Our Top Ten Kitchen Recycling Bins for 2020

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Introducing Gollinucci Linea in-cupboard bins

Gollinucci have designed and manufactured every element of their products in-house for 45 years, at their plant in Cesena, south of Ravenna in Northern Italy. They commission well-known Italian designers to create good-looking, functional and easy-to-use kitchen accessories. The aim is to design long-lasting products with a touch of Italian style and they’ve certainly achieved this with their Linea range of in-cupboard bins which have some very special features, already being appreciated by our customers: Gollinucci Linea bins - key features: Great capacity Easy-to-accommodate fitting depths Clear fitting with template Lids for containers included as standard Available with or without overall shelf Sleek soft-close runners Easy to clean finishes in stylish slate grey Slimline side panel design means great capacity without taking up more depth These special features are created through design innovation and effective, precise manufacturing. In particular, the side runners on the Gollinucci Linea range are robust and perform beautifully but importantly have a special slimline profile. This means that the side mechanisms of the bin units are slimmer, which in turn allows the bin containers to be wider and therefore greater capacity. The Linea model for a 400mm wide cabinet, for example, is the only quality in-cupboard bin we have found with soft-close functionality combined with two equal sized, large 29 litre bin containers (most other models for a 400mm unit have one large and one smaller container). The 500mm Linea model has two 40 litre bin containers, and this great capacity is again made possible because of the slimline side panels. At 80 litres, this model has the largest capacity of our 500mm models. These large capacities are made even more appealing because the 460mm internal fitting depth of our Gollinucci Linea models  for 400mm, 450mm, 500mm and 600mm wide doorscan be accommodated in most cabinets. (note the model for 300mm doors requires a fitting depth of 503mm). Please check your internal depth and allow for services etc. With many other bin models, greater capacity usually means greater fitting depth, but Gollinucci have designed the Linea range so that the bin containers use the additional width within the bin unit instead of taking up depth to achieve increased capacity. Undercover: individual container lids and overall shelf The Linea bins sold by Binopolis come complete with a lid for each bin container. The lids have a central handle-hold for easy lifting, and because they provide an extra barrier against odours, many customers with an open-plan kitchen or a dining kitchen find it’s helpful to cover the containers in this way. These lids sit flush with the top of the container so the bin unit can still slide below a top shelf or drawer if needed. We offer the Linea bins in a choice of formats: either as standard with the two individual container lids (see the images above at bottom centre and right), or with a cabinet-wide shelf above the bins (all top images plus bottom left). This overall shelf is made in plastic to match the bin containers and is strong enough for extra storage of liners, papers etc. The shelf is fitted just above the bins and so even if you leave the individual container lids off, the overall shelf still provides an effective barrier to control odours. Gollinucci’s green credentials The factory has been running its own photovoltaic and cogeneration power stations since 2009, giving full energy independence to the company. They re-use all polypropylene production waste transforming it into a new usable raw material for further production. Gollinucci also give particular consideration to materials and design to reduce the environmental impact when products reach their end-of-life. Click here to see the range of Gollinucci in-cupboard bins      

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The Plastic Recycling Challenge

