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

We’ve got a large garage, and we actually produce very little non recyclable waste. We compost fruit & veg stuff. Leftover meat goes on the dogs dinner (where appropriate).

Remsining food waste goes in caddy’s- we might have to repurpose a garden waste bin to contain the overflow. Then we could get stricter about washing non recyclable waste so there’s no remnants of food.

I doubt all the other houses on the street would manage - many are small two up two down terraced and don’t have garages so it’d be outside somewhere attracting vermin.

I think so. I have a car and work part time so I'd have a bit of flexibility about going to the tip.

Got a shed to store a few bags too. And we never have any meat in the bags either, one DC eats nuggets but there's never any leftover for the bin.

We would be ok for a bit with the tip and outbuildings but we don’t have that much waste as we no longer have small children.

We compost and could have a bonfire for paper and cardboard.

We had 8 months of bin strikes (on & off) last year, it wasn’t great but how much it impacted your household massively depended on whether you had a car really. Our tip is usually limited to 4 visits per month & it can be hard to get a booking but during the strikes it was unlimited visits and lots more slots were put on so basically if you had a car then you were okay- although it was vile having to put your black bin rubbish into your car!

If you didn’t have a car you were stuck though.

Honestly it's not as bad as you all think. We had a month with no collection, but that's only one less collection than usual for general waste. We bought a compist bin which has cut down on what we put in the bin. Then our bin has been collected last week and this week. There is no rubbish strewn over our street, it's fine.

Cardboard dh has done some tip runs but it has been hard to book a slot. Plastic/glass we have a wheelie bin full now. Not sure what to do with this as they haven't been collecting recycling.

This is our second bin strike in Birmingham, the last one I remember being worse. But we lived in a different area then which generally had problems with fly tipping anyway and lots of households that didn't have wheelie bins and would leave bin bags out several days before the collection was due anyway.

Medical waste would be an issue for us.

Appreciate that it’s not the same for everyone, but we don’t produce much rubbish as a family. We only buy what we like to eat so there’s not much food waste. A lot of recyclable waste can be compressed and/or rinsed out. The main thing that we have is polythene, which I’ve started taking to supermarkets (on foot). If we had a strike I’d stop buying met for that time and try to buy food with no packaging. Also ease off on the Amazon deliveries etc to reduce the cardboard. I have extreme guilt about throwing anything away, the only way I can avoid being a hoarder is to recur the inflow of stuff in the first place.

No, I couldn’t. I really feel for the residents in Birmingham who have no choice to live like that. It’s absolutely grotesque and to be honest everyone involved should be ashamed.

Hahaha getting tip slots now in lots of urban areas isnt easy even without bin strikes!!

Yes that's right you can't just turn up at the tip in lots of places. You have to book a time slot and friends in Birmingham have told me slots are like gold dust, near impossible to get one at the moment.

We would really struggle, we live in an area that doesn’t use wheelie bins. The tip is an 80 minute round trip and you have to book a slot. We can’t compost our food and don’t own a shed or anywhere to keep the rubbish. Many neighbours already leave rubbish out ahead of time for a couple of days which is a nightmare in the summer.

We have a car and live in a leafy suburb where almost everyone has a car, gardens and drives so there is the room. Wood is stored in them both but we have two big compost bins so could use them again to make compost.

We had bin strikes in Coventry. It went on for months. I don't get why the Birmingham one is constantly on the news. Eventually our council set up mobile drop off points and employed a private contractor to do the bin collections.

we have an extra bin already due to the amount of medical waste we have so it would be a nightmare for us.

I have always respected the job of bin men though, it’s not one I would want to do!

No we wouldn’t cope at all, we have fortnightly collections and our two bins are always full at every collection, despite having an extra large wheelie bin for our recycling. We also have to book a slot at our nearest tip, I would imagine these would be even harder to get if there was a strike, I would also wonder whether tip staff would join the action. If so this wouldn’t be an option. Fly tipping in my county is a huge concern, but the council seem to be under the impression that making it difficult for residents to dispose of their rubbish lawfully is going to help, absolute madness.

It’s why the bin people continued to work during Covid

I have a 321 service, I wouldn’t have a problem with rubbish for around 2/3 months but recycling would become an issue after 1 month and food waste after 3 weeks

£55 a year of my council tax is spent on rubbish/waste collect and it’s worth every penny

We live in Warrington and had one last year something like October to December. We are fortunate enough that we could afford private bin collections. We went 3 weeks each time between collections but didn’t bother with our recycling bin, just bagged that up and stored it in the garage until the strikes stopped because it was clean and didn’t smell or encourage pests.

They would more than likely put in a booking system to avoid this.

some of ours down here already do that.

It wouldn’t bother us at all for ages.
Our bins are only collected once every 6 weeks anyway where we live. Our black regular bin is usually only 1/4-1/2 full after 6 weeks.

We compost 99% food waste at home in garden. Only things like meat carcass go in bin. I would just wrap and freeze these in bin strike.

Glass and metal we already rinse and have to take to communal bins in town. If they were being collected I would just leave at home in bag or box. In shed or something. Plastic is also only collected fully clean in sacks, so I would just store in shed. We only have 1 sack per 6 weeks usually

cardboard I would just add more to compost. But that wouldn’t be too bad. It’s clean in bin and anything too big I would just flat pack until either taken away or added to compost bin gradually

If I knew no collections and the recycling centre also closed, we could easily reduce most also with more careful shopping

we used washable nappies and wipes with Ds due to the bins already only every 6 weeks. So that would be covered

We’d be ok in terms of our own waste, don’t produce much, we compost and could store and do tip runs if we needed to. I’m terrified of rats though so couldn’t cope with that element well at all.

We’d be fine as live in a brilliant community, drive and would be able to help others

And where did you hear this rumour because that sounds like complete bollocks to me.

All waste centres have had their opening hours extended so it is easier to get a slot now.

The reality is that it has only impacted on certain parts of the city. I had my bin taken for the first time in 7 weeks yesterday but it’s all just stored in the wheelie bin at the end of the drive. The photos of overflowing bin bags everywhere aren’t reflective of most streets in the city but then that wouldn’t make for an interesting news story.

Nope. We recycle and don’t generate much trash but all my neighbors overflowing bins already set me on edge… smelly/unsightly/ animal lures/and that’s with weekly pick ups

we live in Birmingham and it’s been a pain in the arse. We do support their reasons for striking though and I’ve yet to see the towers of bin bags etc shown on the news near us. Everyone is doing what they can in our grove/area to keep things tidy, lots of people offering to help out homes who are unable to drive/access tips etc and longest we’ve gone so far is 4 weeks for normal rubbish.

what’s really annoying is they haven’t collected recycling this year! So a lot is ending up in general waste that should be being recycled.

our grass/garden is well overdue some tlc and I normally pay for green bins but no point atm but they will soon be an issue too.

Do these large families have cars? I would expect so.

Shame they can’t make a few tip runs if so.