Waste, recycling and cleaning up

Our waste collections are performed by B&M and organised via Melodic Distraction in the yard downstairs. B&M take waste to a Veolia plant for processing. Veolia takes glass separately from general waste, and recycles it. Everything else is incinerated to generate power.

As a result, there is no need to separate out plastic, cardboard, paper, and metal cans – they will all just end up being incinerated anyway. (If this upsets you, we’d encourage you to take your recyclable waste home with you, where your council will probably take it as part of its household collection service.)

But you MUST MUST MUST separate out glass. If glass makes it into the general waste, DoES gets fined. So don’t put it in the black bins!

There is a small composting waste bin in the kitchen for coffee grounds, teabags, applecores, etc, which Julian takes home and empties every now and then. It’s small and silver, and usually lives next to the toaster.

What to do with your waste

Glass

Glass currently collects along the wall in the kitchen. Until we work out a better system for this, add your glass to this collection.

Compostable waste

Compostable waste like food offcuts and teabags can go into the composting bin on the kitchen worktop, if there’s space.

Laser cutter waste

If you’re cutting birch, plywood, or acrylic and there is enough space left on a sheet that someone might find it useful in future, cut it or snap it down into a manageable size, and store it in the plan chests / drawer units near the laser cutters.

Any other laser room waste should be disposed of as general waste, in the black bins (see below).

3D printing waste

The plastic playgroup are doing some 3D printing recycling. If there is a box near to the 3D printers, then place spare 3D printed material in there. Otherwise it needs to be disposed of as general waste, in the black bins (see below).

Everything else

Plastic bottles, tin cans, paper, cardboard, metal, fabrics, plywood, acrylic — basically anything except glass — can go into the black bins dotted around the space.

Taking out the trash

If a black bin is almost full, take it out.

There are two massive bright yellow wheelie bins in locked sheds under the fire escape, next to Melodic Distraction. Ask someone to show you, if you’re not sure. The code to open the sheds’ numeric padlocks is printed on the robot bin in the kitchen.

Glass, if you’re taking it down, goes into a separate container under the fire escape (not the bright yellow wheelie bins). Again, ask someone to show you if you’re not sure. The bar staff at Melodic Distraction are also happy to help.

We don’t pay people to take out our bins for us – it’s your duty, as a user of the space, to take out the bins when they are full. It literally takes 3 minutes.

There are replacement black bin bags in the bottom drawer in the kitchen.

Vacuum cleaner

We now have a Henry vacuum cleaner (red). It was bought from CPC as were the bags which it uses. It usually lives in the cleaning cupboard, opposite the accessible toilet.

There is also a purple cyclone which is used to handle dust from the bandsaw, drill and machine tool. It should be emptied more often, probably into a big mostly-full dustbin bag just before it gets tied up. There has also been a green cleaner which is now mounted by the CNC router in the machine room.

Wet cleaning

There are mops and buckets in the cleaning cupboard (by the toilets). There is one set marked for use in the toilets, this should not be used anywhere else and the unmarked set should not be used in the toilets.

Irene the cleaner visits just once a week, generally at the weekend although her timing varies.

Washing up

The best option is to put stuff in the dishwasher. Don't just "rinse things out".