Aibu to wheel my bin to council and empty it out?

[pumpkinsweetie]

Blue bin wasn't collected yesterday as a member of the public dropped one small piece of paper in it so they wouldn't take it as only plastics, cans etc can be accepted from that bin.

Although angry I was polite when I phoned and asked if I emptied said contaminant would they do a re shedule.

I was basically told tough and to keep it until next collection and apparently keep watch on bin day for litter droppers as it's my responsibility.

So do I camp out front from 6am bin day keeping watch or would I be unreasonable to walk the bin down to the offices under the cover of darkness and dump the recycling they refuse to take?

I don't own a car and I pay £115 in council tax a month!

[Subhuman]

So logically, if you went round all of the bins on your street just before collection with a notepad and tore a sheet into each bin, the whole street wouldn't get collected and they'd get a few more complaints.

Not that I'd condone that of course.

[CadleCrap]

YABU If you do that. you will get a fine for fly tipping.

[TheHuffAndPuffALot]

So they wouldn't just pick out the piece of paper and pop that in the appropriate container - they just left the whole lot?!! Good Lord

[DiaDuit]

@ subhuman!

OP this happened to me a few years ago and i phoned them. They said i could take the bin to the civic refuse centre (the council dump) an empty it. I had no car. Should i have hitched the bin onto my buggy and trundled over?

[FatherReboolaConundrum]

Local paper, OP, and your best sadface . Seriously, local papers love this kind of stuff. I'd complain to your local councillor, too.

[ovaryhill]

This gives me the rage! !! I would wheel it down with my best incredible hulk costume on and empty it right over their heads!

Seriously, could they not just have removed the bit of paper and then emptied the bin? Jobsworths! On the odd occasion I've forgotten to put the bin out our lovely bin men come into the garden and get it for me!

[JoinedJustForThis]

They did this with ours once, put it all in black bags, took it to the tip & chucked it in the "general waste" bin. Hope it's happy in that landfill, but buggered if I was going to sort it into different materials...

[ChippyMinton]

Spare a thought for the over-worked, underpaid council staff who have enough to do without responding to this kind of petty whinging.

[WhereDoAllTheCalculatorsGo]

The bin men can't be going round sorting out the contents of recycling bins and picking out all contamination, they're there to grab the bin and empty it. If there was one piece of paper on the top there could have been masses underneath.
So now you want the massive recycling truck to make a special journey to your house, just for your bin, instead if either waiting until next time or taking it to the recycling centre yourself?
Get over yourself.
Tip the bin at the council offices and get a huge fine for flytipping. Please.

[lbsjob87]

Can I ask roughly where you live, OP? My local council have suddenly gone recycling mad - they provided some houses with lidless boxes for paper - then refused to empty my SiL's because the contents were wet. Her fault for going to work and leaving it out an hour before it rained.
It's almost reassuring that there's more than one council like ours out there.

[OneStepCloser]

Im wondering if you live in my area pumpkin as our council decided from last week to up the anti on our collections, someone passing my house dropped a ribena carton on top of my blue bin and the council wouldnt take it, theres been loads of complaints about it apparantely.

Im thinking about getting private security to patrol my bin now, maybe set up a company, might make me a fortune

[OneStepCloser]

I wouldnt mind but because the council are using their old bin lorries you see them emptying the paper/cardboard bin the food bin and the recycling bin into the same flipping hole

[lbsjob87]

OneStepCloser....... Has your local council recently undergone a change of leadership? Something to do with an airport? Either we live near each other or my local council are sharing their incompetency model far and wide.....;)

[bustraintram]

OP, and others with similar "one leaf, one piece of paper, one bottle top etc" type stories, I must confess I am slightly sceptical. I have spent many many hours watching/helping bin men (best not to ask why!) and my overall impression is it has to be really really bad to get left. Most binmen don't even lift lids or look in boxes at all.

So, whilst I'm not saying you are lying, was it really a single solitary sheet of paper? Binmen get paid no matter how long the job takes, so they'd much rather chuck it in and get home not faff about leaving bins-paperwork to do if they do that. I just can't see it

[ovaryhill]

This is what I mean, why not just flick the leaf off and empty it! !! It would add all of one second off to their round

[ButchCassidy]

Bin Crews empty thousands of bins daily. They don't have time to be sorting contaminated bins.
And ywbvu to dump your rubbish at the council offices.....

[ramrod757]

This is exactly the reason I don't recycle. Everything goes in black bags into the general bin. Our Labour council can go fuck themselves.

[TunipTheUnconquerable]

Bustraintram - IME there's a lot of variation between different areas - some are much more arsey than others.

I have no trouble believing the 'one leaf, one piece of paper' stories and it is worth making a fuss because the system doesn't have to be like that, it isn't everywhere. If the timing is so tight that the binmen can't exercise discretion over a single leaf then it's probably not going to work as a way of reducing landfill because people will simply stop recycling.

[OneStepCloser]

Hmm ramrod Im thinking along those lines now.

[ShadowStar]

I can understand the frustration, but it would be unreasonable and petty to dump all your recycling at the council offices.

Also illegal. If they found out who you were, you'd get fined for fly tipping.

[pumpkinsweetie]

Did u mean to be quite so rude chippy ?

Well might be whinging to you, but wait until you end up in this situation shoe on other foor and all that

Quite like the idea of the hulk costume , disguise and a powerful one at that

[OnIlkleyMoorBahTwat]

They're just hopeless. I have an old fridge I wanted rid of and I phoned a month ago for them to collect it. The collection day was yesterday but they arrived at 2 minutes past 7 and I wasn't dressed and the car was on the drive - not blocking the fridge, but on the drive. They drove up, barely stopped and drove off 'because the car was blocking their access to the fridge'.

No thought to knock on the door and ask me to move the car, or just take a slightly longer route around it.

I phoned to complain and have now been given a collection date in September . Not excusing it, but no wonder people fly tip.

[OneStepCloser]

Bustraintram I have a complete recycling system going on at home, four bins and we all make sure that we recycle properly. However in our area it has become a problem with bin men not taking for ridiculous reasons, they dont look through the actual bins, so I could in fact mix the bins just make sure they cant see it iyswim.

its not the bin mens fault they have received new training and thats what the council told them to do, apparantely the council are going to be giving new training and instructions in the next few weeks, because the workers were doing only what they had been told, and so many bins had not been emptied that week.

But, if they cant sort it out Im not going to waste my time recycling properly, its been really hot here and bins not being emptied is not pleasant.