Council to reduce recycling collections to every three weeks

I don't understand. I'm in the UK and have never, ever seen a modern kitchen without an in-sink erator.

@ohthejoys21 - are you in America? The only house I have ever seen in uk or Europe with an insinkerater was a friends house in London. She bought it from an American family who had added it. Within a year it was blocked and plumber told her off for using ( plus it was scary as hell, thought my arm would get chewed off!). She had it removed.

Just putting on compost heap in garden is safer, promotes worms, helps keep garden soil maintained locally etc.

We all have different experiences I guess but it pisses me off no end that supermarkets are still using so much plastic.

On garbage disposals (insinkerators) - we discovered them whilst living in the US so put one in when we redid the kitchen. I’ve never come across any British household with one unless there’s an American connection somewhere. Most people that come over seem terrified of it 🤣 so I definitely don’t think they’re common.

In the UK? Sounds like something for the wealthy in big houses.

I moved last year. My previous block of flats didn’t recycle as the council couldn’t manage it. I miss those days!

it’s all rearranging deckchairs as long as the economy depends on consumerism and the population goes up. I’m single, no car, not much of a consumer but if they reduce collections to the flats I live in, I’ll be pissed off.

They ether come and collect it or we take it down to the council tip. It amounts to the same thing. What else do they expect us to do with it, burn it ?.

I have 4 outside bins. 1 general waste and 3 recycling (paper and cardboard, mixed recycling, food and garden waste). We can get free larger recycling bins which we have done

I wouldn't be sticking all this down a waste disposal system!

You can place these food and garden waste items in your brown bin:

flowers
plants
grass cuttings
hedge trimmings
leaves
twigs
small branches
bark
raw and cooked meat and fish including skin and bones
raw and cooked fruit and vegetables including cores and peelings
bread, cakes and pastries
eggs including shells
rice and pastas
tea bags and coffee grounds
pet food - wet and dry

I only know 1 person with waste disposal. Our council collects food/garden waste. It is composted by them.

That may be but I may be living in a different universe as I don't know anyone who doesn't use a waste disposal for soft food. I have never heard this before.

@ohthejoys21 - uk water pipes aren’t designed for food to be thrown down. It will probably block up somewhere along the way. Food waste, probably 90% of our is compostable, mainly peelings/ tea leafs/ egg shells. It makes way more sense to compost at home as they we don’t have to buy compost either, so far cheaper, and can be discarded daily if needed.

Are you at least allowed extra recycling bins? Our saving grace is that we can have unlimited recycling.

Everyone's different I guess you're right.. our black bin (only 3 of us in house at moment) is emptied daily into outside bin.

We have fortnightly collections so are moving to a private contractor which is beyond annoying considering the council tax we pay. They got rid of the paper bin "due to covid" so papers have to go into brown bin.

What I don't understand is why people collect food waste.. can that not go into a waste disposal in the sink!

So now we return to Victorian times where in summer (IF we get a heatwave) the streets stink? Three-week rubbish collections - yes, a very bright idea on the part of some 'genius' to bring this one in. But of course Council Tax will keep increasing, with less and less services.

@ohthejoys21 - no, I didn’t say that. I said recycling is collected 6 weekly, not one bin.

paper - 1 bin
plastic and metal - 1 bin
glass - we have to take to communal glass bins. So this can be as often as we like.
black bin - monthly

Compost - garden and food peelings we compost ourselves in garden

But yes it’s fine. I mean we don’t produce much black bin waste. I have 12l bin in kitchen and only empty that weekly to outside bin so it doesn’t smell. It’s often only half full. So we probably have 30-50l max black bin waste a month, our outside bin is a small 120l. Nappies and wipes we used washable so they didn’t go in bin.

I don’t know. Everyone locally has small size bins (not uk), and I haven’t ever seen bins overflowing or people complaining.
I try and buy loose produce if possible, in summer we grow a lot so no packaging on that. Things like tomato passata and yogurt, milk bottles, any juice I buy in glass (can return most bottles for glass return money here in supermarkets), and the other glass to bottle bank.

So during the summer you manage to get recycling for 7 people into one bin which is only collected once every 6 weeks?!! That's interesting...

We have weekly collections for general waste and recycling - we do not get bins though, only bin bags.

There has been trials for the food waste bins in some areas so I assume it will be rolled out at some point.

Garden waste is every two weeks - we have to pay for that, and an actual bin is supplied for that.

Ours are proposing to close the nearest 'Household Recycling Centre' (aka tip) - which is 15 miles away and proposing that we should use the next nearest which is 35 miles away.

They are also introducing charges for garden waste - which I understand to be quite common - as it is not something they are required by statute to collect.

The likes of tesco etc have massively increased their profits this year despiting rising wages and other costs.

Some of that profit could have gone on taking a small hit on wastage/spoilage by shifting to unwrapped fruit & veg.

What annoys me is that often the better quality ripe fruit is what goes into the overpackaged tubs. You can buy good mango if you buy plastic tubbed chopped stuff, if you dare to buy the bare unchopped fruit you are sold an unripe rock. This is the supermarket actively influencing bad behaviour. We only buy that sort of tropical fruit in winter when there's very little local fruit, and would rather not buy it chopped in plastic!!

We should all be reducing our impact first. Less packaged food, fewer single-use plastic bottles, shop in person not order online to cut down on cardboard packaging etc.

We do what we can but honestly, shopping in person just isn't an option. I work full time & have kids, spending half my weekend shopping is time i just don't have. I do the supermarket shop in person because its the only shop a short distance away. Everything else i just order.

@ohthejoys21 - we have between 3 and 7 people here. 7 all summer. It’s monthly for black bin, 6 weeks recycling. It’s fine

We've tried hard to reduce the amount of packaging we buy but feel thwarted.

The amount of public bins has been axed including removing every single bin in the railway station. So if you buy any food, you have to take the packaging home.

I used to take reusable boxes to the supermarket & buy meat at the counter with no packaging. All the supermarkets have got rid of the counters and the local butcher is extortionate - the prices are around 2-3 times the cost of sainsburys.

The supermarket have reduces the amount of veg sold loose. More and more is in plastic bags. There's no greengrocer locally. We try and grow some fruit but our garden isnt big enough.

We put coffee grounds on the garden but attempts to compost other food waste just attract rats and foxes, and masses of flies in summer, not to mention the smell. We avoid peeling veg now.

We receive vast amounts of unsolicited junk mail in the post, all if which goes straight in the recycling. We've filled in every damn opt out you can but these don't seem to stop bam/boden/laithwaites wine/the local Liberal democrat mp sending crap we don't read. Even the school send crap like this home. Flyers etc.

The local milkman went bust despite charging very high prices.

We buy eggs from a local farm who reuse the boxes.

Despite all this if they dropped to 3 weekly it would not be good (2 weekly currently).

Who says they work fine?! Perhaps in single person households but say for a family of 4? Really?

3 weekly collections work fine in many areas.