to be sick of the whole waste bin and recycling charade

[rogersmellyonthetelly]

We were put on fortnightly waste collections a couple of years ago, and since then, despite recycling everything i can, my green bin is overflowing by the end of the first week, and the second week i have to take my bags to the tip meaning my car stinks of rubbish and the potential for bacteria laden leakage is high
I thought I must be doing something wrong, but if I am, then 90% of families on my street are too, including the lentil weaver at the end who knits her own nappies and recycles anything thats not nailed down.
does anyone else feel just a leetle bit pissed off with their council about this? I mean they send us a council tax bill, they dont tell us what they actually spend it on. they tell us we dont need weekly waste collections, but noone actually asked us about this, and they are blatantly ignoring the evidence on the streets every bin collection day that actually, 90% of us CANT manage on a fortnightly collection. We are paying customers, surely we should have some say in what its spent on? I'd happily pay an extra £8 a month for a weekly collection, and save me an hour of disinfecting my boot after every tip run. it would also save the street from being covered in crap and refuse when foxes get into the bags left next to the bin in desperation, or the dozens of plastic bottles which blow up and down the street (and end up littering the hedgerows since no fucker ever picks them up) on recycling day because the crates they give us are too small and the top net is ineffective.
sorry if this sounds ranty btw, am just horrendously pissed off as as have just had a bin bag burst on my way to the car dribbling manky beans all over my suede boots and down the path, a regular occurrence im afraid.
so, does everyone else manage ok with the every other week bin emptying? or is it just me and my street who are lazy feckers.

[StaceymAloneForver]

we went to fornightly collections but our council have given us a 'food waste' caddy and outside bin, that they collect weekly (think the ones you use for composting, but you can put all food waste in) Big bin basically only contains the plastic wrapping from stuff, i only fill 1 bin bag a week.

maybe try suggesting that to your council??

[LingDiLong]

Do they not take your food waste weekly then OP? We have fornightly collections of everything but food. It's a pain having the bin bags/recycling hanging around inbetween but it's not smelly or unhygienic so I don't mind.

[KatyMac]

You must have tiny bins

I run a business from home & still don't fil my waste bin, my recycling bin is always overflowing but they don't mind that

[rogersmellyonthetelly]

nope, we have a green bin which is food, and anything that cant be recycled. we get a green box which is for recycling (the size of a small toy box, fits about half a weeks worth of stuff in before its blowing all over the street) a waste paper bin which is emptied monthly and a garden waste bin which is also monthly. apparently if the green bin gets smelly because of food waste, we should double wrap the food before putting it in, which sort of defeats the object of recycling when we are using more wrapping to avoid the food smelling. they recycling is mixed plastic/metal anyhow, and afaik they dont sort it into plastic/metal at the other end so what it gets recycled to I'll never know.

[wishingchair]

Where I used to live (Surrey) we the same as you it seems - had fortnightly collections of general waste, and also fortnightly collections of glass, plastic, tin and paper - also had the stupid tiny crates. No food waste collections at all. Was not ideal but we managed and didn't have to take anything to the tip ourselves. Bin was always full but never overflowing. 2 adults who are in the house all day (work from home) and 2 kids.

Just moved and it is bliss (East Yorkshire). 3 wheelie bins. One for weekly general waste collections - bin is never close to being full. One for fortnightly food/garden/cardboard. One for 4-weekly glass, plastic, paper, cartons. They also text you to remind you of the 4 weekly collection.

[lesley33]

We have fortnightly collection of recycling stuff - paper, cardboard, plastic bottles, plastic milk cartons, etc. And fortnightly collection of an ordinary bin. Although my ordinary bin can get very full, we very rarely can't fit everything in. So it works fine for us.

Except for the time that I put in a chicken carcass not wrapped in a sealed plastic bag and got maggots in the bin that took a lot of bleach to get rid of. And yes the bin lid was shut.

[rogersmellyonthetelly]

if they would empty the green bin weekly, id happily take my recycling to the tip as it doesnt smell my car out or make we want to throw up when the bag bursts!

[FredFredGeorge]

I can only assume you have a large household - most councils will give you a large wheelie bin in that situation. I don't see overflowing wheelie bins around ours - we do live next door to the tip though so maybe all the neighbours just dump it in there?

[StealthPenguin]

My council is absolutely brilliant, sorry to rub it in!

We operate on a fortnightly system. First week is black binliners, second week is recycling. We are only allowed one black binliner per week, however we are allowed as many food waste bags and green binliners as we can fill. Literally - there is absolutely no limit. And they don't expect one bag for paper, one for plastic etc. All the recycling can be done in one bag provided you keep the food in one bag and the plastic/glass/cans/paper in another. I organize it out of OCD on my part, but generally it's really great.

[goingtoofast]

Our council introduced a similar scheme a few months ago.

Ww are a family of five and don't manage. We have three bins two are collected one week, the other the next week. We always get to a point where we have to juggle and end up put recycling in the landfill bin as we run our of space in the recycling one. We also don't put glass in our recycling bin anymore and take it to the nearest glass rectcling place (which is always overflowing). Last week I had enough and requested a larger landfil bin which after comming to see me the council agreed to.

[FestiveFriedaWassailsAgain]

We have a black bin for food and non recyclables.
A grey bin for recycling - card, paper, tins, glass, etc
Brown for garden waste only. All collected fortnightly.

