Bin men! Ridiculous

Any household items, I put in the charity bags that come through the door, many have a list on them which includes bric a brac and unwanted gifts

You need to check on the council website to see exactly what can be recycled, some stuff you think can be, can't, and vice versa. Some who are recycling absolutely everything on this thread may be unwittingly contaminating their recycling. Any old clothes put in the large supermarket clothes and shoes bins

It’s not ok to be regularly throwing food away. If I ever have a ready meal or something past its use by date I open, put food in the food waste and separate packaging for recycling. Including soft plastic that goes to a local Co Op. That means nothing goes in the landfill bin.

If that’s too much effort and you’re just throwing the whole thing in your landfill bin then you need to seriously look at what you’re buying. It is not ok to regularly throw food away. How much are you spending on food that never gets consumed? If you’re that rich why can’t you buy a new freezer instead?

@Quinlan

what they said.

We're a family of 5 with a dog and 2 cats and don't have a problem with rubbish. On the odd occasion we did have more - a dump run is done. Usually with extra garden waste.

Have you tried cutting down the amount of rubbish you generate? Don't you ever wonder where it all goes after they pick it up?

A tip run. Sorted.

Part of the Council Tax should go on educating people who are too lazy to recycle.

And here again we have yet another OP who is getting a different response to what she imagined she would get, and is resorting to insults because of it.

You admit you don't recycle enough, so there is part of your answer, and then keep telling us about your food waste, that's the other part. Surely you can organise your food buying so you aren't throwing so much out. Other people appear to be managing, you aren't special you know.

@Ariela oh we have LOADS of recycling/non recycling bins for the different blocks of flats.
There literally isn't room for more. The block next to mine is newer and it was built with a bin storage room with space for 2 dumpsters. They now have those 2 plus 4 more which live next to the curb on the street.
They are just so full all the time despite regular collections so extra bags (or just general junk that people don't want anymore) gets piled up all over the place.
It's just depressing.

@SassyCrab Can you honestly say you are recycling everything you possibly can?
Admittedly I am lazy so don't put bins out often. We have none in nappies (but we did use cloth ones that would save you a LOT of waste), I only bother putting out the main bin out every 6-8 weeks or so, or longer - only 3 of us at the moment. Recycling goes out every other time perhaps. Sometimes longer. You do need to question the 'stuff' you are buying - do you actually NEED it.
And look at packaging - I buy a lot of fresh veg in a local market comes in paper bags for example. I cook a lot from scratch so minimal food packaging.

I was surprised just how many plastic bags we go through, despite trying to avoid so much comes wrapped in plastic - I rinse anything that's going to go smelly and squish them into an empty plastic dog food bag, and when I can physically get no more in I drop it in the bin at the supermarket.
We compost all veg peelings and teabags.
Certain special items I drop to the local garden centre as there's a lady recycles masses in the area for a local school I save up and go a couple of times a year.
Clothing some schools do bag drop days to raise funds.
We have very little food waste as I'm careful to not over-cook what won't be eaten or freeze for future use ( or turn it into something else eg remains of a stew is added to - more veg perhaps? in order to become tomorrow's soup) unless it's bones - I freeze till I have enough to warrant bothering to put the food caddy out (about 4x a year, don't buy much chicken, almost never buy meat on the bone as I get the butcher to debone mostly.

@SassyCrab I wash jars, bottles etc - they go in a glass bin which is not far away.
All plastic containers (milk etc) are rinsed and go in the recycling, as do tins and any paper/card.
For puppy pads, we have an elderly dog who tends to wee on the mat if caught short overnight, so I have one of those large washable changing mats (as you'd use for a baby) and just chuck it in the machine. If it's poo (not often) I pick it up with a doggy poo bag and leave it outside the door to drop in a doggy poo bin when we go for a walk. She's fine by day as there's someone home mostly.
As you have a wonky freezer, I would suggest buy another, it'll likely cost less to run if it's working properly and modern, if you can't afford it, get it on interest free credit as the food you'll save will pay for it over time. You can pay the company you buy from to collect the old one for a small fee.
Then any rubbish you get in the house destined for your general bin, don't forget to squish the air out of the waste as you add it to the bin liner in your bin.
@Needmorelego just ask your council for more recycling bins, they're targeted on the % of recycling so never mind if you want more bins.

so @brainexplorer if you rinse and recycle everything I have NO idea why you think a bin should be 'rancid' after a month or two before it's full enough to bother putting it out unless you have loads of disposable nappies because they stink loads! Even so if you bag them in a bin liner, squishing the air out carefully I still don't think it would be rancid if you tied the top carefully so there was not toom much air in there.

