to think reducing general waste collections to every 3 weeks is unrealistic?

@littleorangefox

3 kids in nappies is easily solved by using reusables, I did and it’s so much easier than you think and cheaper too, sold them at the end for the same as I bought them for too.

4 weekly here. Families of 5 of more are entitled to a larger bin. There are special collections for nappies and medical waste only.

It makes you really consider what you are throwing away and forces you to recycle anything you can. I can think of better uses for my council tax than facilitating more rubbish being dumped.

Remember from April councils will be collecting food waste even if they aren’t already not that we have more than a couple of handfuls of that, mostly teabags and outer cabbage or cauliflower leaves

We went to 3 weeks last April, my parents have been 3 weekly for years, we do fine as long as you wash out and recycle packaging. Our council started collecting nearly all plastic at the same time including crisp packets so very little goes in the black bin, mine was collected today and wasn’t even half full

We would struggle with 3 weekly here. Do lots of recycling and food bin (I cook from scratch a lot) but it's the dog poo and cat litter that take up so much of the bin. I rejoiced at Christmas when the bin eventually got emptied.

We are 3 people and could go longer than 3 weeks, we just don't generate much waste. We cook from scratch. Grow much of our own food, so no packaging. We reuse cardboard in the garden, don't really use glass or plastic, except for toothpaste don't have condiments and sauces. . We re-fill items. We also buy second hand and swop items with our family. We have always been like this. If we have family visit our bin are fill to the brim in days.

We have had three weekly general waste bin collections for as long as I can remember. It’s not a problem for us and I’ve never heard anybody else in the village moaning.

I think people just adapt. Our bin is rarely more than half full.

Couldn’t agree more

We have been on every three weeks for years. Family of 6. Never had to go to the recycling centre. Food and recycling emptied every week. I think about how much waste I’d be creating when shopping and looking at packaging. We need to be throwing less away, less landfill for the sake of our kids and grandkids

I thought the same as you OP until our council made the change. It's doable! And I have a baby in nappies! The bin is full every time but it's working! And like you, recycling everything I can - helps that those bins are still once a fortnight, weekly for food waste (also full to the brim but yet to have a problem!). It's been about 10 months now, you get used to it .

This was an average week's waste (on the left - approx 300g) and recycling (on the right), for our family when we were still on weekly collections (2 adults, 2 teenagers, 1 cat). The best tip to reduce waste is simply to look in your bin, see what generates the most waste and buy a lower / no packaging alternative. Lots of small changes over several months make a huge difference to the quantity produced.

Are you just producing less waste somehow

Yes. There are only two of us most of the time so we have, at most, three bags of waste in our grey bin after a fortnight, so we could easily go to a three weely collection. Everything else goes in the recycing bins (blue - cardboard and paper; brown - plastic, tetrapaks, cans, glass; green - garden waste). We also have a compost bin in our garden. Our council doesn't offer food waste bins, not that we produce very much.

It depends on how many people there are in your house and your lifestyle. We don't have babies or dogs and I no longer need san pro, although I struggle to understand why a single person can fill a landfill bin so fast.

Some people have great areas with food compost recycling and such so their general waste is minimal. I know DH’s Grandad also recycles things like crisp and biscuit packets at the supermarket. Plus obviously some people are on their own so will have minimal rubbish.

We’re a family of 7 so we’d have no hope going 3 weeks between, it’s bad enough being 2.

@MadisonAvenue

people shouldn’t have to use their time and petrol going to a recycling centre when refuse collection is a service which they’re paying for as part of their council tax.

100% agree!

Also, we pay full council tax, and STILL have to pay for the green waste to be collected. 🙄 I mean, really?! Our council tax is almost £2.5K a year, and the feckers want an extra £60 to empty the green bin! (Not the bottles/cardboard/tins etc, the green bin itself!) Surely, this should be included in the bloody £2.5K?!!! I mean it's only £60 but it's a piss take.

If you choose to not subscribe, and are 'caught' putting stuff like dead flowers, grass cuttings, hedge trimmings and the like in the general waste bin, (or if they see it in there) they will NOT empty your general waste. 😕

Ours in monthly. Its a nightmare if you forget! They will take extra bin bags left at the side of the bin usually though. Don’t need to do that very often though

Mines every 3 weeks. It's a nightmare, has been this way for years

Out of curiosity. What are you voting for?

Ability to throw away as much as you like?

Would you also be happy to pay the additional council tax required to deal with the waste?

Are you happy for the local playing field to be turned into landfill?

And an incinerator plant built on the waste ground 0.5 miles away?

Your road to be the waste lorry route to and fro?

Seriously people. Unless your council has minimal recycling options, please have a look at what you're throwing away. It's really not hard to deal with.

(Caveat- I am aware that people in flats, limited bins storage etc find multiple bins difficult)

Be like that for a couple of years here and it's hell. Near by tip is our saviour. We recycle etc.

Absolutely.. same as people shouldn’t have to pay for private healthcare because they can’t see a GP.
It makes you wonder what things will be like here in 10 years.

Ours is every two weeks, we sometimes go a month (by accident mostly!) and it STINKS! There’s a lot in our house though!

That was the comment I was going to make, people shouldn’t have to use their time and petrol going to a recycling centre when refuse collection is a service which they’re paying for as part of their council tax.

The only time we get close to filling ours (family of 5, reduced size wheelie bin, no nappies) is if we're eating lots of junk food or take aways. Or having a declutter.

Ours also emptied every 3 weeks. Only full on occasion. Where do you think all the black bins are going? It's landfill or incinerator. Which nobody wants to live next door to these. So less waste required. Reducing how easy it is to get rid of waste is one way to do that.

It's a piss take considering the amount of council tax we all pay. The councils should concentrate on bin services that we all use and reduce other services that are less necessary. Not to mention reducing the gold-plated pensions for all their staff.

Yes, it's a terrible idea. Not only because some people DO struggle and would have to much in the bin (at the end of the 3 weeks) but also, the SMELL in summer would be unholy! 💀

Our bin stinks like hell by the end of the 2 weeks in the 3 months of summer, and we have to move it as far away from the back door and windows as we can.

We move it near to the neighbour's fence at the bottom (about 10-15 feet from their kitchen window...!) The neighbour who runs along the bottom of our garden, not next door.

I don't care if they can smell it, they smoke (cigarettes) so we have to put up with that stink every fucking day outside between April and October, (as they 'work' from home, so are always in, and spend quite a lot of time outside in the warmer months....!) 🙄 And they smoke cannibis at least 3 times a day, so we have to put up with that vile stench wafting up the garden too! (Again, especially in those April to October months....) So they can smell our rank, foul, smelly bin. Only fair. 😎

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Ours is once a month. The biggest family on the lane just uses the bins that technically belong to an empty house.

To be honest, the most annoying thing about the bin system is that the recycling boxes all dramatically collapse and fall into each other when you're rattling your way up the lane with the trolley that they stand on...

Oh, and food bins never get collected, so we have all given up on that. Mine was used as a spare planter for a while.