The council gave us an extra large bin on request for the recycling as we struggled with the usual size. But the black bin usually has plenty of room left by collection day TBH

[cameltoeinlycra]

We have had fortnightly collections for over ten years. We have 3 wheelie bins, and 2 recycling boxes, the boxes are for cardboard and paper, which if they are full we can leave the cardboard in a neat pile next to them on collection date, a wheelie bin for garden waste only, kitchen waste that was compostable was allowed but had to be stopped possibly due to some people thinking it was ALL kitchen waste, a wheelie bin for glasses, tins and plastic bottles and a general waste bin.

We only viist the tip if we have forgotten to put the bins out and they are too full to wait until next collection day or at xmas with the extra rubbish that is produced.

There are 5 people that live in the house with numerous animals who all produce a fair amount of rubbish between them all, we never have rubbish that will not fit into the bins (other than the times stated) or require collection anymore than once a fortnight, and from looking at my neighbours they have no problems with the collection as it is at the moment either.

[rogersmellyonthetelly]

there are 4 of us and a dog. I have requested a larger bin, but have been told i cant have one. as i said, I dont mind the recycling stuff its the food waste which i find a problem as it stinks to high heaven and is a health hazard i feel particularly in the summer. we are ttc a third child at the moment and heaven only knows how we would cope with an extra person in the house!

[Himalaya]

We have big black bin for non-recyclables, big green bin for garden and food waste and a random number of boxes for paper/cans/glass/plastic bottles.
It works pretty well.

Can you ask for an extra 'toy box' box?

Do you have a garden/yard? If you do you could get a composter 'dalek' you never have to use the compost if you are not a gardener, just put it on a patch of soil and keep putting in fruit and veg waste and it rots down.

[LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726]

Urgh at the word 'leetle'...

How much food are you buying every week, OP, to be throwing out so much? Food waste wouldn't be going in with the recyclables so I'm assuming you have multiple collections. Can you clarify what goes in what bin and collection frequency please?

The council 'owns' household refuse so you're going to have to make it work within their system. You can of course pay for a separate contractor to collect but that won't absolve you of any of your council tax payments.

If you're struggling, ring the council's waste management department and get some advice.

[LingDiLong]

Ah right, sounds like they're really 'backward' in their approach to recycling if they're not taking food waste seperately yet. I'd be peed off with that too I think.

[notcitrus]

YANBU. Write to your council demanding a breakdown of costs and asking how many complaints they've had about the current system (cite FOI and Environmental Info Regulations). They should give it to you.
Fortnightly collections can work in areas where people have plenty of storage space and appropriate containers for their waste/recycling, but sounds like your area needs tweaking (is your road atypical for the borough? That often causes problems)

Plastic and metal are often collected together and then get separated at a Materials Reclamation Facility (MRF) - steel is pulled out by a magnet, then plastic can be centrifuged out as it's so much lighter, for example. Luckily my borough takes metal cans, plastic bottles/trays, glass, paper/card and even tetrapaks all in one bag (very built-up area, no space for more bins) and it then gets separated, though they don't get as much money as if it were separated at source.
They're piloting food waste collection here but not in my street yet, so if it can't go in the compost bin, it's in the black bag.

[Himalaya]

Some organised people I know put chicken carcass and fishbones etch in the freezer till recycling day...

[HappyCamel]

YANBU

But do you have a garden? composting veg waste has really helped us. I wish they recycled more here (Hampshire) in Kent they took loads more plastc which would make a big difference.

[BarmyBiscuit]

When I lived up in the north east a few years ago it went to fortnightly collections and I hated it. I now live down near Slough and everything is weekly with big bins. Absolute bliss. I also live 5 mins away from a recycling plant so makes Christmas much easier to deal with.

[StaceymAloneForver]

himalaya thats a great idea, i never thought of that :)

[pigsinmud]

We have normal sized wheelie bins with fortnightly collections of rubbish and recycling. Every week food waste is collected.

Don't like to sound smug, but we are a family of 6 and have no problems! I would struggle with your toy box recycling bin though. We can recycle most things, so would never fit it in that size of bin. Our recycling bin is more full than the rubbish one after 2 weeks.

Can you compost? We used to have one of those compost bins where you could pretty much any food waste in. Can't remember what it was called. Now we have normal compost in garden as the food waste is collected. Lobby your council to have food waste bins.

[SoupDragon]

It's me and three children here and my landfill bin is never full, even on fortnightly collections. It was never half full when we had weekly collections and no food recycling either. 1 adult, three children.

[rogersmellyonthetelly]

I confess I do waste a lot of food, kids are both fussy buggers so food is frequently binned. Dog is prone to being fat so cant give her leftovers. Also cant compost due to dog who takes great pleasure in rolling in the compost.
I think the food waste bins are the way to go as that really does sound like a solution for me, I'm more than happy to recycle (although a proper bin with lid would be good as the box is crap) and if the food waste was taken weekly there would be no smell, just the non recyclable packaging in the green bin.

[StopRainingPlease]

I do wonder what you're putting in your bin that creates so much waste. We are a family of 4 and produce on average one bin bag for landfill every week. We have a weekly collection but some weeks I don't bother putting in out, as there is room for around 4 bin bags in our wheelie bin. And it doesn't smell.

We do have lots of recycling collections mind you, plus our own compost bin.