Council to reduce recycling collections to every three weeks

@Allshallbewell2021 - not in uk, but our glass bins are fine. They are mainly away from houses like supermarket car parks, end of roads near woods, near schools etc. they are emptied regularly so never overfilled. Until last year metal was also take there in metal bins.

It’s 30+ degrees all summer and our bin doesn’t really smell. Like I said we compost most food waste like peelings, very little other food waste. majority of other stuff is recycled, so very little actual waste. If we eat something like a whole chicken and have carcass just after bin collected, I break down and wrap carcass in newspaper and freeze until bin day so it isn’t in a hot bin for weeks.

Only time I've needed to do extra trip to recycling centre was after oldest DS 18th party.

Ours is every week for food waste (plus garden waste if you pay for that,goes in same bin £52 per yr). Others are every 3 weeks - green bin plastics/cans, blue bin - paper/cardboard, black bin - non recyclable. Thought it would be a nightmare initially but actually is fine & were a family of 5 plus I'm a CM so have extra waste from that (nappies etc).

Ours will change to this too and I am a bit concerned as there are 5 of us in my house. We are going to be buying the biggest wheelie bin allowed when the time comes.

We are weekly recycling/food and just moved this month from fortnightly to 3 weekly general waste. Also in coming months an annual fee for garden waste.

Do.people 3 weekly find themselves going to take general waste to the recycling centres?

It just gone to 3 weeks here but weekly recycling - they have to up the recycling which is already very high compared to rest of UK or face Welsh government fines.

I was really worried as few years ago in effort to avoid 3 week collections instead of fortnight ones we had we'd been given some of the smallest black bin - general rubbish sizes - in UK few years earlier. In end it worked out we ended up at start of the scheme and DD1 was still doing A-levels so we were eligible for a larger ie normal sized bin again. It could have been worse for us as non driver can't drive excess to tip.

The green waste is suppose to be very 3 weeks but stops for winter but it's supposed to have started again but last two times no collections.

We do have compost bins 2 in garden - unlike otehr council we lived under no subsidy for those here- but compositing cat litter in with garden clippings and food waste isn't great option as have to be very careful where we use the compost - and have had to put beds in specially in small garden so can empty them.

Fly tipping is also a huge issue round here.

In all fairness my local council has mini recycling centres next to various bus stops. It’s just for the three different types of glass though. There is bigger cardboard/ glass recycling next to parks which is relatively central in all the little towns close to me.

The Government can put all the statutory responsibilities it likes onto Councils, especially the Waste Disposal Authorities; but as we have seen with SEND budgets, if the Councils haven't got the funding from central government - and can only ever raise a small fraction of what they need via council tax - then they end up rationing services even to the point of breaching regulations.

The Tories are spectacularly egregious in this regard. The previous Labour government started to do it with education and social care. Huge new responsibilities for Council, without the grants and budgets to employ enough children's social workers, pay kinship foster carers properly, or run local children's homes effectively.

I think bins are emblematic of the much deeper problems afoot.

4 weekly for cardboard, 4 weekly for plastics, fortnightly for general waste here. Our council will give second bins for recycling if you need them ( not general waste unless meet specific criteria)

We have food waste and recycling collected every week ( I don’t understand why people don’t like doing the food waste caddy )
Black bags ( other waste ) and glass every 3 weeks
Garden waste ( pay extra for this ) every fortnight ( March to November )
The only hassle is remembering which day of which week we need to put them out
Rural area , so we can’t just copy the neighbours

edited to say what goes in the black bags

It's infuriating to have posters talking about "the black bin" or "the green bin" rather than referring to them by their contents. Different LAs have different coloured bins, it isn't standard across the UK!

We have landfill (and garden waste if you've opted in to that, you have to pay separately for it) one week and recycling the next. Happy with that, we do have a lot of parcel packaging so if we've too much for the recycling bin we either store it (in the outside loo!) for next week or take it to our local tip with the WEEE and other stuff that can't go in the landfill bin.