The increasing concerns about plastic pollution, largely highlighted by the BBC series The Blue Planet, are resulting in some positive actions by environmental campaigners, manufacturers and people at home who want to reduce plastic waste and its harmful effects. At Binopolis we believe in home and office recycling as one way to contribute positively to increasing the percentage of plastic which is recycled and reused. Although different local authorities have different approaches to the plastics they recycle, as a general rule it is worth separating out plastic bottles and packaging from your waste, to give it a chance to go to recycling instead of landfill. The BBC has created an excellently clear and factual feature which illustrates the scale of the problem. Here are some of the key facts from it: Why is plastic a problem? Plastic as we know it has only really existed for the last 60-70 years, but in that time it has transformed everything from clothing, cooking and catering, to product design, engineering and retailing. One of the great advantages of many types of plastic is that they're designed to last - for a very long time. And nearly all the plastic ever created still exists in some form today. As this chart shows, 8.3 billion tonnes of plastic has been produced and of this, some 6.3bn tonnes is now waste - and 79% of that is in landfill or the natural environment. Four billion plastic bottles… Drinks bottles are one the most common types of plastic waste. Around 480bn plastic bottles were sold globally in 2016 - that's a million bottles per minute. I went to stay with my brother who is a teacher in Thailand and lives with his Thai wife and her family. Not so long ago, rainwater was still collected in these large ceramic jars for drinking. Now, bottled water is considered the safest to drink and families and tourists alike consume perhaps 10 bottles a day each. In his village, the local council issues collection bags and encourages recycling by giving a small amount of money in exchange for clear plastic bottles.  The Namthip water bottle has been designed to twist and to use thinner plastic than ever before, making it easier to crush and store more bottles before taking them for recycling. Here is one day’s worth of bottles at my brother’s home: Namthip is a Coca-Cola brand and even though they produce by far the most plastic bottles, at least they are trying to make recycling them easier. But surely a giant corporation such as this must start to contribute to financially to recycling schemes. A plastic bottle is estimated to take a staggering 450 years to decompose, but of course we don’t want them to decompose in landfill or the sea as the particles are now being proved to enter the bloodstream of both humans and animals. It is true that the majority of plastic waste eminates from China, South East Asia and the US, and so we in the UK may feel that we are not part of the problem. However a recent survey by Plymouth University found that plastic was found in a third of UK-caught fish, including cod, haddock, mackerel and shellfish. How bad are things in the UK? The Marine Conservation Society found 718 pieces of litter for every 100m stretch of beach surveyed during their recent Great British Beach Clean Up. That was a 10% increase on last year and we’ve noticed this increase locally where we are based on the South coast. Much of this waste is difficult to trace to its origin, but 30% was identified as ‘public waste’ which includes mostly plastic bottles, packaging and glass. A lot of this will have been dropped at the coast, but much of it will also have been transported along rivers and also, importantly, washed away from landfill sites. So while the majority of us won’t drop litter at the beach, we may trust that by putting plastics in our bins that they will be disposed of. Plastic can produce fumes when burnt, so it is more commonly sent to landfill where it then starts to pollute the environment. Therefore separating out your plastics, at least clear bottles and packs, and putting them into your recycling is a big contribution you can make at home to reducing plastic waste. New products, such as a pair of Adidas x Parley trainers which use 11 upcycled plastic bottles, can be made easily using recycled plastic, so to reduce production of virgin plastic is a worthwhile aim. Thank you to the BBC for these excellent infographics which sum up the problem so clearly. If you’d like to see this and related articles, go to: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-42264788 .

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World Oceans Day: Recycling Helps the Planet!

The shocking pictures of devastation caused by plastic waste in newspapers and on David Attenborough’s recent Blue Planet II series have led many more of us to voice our growing concern for our planet. In January, the Government pledged to eradicate the use of all “avoidable plastic” in the next 25 years. This will be achieved partly by extending the 5p plastic bag charge – already introduced with huge success to supermarkets across Britain – to all shops across England. There are also proposals to tax throwaway cups and introduce a bottle deposit scheme: these have been operating for many years in Scandinavia and customers are charged extra for a drink in a re-usable bottle and get the money back when they return it. How many of these initiatives will get the go-ahead in reality?. If most or all are put into practice, it will confirm that the government has finally got serious about plastic, instead of using it simply for positive spin. One reason for us all to get serious about plastic waste is China’s recent ban on imports of “foreign waste”. Europe generates 25 million tonnes of plastic waste a year but only recycles about a third of it. Most of the rest used to be shipped to China – but now it needs to be disposed of in Europe and elsewhere. This has led to the EU aiming to significantly reduce the use of disposable plastic and microbeads. Plastic that doesn’t get recycled can end up in the sea, where it poses a significant risk to marine life. The plastic waste problem is so bad that plastic now makes up 85 per cent of all beach litter, and plastic waste littering the ocean is set to treble within the next ten years if action is not taken. There is a huge pile of plastic waste floating in the Pacific Ocean, known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It contains 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic and weighs around 80,000 tonnes, the equivalent of 500 jumbo jets and is more than twice the size of France in area. The plastic is from a variety of sources but includes household products and plastic bottles. Chris Packham has called the Government’s 25 year plan to reduce plastic waste “embarrassing” in its vagueness and far-off targets. Packham said: “I’m not sure people fully appreciate that a bottle top dropped on a pavement in London or Manchester can so easily be washed into the English Channel, Irish Sea or Atlantic” and says the situation won’t change unless we take the matters of plastic waste and the environment into our own hands. “It is about do-it-yourself. And if we don’t do it, then we are just doing ourselves in.” The Blue Planet II series has helped raise awareness about plastic pollution and people in Britain say they are far more aware of the problem matter than they were a year ago, according to research by the Sky Ocean Rescue campaign. Now 45 per cent of people sometimes try to avoid products packaged in plastic but 27 per cent rarely or never do. It’s not easy to avoid plastic packaging when you shop in major supermarkets and have to rush with the children in tow or when you’re on the way home and just need to eat. Inspired by the success of the plastic carrier bag campaign, companies including Nestle, Coca Cola and Unilever have, alongside supermarkets, signed a “plastics pact”, supported by charity WRAP. The pledge means companies have committed to making all of their plastic packaging recyclable or reusable by 2025. Campaign group A Plastic Planet is bidding to convince UK supermarkets that a Plastic Free Aisle would be both good for business and the environment. Providing a supermarket aisle featuring only goods sold in biodegradable packaging would make it quick and easy for us to reject goods laden with single-use plastic. But until the supermarkets and brands reduce the plastic packaging they use for our groceries and produce, the best way for most people to easily cut their plastic footprint is to carry reusable coffee cups, shopping bags and water bottles – and not to use drinking straws, according to Greenpeace UK oceans campaigner Will McCallum. And in the meantime when you have a piece of plastic in your hand to dispose of in the kitchen, remember that only a third of plastic waste is currently recycled in the UK. Putting plastic into your recycling bin means it stands the best chance of being recycled and reused, being made into new containers and packaging, fleece clothing or bin liners, and increasingly more permanent items are being made from the plastics you can recycle, including furniture, fencing, kerb stones, drainpipes, signage and automotive parts. We can’t get rid of all plastics, and plastic remains a useful material. It’s not intrinsically harmful in its own right, the harm is caused by how we dispose of it. Plastic remains in circulation unless it’s burnt. So by recycling it into new products, at least it will still be in a place where it is being useful to us and potentially replacing wood, stone and other natural materials. Around 100,000 marine animals and one million birds are killed each year due to either consuming or getting tangled in plastic waste. Nine out of ten seabirds are thought to have plastic in their stomachs, we don’t yet know the effects of eating fish containing plastic traces, and last week a whale was discovered in a Thai canal with eighty plastic bags weighing 8kg in its stomach. So don’t think that you can’t make a difference on your own and that there is no point in recycling your plastics. If more of us recycle, and more recycling plants are developed in response to our need to recycle our own plastic waste, more plastic will be put to good use and controlled, instead of ending up in the seas.

