Robin keeps used packaging on the kitchen ledge. Benny thinks that’s unhygienic. You decide who’s talking rubbish
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double quotation markWe’ve had little flies buzzing around – I know they’re coming from the recycling
My girlfriend, Robin, likes to keep the recycling on a ledge above the counter in our kitchen, instead of taking it straight outside. I absolutely hate it. It’s not just empty cereal boxes or clean bottles – we have a dog, so there are often empty dog food cans too. There’s always a bit of food left around the edges, and if they’re left for long enough they start to smell and attract flies. It’s gross.
If recycling has any food residue in it, you can’t leave it sitting around in the kitchen for days. We’ve had little flies buzzing around before and I know they’re coming from the recycling. Robin thinks I’m making too much of a fuss and that it’s only there temporarily until there’s enough to justify taking it outside, but I think it needs to go out immediately.
We live in a flat on the third floor, so I understand not wanting to make a trip to the bin every time we finish something, but there has to be a limit. If the cans are growing mould or attracting flies, we’ve passed it. I don’t want to be preparing food while there’s a collection of old things sitting above the counter.
I’ve suggested rinsing the cans as soon as we’ve used them, which Robin does sometimes, but not often. We have a small kitchen and clear surfaces make it feel calmer and cleaner. Twelve pieces of recycling lined up along the wall is an eyesore.
Robin is not as environmentally conscious as me and I think she would put a lot of things in the rubbish bin if it wasn’t for me. She likes pointing out the stuff on the ledge as if to say: “See, I recycle.”But we all should recycle.
Sometimes I take individual items downstairs to the recycling bin because I can’t stand looking at them any more. Robin never does this because she says it’s inefficient. My options are therefore to become the household recycling porter or accept that the ledge has been totally annexed by empty packaging.
I’m willing to compromise: we can collect clean recycling in a box, bag or container, and take it down when it’s full. But Robin needs to relinquish that ledge. When the ledge starts attracting wildlife, it’s not an environmental initiative, it’s a biohazard.
double quotation markI don’t understand Benny’s obsession with buying a recycling box. Where would it go?
Benny is making our kitchen sound like a landfill site when it’s not. We live on the third floor of a block of flats and the recycling bins are all the way downstairs, so I’m not going to make a special trip every time the dog finishes a tin of food.
The ledge is practical and out of the way. Benny says it’s unhygienic to have recycling above a kitchen counter, but we don’t use that counter, so if they fall off it doesn’t matter. When a reasonable amount accumulates we take everything downstairs together.
I disagree that Benny takes all the recycling down. I do it when I can, but he goes in and out of the building more as the bins are on his route to work and I work from home.
The ledge is dead space. We have a small kitchen with hardly any storage, floor or counter space, which is why I don’t understand Benny’s obsession with buying a recycling box. Where would it go? It wouldn’t fit on the ledge, there’s no room on the counter and I don’t want a big box taking up the limited floor space. We’d be replacing some cans neatly lined up against a wall with a massive container we’d have to manoeuvre around every day. How is that better?
