could you cope if there was a bin collection strike in your area?

When I moved into my house we had no bins for three weeks until they were delivered. It wasn’t that bad. Every few days I’d go and put a bag for live in a public bin.
I don’t think you’re supposed to do this but I had no other choice and I wasn’t leaving them in a brand new house.

The thing is, though, that most people would say that council rubbish collections are the bare minimum.

Council tax pays for lots of things - including numerous things that many people will never personally need to use - but bins are the one 'beacon' factor, I'd say - and the one thing that everybody uses.

Rightly or wrongly, if people who are child-free, are fortunate enough not to need adult care, don't use parks, don't walk along pavements at night, live in leafy non-crime-ridden areas etc. are told that they must pay for other people to choose/need to use these services, there's going to be a lot of unrest.

Drivers are already furious about the amount of VED that they pay (as well as an element of the CT, I believe?) when the roads everywhere are in such an appalling state of repair.

A business needs a waste carriers licence just to even transport waste. So as a construction firm we have to have a licence to transport rubbish from one of our sites in our truck to our premises where it is collected by a commercial company for recycling.

I can because I did two or three years ago. It wasn't that hard, once you accept that there is a pile of bin bags outside your property it doesn't seem out of the ordinary to keep adding to it. I certainly never considered keeping the rubbish indoors, at least when you're inside your home it's normal unless you're actively looking at the pile of waste and fretting about it.

The main thing I noticed is how much more waste I could fit in the wheelie bin if I used my bodyweight to squash it down. And I got better at squishing bottles and packaging up as tightly as I could.

I would cope although it would cost me. I work for a family business and all of our waste is removed by a commercial company which is compliant with the new business recycling rules. So I would just bring my rubbish into work.

Yeah, we're lucky here that you only need to book if you have a trailer or are taking a sofa as there's different rules in Scotland for soft furnishings.

We even have Sat/Sun and late evening opening hours in the summer although that does mean they are closed a couple of days through the week as obviously the staff don't work 7 days a week.

I wouldn't mind going to the tip with most of the dry non-recyclable rubbish; but people aren't going to want to have to put bags with sloppy food waste, other slimy waste and used nappies into their cars. If forced to, they'd probably put each bag inside 18 more, so not great for overall plastic waste.

These days you need a licence to dispose waste professionally. (Where I am) So you can take rubbish to the tip for free but a professional would need to pay per load. The only people who used to do it were gardening contractors as compostable waste is really cheap.

It’s a big issue people charge to take rubbish then flytip it in odd places. Costs my local council hundreds of thousands per year.

I have room to store recycling, we do tend to put out a bit each week, but I could easily go to every 3rd week for recycling if I did a bit more squishing. But I suppose we could burn cardboard/paper on our open fire or have a bonfire if really necessary.
Plastics I take to the supermarket, so my actual bin I only bother putting out every 4-5 weeks or more, if that, again if I squished more I could last 3 months or more, I really ought to try it, as I've not put the actual bin out since February at the moment.
We don't have much food waste, all I tend to put out is bones, we compost veg waste & have a dog so not really an issue. I tend to save this up in the freezer and put out every 4 or 5 months anyway. I would simply not buy meat with bones.
So wouldn't be an issue for us. But we don't have much waste anyway.

Our tip you don’t have to book but you do need a permit that lasts a year and to get a permit you have to of registered your car reg and council tax number. Outrage from a certain area as technically they shouldn’t have been using our tip but theirs is like an hour away compared to our 20 minutes. So if they had bin strikes they would find it harder.

Did not think about sending it to dh’s work they have the huge private bin collections.

We are doing ok so far. We have had two collections since the strike began, and booked two slots at the recycling center. They are not taking the garden waste bins, and the paid service for those has been suspended, so we will eventually have a fair amount of green waste. We can't get a slot at the recycling centre this week, but I suspect that is more due to school hols and people having time to go there. Fortunately we don't make a lot of rubbish...maybe one wheelie bin in a month?