Three weeks here but they do always take the ones on the top

I'm London too.
I have communal dumpsters as I am in a flat. They are currently emptied twice a week.
But despite the regular collections there are always random bin bags/general junk just dumped everywhere which don't get collected unless it's reported and an extra pick up is arranged.

Our black bin is every three weeks and we never fill a bin even with 4 adults at home! We recycle everything we can. Even my DC in their Uni shared houses are big on recycling.

Our bin men take extra black bags too. I’ve seen them take the neighbours extra bags.

Our household rubbish collection is every 3 weeks. We have a separate bin for paper and cardboard, another for glass and plastic but our local council also makes us separate food waste (goes in the garden waste bin) so we have a compost collection too. The food waste makes the most difference to our household rubbish tbh.

Our council tax is supposed to include refuse collection. Shame it's only refuse they deign to collect and not what needs collecting.

Here if the lid doesn't close or you leave bags on top they won't empty the bin at all.

Usually we're ok with fortnightly collections (general rubbish and recycling alternate) but if we miss a collection I end up doing a tip run before the end of the next two weeks.

It's common, but not everywhere. In some central London boroughs there are multiple rubbish / recycling collections per week. There isn't room for wheely bins.

Our council bin collection is brilliant. We can put out as many black bags as we want and also as much recycling as we want in clear bags provided by the council. They also provide a garden waste collection of up to six reusable large canvas bags and a food waste collection (and provide biodegradable bags for that). We also get free food waste collection bins.

It's every 3 weeks here and has been for over a year. They never take rubbish thats outside of the bin, regardless of being in bin bags, placed with the bins, on the bins etc.
Those are the rules, the bin van picks up the bins and empties them into the van, theres no manual throwing of bags into the back, they're not allowed to, so if it wont fit in the bin, no point putting it out.
Also nobody elses fault how much rubbish you create, if you recycle everything possible and still have too much general waste to fit in your bin, you can take to tip yourself, or arrange a one off or however frequently needed private rubbish collection from private waste removal companies.

What would you prefer them to cut? The schools budget, care for the elderly and disabled, libraries, street cleaning?

And a chunk of your council tax funds the police and fire & rescue services.

WTF are you putting in your bin?

I think you need to have a look at why you're generating so much waste on a regular basis.

Have a look at a the waste hierarchy.
reduce-reuse-recycle before throwing away.
also worth looking at the analysis of a black bin- very often things could have been recycled. It’s really eye opening!

If your recycling bin is full break down your boxes to make more room.

Dont put things in your general bin that could be recycled elsewhere like textiles, batteries, charity donation.

The council cannot just collect unlimited waste that would cost them a fortune and you as the council tax payer. The waste management team get a tiny % for the service they provide.

You’ll be able to save so much money if you look at what you throw away. Seriously have a look at doing an audit and noting what you throw away for even just a week you’ll learn so much about your habits and it’s really insightful. It’s better for environment and will save you a fortune.

Finally it is worth checking if you have a child in nappies you might be able to have a larger bin.

Many won't, certainly ours will not do that and they only come once every 3 weeks.

Ah to be back in the USA where they would empty your bin and take every bag left at the side, and even had a heavy trash collection once a month where they would take mattresses, sofas you name it.

Definitely sounds like you need to recycle more - everything that you can recycle you should be recycling.
all butter boxes, cereal boxes, yogurt pots, meat packaging. Then your landfill rubbish will fit in your bin.
we also have nappies and fit all our rubbish in our wheelie bin