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Introducing our new range of Blanco in-cupboard kitchen bins

Blanco are famous for their sleek, premium quality sinks but did you know they also produce equally beautiful bins? Blanco kitchen bins are designed with fitting under sinks in mind, so if you have a cabinet below  a sink or with limited height and depth, a Blanco bin could be the perfect solution to hide away your recycling and waste for a neat finish in your kitchen. The Blanco Select range of pull-out door bins has received a Red Dot Design Award in addition to being the only RIBA accredited integrated bins on the market. These design and quality accolades recognise the attention to detail in the finishing and the clever use of space which Blanco’s designers have achieved in their bin models. By making the unique runners slim and integrated into the side panels, this has allowed the bin units to incorporate inner bin containers which are generous in size for a compact built-in bin. The handles on the inner bins are angled to create a neat edging and avoid gaps between the bins, which also stops waste falling in between. The steel lid covers the bins when the cabinet is closed and acts as an extra storage shelf for further clever use of space. The Blanco range brings to our selection new bin designs which have unique configurations, including the only bin which uses the width of a 600mm hinged door cabinet, and at 361mm the lowest height bins available for pull-out door cabinets. The range divides into products of three types: Blanco Select The Select bins are for cabinets with pull-out doors, and have integrated soft-close runners which give you smooth and quiet operation. The bin unit attaches to the cabinet door and the bins glide out with the door for easy access to your recycling and waste.  For 600mm cabinets the Select 60/3 has three equal-sized 15 litre compartments. The Select 60/2 has one 30 L and one 19 L compartment, and the Select XL 60/3 has one compartment of 30 L and two of 8 Litres, one of these with a lid making it ideal for food waste. For a 500mm cabinet the Select 50/2 has two 19L compartments, and the a 450mm cabinet the Select 45/2 has two 16L compartments. Blanco Select Orga The Orga bins come complete with a unique Organisation drawer which acts as a lid and extra storage space on top of the bin unit below. These bins represent the ultimate in making the most of the space under a sink, as the drawer is shaped to fit around the U-bend on Blanco sinks and may also fit around other neat U-bends, or simply provide another level of storage in any cabinet. The drawer is fitted on its own steel runners just above the bin, so when the cabinet door is opened and the bins slide out, the drawer can be pulled out independently for easy access. The drawer comes with three separate removable containers, one across the width of the drawer at the front, and two square ones at the back. Bin liners, cleaning materials, all sorts of household items can be stored in the drawer to make effective use of what is normally empty space around plumbing. The Orga bins are all for 600mm pullout door cabinets, all with the same drawer but with a choice of configurations for the bin unit: Select 60/3 Orga with three 15L bin compartments; Select XL 60/3 with one compartment of 30L and two of 8L; and the Select 60/2 Orga with one compartment of 30 Litres and a second of 19 Litres. Organisation of the space in your cabinets is the key to the neat, uncluttered kitchen look and Blanco’s premium Orga bins give you not only inner bins for recycling and waste, but also a top drawer to fit in even more accessible storage. Blanco Pro Manual These are smart premium bins for cabinets with hinged doors, and at 361mm high and 400mm deep are a great solution if you have limited height and/or depth for an in-cupboard bin. Open the cabinet door and then pull out the front panel of the bin unit, for full access to the inner bins. They then slide back in under the strong integrated lid which you can use as an extra storage shelf. The inner compartments have strong handles which are indented into the thick plastic sides of the bins (instead of projecting at the sides), and this means that the largest possible bin capacity can be fitted into the unit. So for a 600mm hinged door cabinet there is the Pro Manual 60/3, which has three 13L compartments, and for a 450mm or 500mm cabinet the Pro Manual 45/2 has two 13L compartments. Because the Pro Manual hinged door bins fit simply to the cabinet base, they can be used in wider cabinets and positioned either centrally or to one side. They can often fit in front of pipework, columns or other obstructions where other bins would be too deep. One idea is to fit a Pro Manual 60/3 into an 800mm or 1200mm cabinet, toward one side as bin storage and potentially in combination with a waste disposal etc. Completing the Blanco range for Hinged door cabinets is the Singolo, a 14 litre bin which fixes to and swings out with the door making it ideal for easy disposal of small amounts of recycling, and also good for food waste as the inner bucket has a carrying handle and the lid covers the bin when the cabinet is closed. The lid is shaped so that small items can be stored on top. Great use of every last bit of space in a cabinet. All of the Blanco bins are particularly simple to fit using Blanco’s template-based fitting instructions and excellent fitting videos, which you can view on the product pages for both the hinged and pull-out door models. Many customers find that the cabinet below their sink is the only space they can allocate to their bin, particularly in a smart city apartment or in any kitchen where the recycling needs to be sorted behind closed doors. Even if your main recycling bin is a free standing model or a large in cupboard bin taking up most of a different cabinet, Blanco tell us that their bins are used as a ‘Space Management System’ to manage and organise storage of household items in the space below the sink or below drawers. The inner bins are ideal for carrying cleaning or car washing materials, and as a nation of pet lovers they are also great for storing pet food and accessories.

