovations, such as a lift-up lid set in a flat work top which, when raised, reveals a special bin for compostable waste hidden beneath the work top. The tightly-fitting lid contains all potential odours, and the bin can be easily lifted out when you want to bring its contents to the composter. Bulthaup will make everything to your exact specifications, so if you want one deep drawer containing five bins of different specific sizes, and another containing two large bins, they'll make them all.
A Bulthaup kitchen will be beautiful, practical and eco-friendly, but, unfortunately, it won't be cheap. The price of a kitchen begins at about €18,000, and custom-built stand-alone units (which measure 600mm by 600mm) begin at €2,500.
Luckily for those on tighter budgets, there are cheaper, if less glamorous, alternatives. Even when they're not custom-made, deep, floor-mounted drawers are an excellent way of keeping recycling receptacles under cover - all you need are a couple of plastic containers to serve as bins. And if you're getting a new kitchen, remember that pull-out larders are great space-savers that can be modified with some plastic containers to serve as pull-out recycling centres.
STICK IT ON
If your kitchen is already fitted with more cupboards than deep drawers, but you don't want to drag the bin out of the cupboard every time you put something in, you can attach the bin to a cupboard door, for easy access. British DIY chain MFI produce an excellent compartmentalised bin which is perfect for a cupboard under the kitchen sink. The 500 Recycling Bin costs £95 and consists of three separate bins set in a frame which is mounted on the inside of the cupboard door. You can also turn your cupboard into a drawer with ease by getting pull-out rollers from a DIY shop, which can be used to hold containers for recyclables.
So, say goodbye to the paper shopping bag full of junk mail and flattened cereal boxes sitting by the back door. Bid bon voyage to the manky cardbox box full of old wine bottles sitting in front of the washing machine while they wait (for a very long time, in our house) to be carted off to the bottle bank. And start keeping those recyclable goodies in a sleek compartmentalised bin or a discreet in-cupboard container. It has never been easier to be green, in style. u
BIN BAGS
Biodegradable bin bags are a must for every econologically-aware consumer. Standard-sized biodegradable bags are sold in most large supermarkets, as awell as outlets such as the Eco Shop. Both Brabantia and Simplehuman produce bin bags for all their bin sizes available everywhere the bins are sold. If you've got a kitchen bin or bin compartment for collecting compostible waste, the compostable bin bags made of corn starch are ideal. These can be used in a kitchen compost bin and then both bag and waste can be dumped straight into the composter or compost heap - the bags too will compost. They're available, along with composters and kitchen compost bins, from Cultivate Sustainable Living Centre on Essex Street in Temple Bar, Dublin 2.