Our food waste goes in our kitchen bin so it's already bagged before it goes in the landfill bin, so no maggots here.

@Needanewname42

No, not at all. There are a few roads in the middle of town of terraced housing but the rest are mainly semi or detached houses. The surrounding local councils have bins but we still have bags!

We still have all our rubbish collected weekly, we even have our street swept three times a week, guess we are really lucky.

I think councils should put recycling bins on street corners like they do in some places in Europe, and in supermarket carparks here.
It's not beyond the ability of most people to walk to the end of the street with their glass bottles and jars, old clothing, cardboard etc.
Recycling areas should be built in to new estates.

I had no idea anywhere had free garden waste collection. I've paid £60 a year for mine for years and years.

It's confusing when people talk about black and green bins. Ours seems to be the wrong way round. Our black bins are recycling. Green is household waste. Our recycling bins are always overflowing. We only have two bins: one for landfill; one for recycling. Both are collected fortnightly. We then pay extra for a garden waste bin. We struggle to fit everything into our recycling bin and often have to take extra stuff elsewhere. We simply couldn't manage three weeks.

@Catcherintherice - could you just put a compost bin or two in own garden. That’s where all our peelings/ egg shell/ tea and coffee grounds go in there, as well as grass clippings and garden stuff.

We aren’t in uk. Black bin is every 4 weeks, recycling every 6 weeks. Glass isn’t collected so we wash and take to communal glass bins near supermarket.

It’s fine tbh. Even with monthly collections our black bin is very rarely more than 1/4-1/2 full.
We home compost all food peelings, egg shells, and garden waste ourselves in garden. Have very little food waste after fruit/ veg cuttings in compost.

Ds I used reusable nappies for so no full bins of pop.

Theres 3 of us daily. 7 of us throughout summer (attached holiday let).

I try and buy fruit and veg loose where possible so less packaging, and we buy yogurt in large glass jars.

I am astonished that some people only have bins emptied every 3 or 4 weeks.

We have 2 weekly collections and due to the recent Bank Holidays they are being emptied a day late. I have already squashed down the recycling as much as possible and still have a large carrier bag of things to go in once it’s emptied.

We are not a very large household but I don’t know how we’d cope with less than 2 weekly collection. I suppose we would have to put more in general waste, which seems a shame.

We don’t have separate food waste bins, and are not allowed to put any kitchen waste/ veg peelings, etc in our garden waste bins ( which are charged separately).

Every 4 weeks here.

This means we have throw recycling in the general waste or make regular trips to the nearest recycling centre, burning fuel for the 20 mile round trip. We go for the latter where we bump into lots of people from nearby villages all doing the same in their cars.

It's nice to be green, isn't it

I think all LAs are being forced to look at refuse collection to try and save money due to massive deficits.
Ours is currently proposing to charge for emptying our green bins fortnightly (garden and food waste). As this charge will be option, lots of people will refuse to pay it. Food waste will no longer be allowed to go in the green bins. Everyone will revert to putting it into general waste (collected fortnightly) until 2026 when the LA will be compelled to provide a weekly food waste collection!
In addition to this they are proposing to close some of our household recycling centres so people will have to drive further - if they can be bothered!
I foresee more recyclable waste going into general waste, fly tipping increasing and garden bonfires being the way to get rid of garden waste! No harm to the environment there then!!

I live next door to an HMO with six young adults. Refuse and rats are a constant issue with even two weekly collections. This is despite the tenants doing everything they can. They just have too much rubbish which does not fit into the bin and that they can not dispose of as not one has a car. I helped during the strike last year but can't commit regularly. We are a smaller family and our bins are pretty much full each collection. Next door have asked for another bin and this has been denied. Every three weeks would be a nightmare

We have 2 recycling bins because one wasn't enough for fortnightly, although admittedly we could be better at squashing cardboard down, which we'd probably need to if it was only emptied every 3 weeks.

It was free, so worth asking your council if one isn't enough.