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New 40L and 60L Large Kitchen Bins From Brabantia

If you need an extra large bin for your home or office, our new 60 litre Brabantia kitchen bins will give you copious capacity and still look smart and chic in your interior. These new premium Brabantia models come with a choice of Push or Touch lids and in beautiful, on-trend finishes, and are a fantastic addition to our range of eye-catching freestanding bins. Incredibly versatile, the new 60 litre Brabantia Push Bins are available in bright Brilliant Steel or chic Matt Stainless Steel finishes and will introduce a professional touch to any kitchen while co-ordinating beautifully with high-performance appliances. These new Push Bins are also perfect for offices, salons, restaurants or cafes. When you’ve created a smart interior for your business, there’s no need to spoil it with unattractive plastic ‘commercial’ bins! Brabantia bins are built solidly to last in business situations and look infinitely stylish. They may cost a little more but will keep their good looks and superior functionality for longer. Their stylish flap lid opens inwards with a gentle push and closes softly and quietly. As the lid opens inwards rather than upwards, these stunning new bins can be placed under cupboards and shelves. Measuring H810mm by Dia 440mm, the new 60L Brabantia Push Bins are priced at just £160. Available in a choice of no fewer than five beautiful finishes, the new 60-litre Brabantia Touch Bins also provide generous capacity. Take your pick from white, matt black, metallic grey and stainless steel, all £150, or fingerprint proof stainless steel, £178. With the lightest of touches, the plastic lid opens smoothly and closes with just a gentle push. Its controlled opening mechanism enables the bin to be positioned close up against a wall. It measures H710mm by Dia 400mm. There is also an open bin in the 60L capacity, which is perfect for businesses and busy homes where you want the convenience of just putting things straight in a bin without touching a lid (even good for laundry). Other versatile new additions to our Brabantia range include the new, redesigned 40L Touch Bins in six finishes, including the new Platinum and Metallic Grey. These bins have a new oval lid shape, with the front edge of the lid in the same colour of steel as the body below. This gives a much cleaner look and the plastic lid is in an improved material with even greater resistance to fingerprints, and ease of cleaning. The space-saving Flatback bins in the 30 litre capacity have always been popular with our customers, so we’ve added the 40 litre Flatback models for you to choose from, in White and fingerprint-proof Stainless Steel finishes. They really are whisper quiet in operation, which is a big relief from clanging bin lids, especially in the office or in your business. As these new bins all have one compartment, they can make a very effective and smart recycling station if put together in groups of two or three. You can use different colour bins to denote different uses, possibly adding some graphics to show what goes in each bin. Alternatively, the new Touch bin design has also been produced as a two-compartment recycling bin, with one 23 litre large container, plus a green 10 litre container ideal for food waste, or other small amounts of waste or recycling. All of our new Brabantia bins come with a 10-year manufacturer’s warranty for extra peace of mind, and free delivery.