After a trial period in one neighbourhood within Kingston upon Thames, the local council has decided to roll out the scheme to the whole borough.

It’s been a long time coming, but finally the general recycling service has been expanded so that it’s possible to dispose of more types of plastic, glass, cans, paper, cardboard, household batteries, clothing and food waste from the doorstop.

Materials to be recycled are now collected every week, while general landfill waste is collected fortnightly — a reversal of the previous system.

Overall, this is a great improvement and, if residents choose to participate fully, it should reduce the amount of material going to landfill sites. However, on a personal level, it has meant a bit of disruption.

Firstly, the refuse collection team will no longer pick up anything that isn’t in the new, standard black “wheelie” bin supplied. That means no more black sacks left out on the kerbside. For the sake of the local environment on collection day this is probably a good thing (no more spillage or pest attacks on bags) but it now means that we have to find space for an enormous black bin.

Put it in the back garden (though there’s nowhere out of sight) and we have to wheel it around several houses in the terrace to get it to the front (we have no side passage to the house).

Put it in the front garden and it looks terrible. Our front garden is pretty small as it is, and I’ve chosen to grow flowers and shrubs in the limited space rather than filling it up with a great lump of plastic.

In one corner of the front garden where the side hedge and front fence meet, the recycling crew seems to have decided for us that the patch of earth is to be used to chuck the green plastic recycling box on to when they’ve emptied it. Obviously we weren’t going to try to grow anything there, so it seemed a logical place to store the large bin. It’s also an incentive to never throw anything smelly into it, because that’s now what will greet visitors!

I spent today hacking the hedge back to make room for the plastic monstrosity. It just about fits. The other containers will live in the back garden and be brought through the house every Tuesday.

What worries me slightly is that the crews collecting this stuff aren’t the most careful. I have visions of food waste bags splitting and being strewn across the street, and of wheelie bins and recycling boxes being left all over the place.

The literature which accompanied the bin suggests that staff will leave the bins exactly where they found them. Based on previous experience, I highly doubt this, particularly as they now have more to collect every week.

We’ll have to wait and see when the scheme kicks in properly next week. I’m hoping it’s a success, because I’m all for recycling as simply as possible. I just hope everyone does their bit to keep the local environment rubbish free each collection day.