We'd be ok as I have a car and the tip is fairly close by. I imagine our village would swing into action, helping each other out like we did during covid, with people offering to help others out who don't have cars. If I'm driving to the tip with one bag of rubbish, I may as well pick up a few others and take them too.

I’ve noticed the poor people in Birmingham who
have a skip outside their house seem to suffer more.

It looks so bad overall.

We had a strike for around 3 months two years ago, our council organised private skips at different areas for people to drop of rubbishba few weeks in. Where I live the local community association orgsnised a private bin lorry twice, where we live is semi rural, we all paid £10 per household and got our bins lifted on 2 occasions. Our local recycling sites were also closed and we couldnt go to other council areas sites, you have to show ID. We managed the best and kept the recycling, cardboard etc until they got the dispute sorted and back to normal.

To be fair to the council, now they can get the trucks out they have picked up a lot of waste. Out bins were emptied last week and people on flat bed lorries are going around collecting excess bags.

Lots of the city you wouldn't realise there was an issue. The student areas had loads of rubbish lying around and overflowing bins before before the strike, they always have done. Lots of the areas where there is a lot of rubbish dumped had problems with fly tipping anyway, it's got worse, it's not new.

The communal bins at my flats are emptied weekly and are usually overflowing then so it'd probably be a sodding nightmare here as I seem to have a lot of stupid neighbours.

For us personally, it'd be the food waste bins that would be the biggest problem rather than the dry / recycling waste which I could stash in my garage.

One collection was dropped at Christmas so went six weeks without both, and that was a nightmare. It's how long it takes to clear the backlog too, as extras don't get taken. We don't really have food waste so it wasn't particularly smelly though.

Our tip is only open for minimal hours, you have to book a slot and pay for any rubbish you take - so it would cost me a day's work as well. But aren't the tip people, bin man people? Would it even be open?

You don't realise how easy it is for society to just break down...

Yes, now we no longer have DC in nappies, I don’t think we’d be too bad for a few weeks. We’d have an annoying pile of recycling building up in the garage though.

I live in Birmingham where the bin men are on strike.

I do laugh when I see the pictures on the news because it is not as bad as all of that. They’ve really chosen the worst places to film.

We have only actually missed 2 collections. As the council have been employing agency staff to cover the shifts.

To make matters worse, one of the household recycling centres is undergoing refurbishment which has put more pressure on sites.

You make an appointment for ‘the tip’ so no queues. There have also been mobile collection points, but there were a bit chaotic if you tried to drive in.

Unfortunately there are certain areas in Birmingham that are disgustingly dirty and overflowing with litter even during normal times. People are using the strikes as an excuse to fly tip.

Like people have said on here there are ways of reducing waste. Unless you are disabled or elderly there have been ways of disposing of your rubbish without the dumping scenes you see on TV.

Having said that, the bin men do a very important, essential job. So maximum disruption is what they need to win.

There are only two of us and I would say we produce a moderate-to-average amount of rubbish, and we have space to store extra bin-bags if needed, so I think we would cope although obviously there would be the worry of bin bags being ripped open by wildlife and attracting rats.

We had one prick in the street who wouldn’t take his rubbish out of ‘principle’ -wanted the waste people to see how they were affecting him or some such BS, and rats started appearing as it piled up outside his front door. He would kept his waste out the back or bag it properly so we took his one day and he was furious. The idiot.
’I pay my taxes they should empty my bins’ etc

Our tip has a booking system, so I’d inn MM shine the only change would be the difficulty getting an appointment. No queues.

We compost vegetable waste, give the dog left overs and recycle most packaging, so have very little waste that would attract vermin. If necessary we’d burn it.

Rats would be my big worry. We live near a river so there are already plenty of rats in the area.

We had one - for months and months. We double bagged rubbish and Kept it outside then every couple of weeks took it to the tip ourselves. On our street we got together and did runs and took the rubbish if the older people or the ones without access to cars.
Did the same with recycling.
the city STANK though because the big communal bins in public areas or for flats etc weren’t emptied and people in flats etc or with no access to cars didn’t have the same options.