What do you tip your bin men?

They get paid well above minimum wage.

I think it’s more akin to tipping the hairdresser or waiter who provides good service. It’s not mandatory but £20 buys a lot of year round good will.

Didn't even know this was a thing

Do you tip retail workers then? Behind the scenes in a supermarket is a cold and grubby job and the workers there (often young people) are being abused more regularly than your average refuse collector.

I have a blanket zero tip policy.

Ridiculous, they’re literally just doing their job - that they’re paid to do. Do you also tip the cashier at Tesco? The GP? Etc

Bloody hell, you must have a lot of spare cash floating around

I don’t know where you are but the loaders get over £13 ph driver closer to £15ph. I’m not disagreeing it’s a hard job. Part of my training at the council was spending 3 days loading bin lorries. It’s not minimum wage though.

£30 for postie and £30 for bin men - I thought this was normal!

Mine will leave the bins blocking the drive while I'm out. So I have to leave the car in the middle of road to move them. It's disproportionally annoying!

I treat them all year round by always putting my bins in the specified range of +/- 1.46cm from the coordinates specified to ensure collection. In return some of them wave back when DC waves at them, and others frequently fling the inner paper recycling basket as far as their strength allows making it easier for unknown neighbours to fucking nick it replace their own lost inserts. It's a lovely reciprocal arrangement ❤️

Really??? DH has been a binman for 17 years, it's never been mentioned or written in his contracts that they cant accept gratuities.

I do but I work in the same department, bin guys remember who has tipped and are much more obliging about taking away excess waste. Emptying contaminated bins etc.

I either make them an Xmas cake and slice it all up or a batch of sausage rolls depending on time and what I feel like. I know the sausage rolls went down a storm last year as my DD woke up really early with teething and was a massive grouch but knackered and so we ended up on a 7.30am walk in the pram and we ended up catching up to and following the bin men and the trail of crumbs. They were scoffing them as they were doing the bins.

All I know is that is whatever food I make them, it seems to affect their eye sight and they are not as good as spotting the bin lid isn't completely down.

I suppose if someone else was providing me with a weekly service which was a hard job and for which they were abused I might tip them also?

Not the binmen. If they can get away with not emptying the bins in our close they will (that's 9 households). The garden waste bin costs an extra £65 per year and, as there are only three of them in the road, they are missed more often than they are taken.

We have a different postie every day - that's if they bother to come round. We sometimes get one delivery over the course of a fortnight.

I do tip the paper girl and the milkman. Just put an envelope with the empty bottles or taped to the letter box.

£20 to the crew, and yes I sprint out in my pjs if needed.

Its a grim job done outside all year for minimum wage. And it's quite personal, they are taking my crap and dealing with it. Also it's traditional. A bit of Christmas goodwill here and there is fine with me.

I graciously make my extortionate council tax payment each month, that's all.

It's fine to appreciate people, and give them extra rewards, I'm just wondering why it's some workers and not others.

Wow - some of these replies 😳
We must be very fortunate as our bin men and our recycling men are amazing and very considerate. I had a catastrophic back injury in January and one of the recycling men used to come in and take the recycling out for me. We have always treated them with respect and give them £20 (it is my understanding that they put all the money they get on their round together and pool it. I guess this is a self fulfilling prophecy as I know that they know we tip them and therefore feel respected and more inclined to be helpful. Its a shitty job and they put up with a lot of crap literally and figuratively.

Nothing. I once had to do a piece of analysis on how many hours binmen worked as they were on a task and finish contract. That was eye opening

@Maireas I agree. I know they are probably fairly well paid (for a basic manual job), but it’s not a nice or easy job and abusing them for following the councils/contract rules is so wrong.
The “tip” isn’t to line their pockets, but just to say hey you’re appreciated

Nothing. Wouldn’t occur to me to do this, especially as they quite regularly fail to actually collect the bins on the days they should. I also live in centre of town and lave my bins on the main shopping high street so think if I did leave something with my bins it would probably get taken by someone else walking past before the refuse collectors actually arrived.

Why would people abuse bin crews? That's terrible, I've not seen that in our area.

Nothing. They do a job, they get paid for it. I do a job, I get paid for it, no one bloody tips me.