Binmen won't pickup my rubbish because it's in a WHITE bag!?

[misseskimo]

We recently purchased a new bin for the kitchen, one of those £150 fancy-do-dah simplehuman bins to be precise. I've used simplehuman for years and have 2 of the smaller pedal bins in my bathrooms, and before moving house 6m ago would regularly put the simplehuman white bins out for collection with our normal rubbish and never once in about 7yrs did I have an issue with them getting collected. However before Christmas we purchased this larger bin, and started putting it out as our general rubbish bag, and 4wks running now it's been left on the side of the road come collection time. It's a 40l solid white drawstring bag, with only a small simplehuman logo on it compared to the totally see-through with lots of text recycling bags the council give you, and is obviously a bin, yet they leave it everytime...

Each time I've rung the council to report it, the first time I got asked if they could be confused with the recycling bags, no they can't, and we put it on the other side of the road with the other bins anyway to show its different. Then she asked if we could put the simplehuman bin INSIDE a black liner to save confusion! Which totally defeats the object of buying this bin as it has its own custom liners, and I refuse to pay for two lots of bin liners just so the binmen will take my rubbish!
Second and third week they apologised and sent them back to collect it, saying they'll put a note on the system its a white bag.
Forth time, yesterday, I rang and even the guy at the council said he couldn't see what the issue was as lots of brands (simplehuman, brabantia, etc.) do their own custom liners now which are all white and they've been around for years so couldn't understand why they weren't picking it up... Submitted another missed collection...

Today I come home and there's a hand written note posted through my door on council paper telling me to use black bin liners from now on or they won't collect it!! It was written in a very "or else" manner with !!

AIBU to be really annoyed by this? I've seen at least 2 other houses within two roads from me (I walk past to get to work) with the same white bins, so it's quite obviously not uncommon, and there is nothing on the local councils website stating that general waste has to be in a black liner... Should I complain to the council or just give in and buy double the amount of bags??

[FightOrFlight]

Yeah, that's racist.

£150 for a bin ... oh my word

[KingJoffreyObviouslyWatchesHol]

Just buy some cheap Tesco Value bin bags to put your white bags into.

Is a PITA but bin men seem to be getting more and more precious.

Ours won't step onto the driveway. Bins have to be on the pavement. You know, in everyone's way...

[WooWooOwl]

It's crazy.

Our council will only collect if you use the bags they provide you with, which means that I have to put the brabantia bin liners inside one of their bags, doubling the amount of waste plastic.

[hiddenhome]

We're not allowed to put recycling in a black bag. They want it to go straight into the wheelie bin then they proceed to spill the contents out all over the road when trying to empty them

It's just awkward for awkwards sake as far as I'm concerned.

The 'men' who work at the recycle centre are also so nastily misogynistic that I can't face going there anymore. You get yelled at

[Fatstacks]

White bag?

Philistine

[FightOrFlight]

The 'men' who work at the recycle centre are also so nastily misogynistic that I can't face going there anymore. You get yelled at

You get yelled at for being female? Is it a sort of "Oi, useless womanwho shouldn't even be allowed to drive - the garden rubbish your manly DH cut down with a chainsaw goes over there"

[hiddenhome]

They're more likely to investigate what rubbish you're putting into what skip if you're female. I've seen it happen on a few occasions now.

I turned up one day with a knackered office chair. It was made from plastic, metal and fabric. I got out of my car with it - it was the last thing I was skipping - and proceeded to put it into General Waste - the bloke came over and started berating me for putting something metal into General Waste. Another bloke joined in pointing out that it had fabric on. They obviously expected me to strip it down into its different parts

I put it back into my car and drove 8 miles to another recycling centre.

[Theoretician]

In the previous flats I lived in there were basement rubbish rooms for leaving the bin bags in, staff then moved them to the pavement on collection day. We were warned that anything not in black bags would be ignored. A quarter of the housing was social (housing association/planning gain.) To this day (20 years later - I now live across the road) I drive out and see rubbish smeared across the pavement where non-standard bags used by social housing tenants have been put out, ignored by bin-men, and torn apart by foxes/cats. (These aren't custom white bags for £150 bins though, more often shopping carrier bags, or smaller bin bags.)

(The social housing flats are separate from the private ones, with different rubbish rooms, it's clear the problems are only with tenants from that section. Maybe they can't afford black bags.)

[Theoretician]

Got distracted from my point. The reason black bags were compulsory is that bin men did not want carry inferior/leaky/non-standard bags, I think. If you don't make black bags compulsory people will use surplus shopping bags with holes in them that leak fluid.

[Sparklingbrook]

How much do the bin liners for the £150 bin cost?

[mypoosmellsofroses]

I have one of those bins, my BIL gave it to us, he is in a different league to us financially, he had been using it to store dog food, and was going to throw it out I love my bin that I could never have afforded, seems a shame to have it tucked away under the counter :) Can't add to discussion though as my simplehuman bin bags just go into black wheelie bin.

[RustyBear]

You're lucky they will pick up black bags! Here we get 80 blue bags from the council, which are the only thing they will collec,t and they have to last a year. If you want more they are £4 for 10 from the council offices and you can only buy 10 at a time. There are only 2 of us now, but we get the same number as our neighbours who have 4 in the family.

[SauvignonBlanche]

Not cheap here.

[DoJo]

hiddenhome

I've had similar - took some paint to the recycling centre and asked the man where to put it. He asked me what colour it was, so I said I had a mixture of different ones, but they were all dried up (thinking they might actually recycle useable paint or something) and he started cracking up and said
'It doesn't matter what colour it is love, it all goes in there!'
He clearly thought this was hysterical enough to share with all his mates, who had a jolly good chuckle about my lack of expertise when it came to recycling 20 year old paint tins.
Whenever my husband's there though, it's all 'Over there, mate' and offers to help, which boils my piss significantly!

[Sparklingbrook]

Blimey. They are a bit pricey for something that gets chucked.

[ladywriter1968]

Years ago my old neighbour used to work on bins. Even he said they had become petty n lazy. He used to work the days when they put metal bins on their shoulders and tip it in. We recently moved and have all these bins. No leaflet on what go where. They want us to put our food waste in small brown bin. Other recycle which obvious and general waste for house hold. Most of us rarely have general waste so they are empty. The bin men shoved food in our food waste and left in street to be funny, as we didnt know and put in general waste. Unless an expert on materials not everyone will know what product go in what. A person with a family could not fit all food waste in those small bins. It seem to me we are doing their jobs for them...Years ago they used to get a christmas bonus off residents. Well they wont be happening no more..