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

That's funny because ours lost a lot of the goodwill they had from COVID times as a result. It pits them against the public rather than with them.

We had one for 11 weeks and both my children were still in nappies. It was hot weather when it started, which didn’t help matters. We did some tip runs but the queues were ridiculous. The day the binmen came back it was like welcoming long lost heroes!

I live in Birmingham. The area I live in has a bad fly tipping problem anyway so the strikes have made that worse.
it’s all terraced houses with large families so bins have been overflowing.

last week there were 3 lorries out at the same time collecting rubbish and some people were cheering!

We had a bin strike for a couple of months at the end of summer 22 ish, I think. Our bins are only collected fortnightly anyway so we have adapted . Our recycling bin is always full first. Our black bin would last at least a month before it’s full. We compost veg, potato skins etc already. We took rubbish to the local dump when the strike was on. Mostly glass, tins etc. We burned cardboard, paper waste if I recall correctly.
I think in some areas of Birmingham it must be laziness. Some areas are ok and some are overrun with rats ? I wouldn’t be surprised if some people are collecting rubbish and dumping it I the poorer areas.

It must be very frustrating for everyone, even if you support them. I suspect the roads that haven't been cleared are where they live - it was the only place "affected" when ours wanted more than nurses.

I'd manage for a while because I've got two large bins and I live alone. I don't always put the recycling one out because it's nowhere near full.

I could not take stuff to the tip because I'm disabled. I can drive, but I couldn't load or unload it from the car.

We had one a couple of years back. Would have struggled as disabled and no car, don't have access to a tip, but some pop up recycling centres were set up for normal household food and recycling waste. My carer drove me there, as by the time they were set up I had several black sacks worth of food and household waste and recycling.

We did see an increase in fly tipping as well and in some towns in our area there were huge rat issues. So not everybody coped. It was the middle of summer. What a stupid time to hold a bin strike. 1978/9 winter of discontent was bad enough (so I've heard, wasn't born until 1982) but at least it was in winter! I support better wages for bin men i(t's a nasty job) but I did think middle of July was stupid timing. All those flies and rats. Urgh.

Our tip does too, but- according to a local councillor- strike supporters are able to get round the system with ghost accounts which they are working to stop but it is proving difficult. I also don’t think you can prosecute for a no show at the tip, but you could potentially ban people if it happened multiple times, I suppose.

Ours needs a car registration. Would be an easy way to prosecute anyone who is faking a booking.

We had one for 8 weeks. Actually nothing much was noted as people helped each other out - I took a few loads to the tip, so did all the neighbours. People looked out for the elderly etc. I am more concerned about the lack of any of this in Birmingham than the men who want to be paid to leave work at 1pm and get paid for a full day. Must be a sad place to live and now a public health risk.

We'd cope.

DS and I generate so little rubbish that I only need to put the rubbish and recycling bins out once every 7 or 8 weeks.

I have a logburner so cardboard and paper can be used as kindling.

The garden waste bin is a different matter. Even with three compost heaps, it is full every collection day. But at least it doesn't smell or attract rats.

Wouldn’t be great, the nearest tip is 30mins away with not the best opening hours.

We only have black bin collections once every three weeks. Could manage once a month at a push but that's with weekly recycling and food waste collections. I'm not saintly enough to go longer than that. Our tip has just introduced a booking system and no doubt the LA would love to charge.

If there was a strike I think I'd take it to my dad's for a bonfire, but that's easy to say if you don't live in a city.

Until yesterday we hadn't had a collection for 6 weeks. Haven't been able to book a slot at a tip so I took the recycling to my mums last weekend (100 miles away) and piled up the black bags in the front garden. They only emptied the bin and didn't take the black bags 😡

We'd be OK. We really don't produce much waste. We recycle soft plastics at the local supermarket which we could keep doing. We compost food waste. Cardboard I also keep (after stripping labels and tape) for use in the garden. Recycling would build up a bit but wouldn't be smelly or attract vermin so we could store that somewhere in the shed or the garden and gradually get rid of it once service resumed.

Booking slots as the tips in Birmingham is not always easy because the bin men and their supporters are booking them as soon as they become available and then, obviously, not using the slots. It is very difficult to stop these ghost bookings.

I live in Birmingham. They have literally missed one week in my road so no drama. I am lucky that I am able to take my recycling to my parents house in another area every week. Not sure why some roads have been missed for weeks on end.

Where we live most is compostable in our own garden or recyclable. For this reason the recycling would build up and I would probably store it in th shed until the strike was over. Really therefore wouldn't be an issue. More rich nutrition for the roses in the garden !

It’s a mess ! Another meeting and nothing agreed. Embarrassing on the council’s front.

Good question. I think this will be a much more common issue as councils, one by one, go bankrupt and are forced to scale back their duties to the bare minimum.

We don’t have a garden but in process of moving to new house; where I guess we would compost food waste but try to keep it to an absolute minimum. Everything else, food packets particularly from meat, would have to be disinfected and thoroughly cleaned before being dried and stored in the garage. Nappies would be an issue, I would basically have to quickly convert to reusables. I already use reusable sanitary towels and have enough to last a whole period so that shouldn’t be a problem.

Dh would take it to the tip or burn it.

easily.... our family of 4 creates less than half of a black bin liner of rubbish a week.

Plenty of packaging is not ever bought by me to dispose of. I recycle as much as possible (by making bi-monthly trips to the tip for things like tetra packaging, glass and foil)

We have an excellent compost which deals with all of our garden and fruit / veg waste plus tea bag and egg shells and paper bags etc. We grow a LOT of our fruit and veg too, which helps avoid buying any packaging.

I try to avoid disposable products and opt for washable / refillable and reuseable instead

My black bin could not be "full" for several months.... (but we put it out every other week anyway, because i dont really want rubbish hanging around for weeks, and can see why no one else would want to live with months of rubbish lieing around them either)

I live in Birmingham - we’ve just been doing tip runs each week. Annoying, but feel lucky we have a car and time to do this. Can imagine if you don’t have the transport how frustrating it would be

Have garden, will burn shit. And clean excessively to keep the rodents from our door.

We'd be able to drive to the tip. Im surprised no one's offering a private service to cash in, or is it because they wouldn't be allowed to take large quantities to the tip?