How I'm complying with the new recycling rules despite living in a flat with no outside space for four (or five) separate wheelie bins

I'm all for a greener environment, but the new simpler recycling rules that come into force at the end of March fill me with some trepidation, simply because I already have to manage five different types of waste in a first floor apartment with no outdoor space.

My front door opens directly onto the town's main high street, which also means that rubbish and recycling can't go outdoors until the night before collection. And, as it's not all collected weekly, some types of waste have to linger in my home for longer than others.

It's a juggling act that I've learnt to manage using the following approach to cope with waste from three humans and a dog plus no outdoor space for my bins.

I use two bins for food waste

I use a counter-top food caddy for food waste that stays in my kitchen until it's full. It's this Addis Everyday Kitchen Food Waste Compost Caddy Bin from Amazon, and I use these Food Caddy bags from Amazon inside.

I then transfer the full bags to a second food bin, a council-provided food recycling caddy, which I store in my tiny utility room. While the lid closes fairly tightly, it doesn't mask any food odours completely. I leave the utility room door closed for this reason, to stop smells leaking into the rest of my home. There's also a small window that I can open when things get a bit whiffy towards the end of the week.

As I can squeeze around 5-6 bags of food waste in this larger container and it's collected on a weekly basis, it's usually enough to get by. Since moving into the flat though it's certainly made me more conscious about food waste, which has changed my shopping habits.

With only a small amount of concealed kitchen storage available, I have to meal plan in advance, and avoid filling up with too many perishable items that might get wasted when plans change.

Try this food waste caddy for odour control

I use a small caddy for glass waste

I don't have a lot of glass waste so, I put any of this straight into the council-provided caddy. It's the same size as the food waste caddy and lives in my utility room, alongside it. I wash any glass items prior to being binned to eliminate odours as much as possible.

This particular caddy is collected once a fortnight at the moment, but when the new rules come in, this may change to less than this. Also, while I previously put items such as drinking glasses, or cleaned glass candle containers in there, these will no longer be collected by the recycling team, so I'll have to find an alternative for these when the rules come into play.

I use foldable bags for plastics, metal and paper

The larger task to deal with is sorting out my recycling waste. While some councils only have one recycling bin collection, my council requires homes to sort recycling waste into two different components:

• Plastics and metals
• Paper and cardboard

In a small kitchen, I'll admit this is difficult, but I generally deal with this waste by sorting it and storing it in two large household bins in my kitchen. I use these 50L kitchen bins, which are the Tower T838005N Rectangular Sensor Bin with Fingerprint Proof Coated Exterior ones, again from Amazon. Each has a bin liner inside that is changed every week to avoid dirt and smells sticking around.

The contents of these recycling bins are collected weekly and I transfer the recycling waste into the relevant council-supplied foldable bag the night before and put this out for collection on the street outside.

Paper and cardboard recycling

One of my kitchen bins is for paper and cardboard. This can sometimes be problematic when everything these days seems to come in huge cardboard boxes that need breaking down.

This bin always ends up full, but not overflowing unless there's a birthday or celebration such as Christmas. When bin days comes (weekly for paper and cardboard) I pull out the filled bin liner into the council-supplied cardboard and paper recycling foldable bag (see above) for collection.

When I do have bigger boxes that won't fit in my foldable bag, I end up having to store these in a room or my landing for the local tip.

Plastic and metals recycling

Items earmarked for the plastic recycling take a little more time and effort, as these are generally items that contained food or liquid. To avoid any smells in the kitchen, I wash and dry all of them before putting in my kitchen bin.

It does of course make me question how much this is impacting my water bills, and also my water consumption. Given we're facing drier summers due to climate change, it can feel like I'm doing the right thing on one side of the coin, but then not the other.

Given the amount of food my sons consume, this bin is generally filled to capacity by the end of the week.

Try this triple compartment recycling bin

How I limit general waste

When I first lived in this town, general waste was collected weekly. There was an allowance for one black bag a week, which changed to become two bags a fortnight, some time ago. This is of course the same amount of bags, but in a flat with no outdoor or indoor space to store an additional black bag of general waste, it's meant I've had to try and drastically reduce the amount of general waste we generate each week.

I use the third 50L household bin in my kitchen for general waste. This has to be constantly monitored to ensure items haven't been put in there that will smell after two weeks (something we don't always get right), and the smaller bins around the home (other than bins with lids in the bathroom) are generally only suitable for dry waste. In the summer months when my boys have forgotten the rules, it's not uncommon to discover the occasional flurry of fruit flies in bedrooms due to binned apple cores and banana skins.

Shop household bins

I book regular tip slots to deal with the rest

While my general ethos is to buy less, use less and recycle where possible, high street apartment living with no garden or outbuildings means every now and again I have no choice to head to the local tip.

Items wear out, small DIY jobs take place, regular decluttering is a must-do in smaller homes and as a result, there's rubbish that needs to go somewhere. I don't know about you, but in my town we have to book tip slots in advance. Given the new rules place tighter restrictions on what goes in recycling, I may have to go more often.

My local tip also has a 'sort before you arrive' and an 'open-bag policy'. This means your waste has to be organised in categories such as metal, wood and so forth before you drive in. It can't be done while you there. In addition, you can't close any black bags that contain what you deem as general waste. The items have to be visible for inspection before they go into the designated skips.

Why I am still adjusting my approach

On the one hand it's dramatically improved how much we recycle each week, but to see that the list of items I can recycle is being reduced, it does leave me wondering what I will do with anything that falls outside of the boundaries.

I'm considering switching the bathroom and bedroom bins to larger ones with lids in an attempt to ensure they can contain more items, keep odours in, and last for two weeks. I can then use my two-bag fortnightly allowance, using one black bag for the kitchen bin and another for the remainder.

Another option, and one which may help when sorting the bins ready for collection is to have a recycling and general waste bin in every room. It could mean items that slip into the general waste, might be more obviously seen as suitable for recycling.

While I have no major home renovations planned, these new simpler recycling rules could also impact you if you are planning on upgrading your home anytime soon.

Understanding how much does a skip cost can help you plan ahead for dealing with your waste, while looking at ways to recycle building materials is a must if you want to have as eco-friendly a footprint as possible.