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

Sounds a lot more normal than 'we are a family of 4 people who have a 4 weekly collection, and the general waste bin is only every one eighth full!' 😆

As I said, this is the same ones who claim they never have the heating on at night - EVER, even when it's minus 10C to minus 15C! Batshit. Parallel Universe of Mumsnet strikes again! 😂

Family of 5. We've been on every 3 weeks for a couple of years. Our black bin is never full. Our recycling bins are often bursting before collection.

We recycle paper, plastics, cans, bottles, soft plastics, food waste (and compost) and I use large, plain brown cardboard boxes in the garden to repress weeds.

It is absolutely doable.

The target date for separate collection of bio-waste was 31 December 2023.

Yep! This is me with mine and DH's entire collection of general waste for 2025.

Gonna drop it off at the tip tomorrow.

I'm wrapped up in plenty of layers too, so I can keep the heating off. 😆

I've just looked at Article 22 (WFD) - it quite clearly refers to bio-waste (food and garden waste - not general waste/nappies) defined as;

4.‘bio-waste’ means biodegradable garden and park waste, food and kitchen waste from households, offices, restaurants, wholesale, canteens, caterers and retail premises and comparable waste from food processing plants

pretending that it is about encouraging recycling

The directive amending Article 22 is all about encouraging recycling/composting/ environment protection.

Although we generate very little as there are only two of us and I can pretty much work out how much we are going to eat, and we compost our peelings and uncooked vegetable waste.

I appreciate that people without gardens will generate more food waste, so no judgement from me.

Ours is monthly. It works fine. Rather than looking at what you are not putting in your waste bin, try looking at what you are putting in it. If I was militant about recycling, there would be hardly anything in it. The one thing that fills it most is thin plastics I.e multi pack wrappers, lids from meat trays, sweetie wrappers etc. I could take that separately to somewhere which recycles it but it never occurs to me to do that. What we have done is reduce the number of multipacks we buy in plastic wrapping. Other than that, all that goes in the waste bin is used paper towels, hankies etc, vacuum dust, food that won’t go down the waste disposal.

Just to counter all the “we are a family of 30 and our general waste is collected in a thimble once every 6 months” posts

😆😆

Just to counter all the “we are a family of 30 and our general waste is collected in a thimble once every 6 months” posts, we are a family of 4 and comfortably fill 2 wheelie bins - and sometimes exceed their capacity - with general waste every fortnight. YANBU.

I fill the recycling bins as well, and I compost what I can (and use garden waste collection), but I still seem to have an inordinate amount of packaging waste in particular. Cat litter is also a bin space-filler and the DCat would rather crap on the floor than use litter twice.

@zovwho has heating on overnight? I’ve never had it on between 10pm and 6am in my life. Nothing smug about it, we have these things called duvets, heard of them? We have 3 weekly bin collections here and it’s simply not an issue, you recycle everything and they provide a weekly food waste pick up which is generally eaten by the foxes and seagulls but that’s a separate issue!

Clearly wishing for the imminent demise of the human race…

@zov this is clearly the new competition on MNs “how little waste one produces”

Err, have you seen birth rates! 😆

We don't have food waste bins. Bit annoying as they would be useful.

😆 Good point.

Do you have food waste bins? And are they collected regularly?

We have recycling and food waste collected weekly which is about 90% of everything. The food waste makes a huge difference surprisingly. When I run out of food waste bags I really notice have much quicker the kitchen bin gets filled. We (family of 4) use about one black bin bag a week.

I think about 4 fit in the bin, not quite sure. I stupidly missed the last black bin collection, which means it will be 4 weeks not the usual 2. 4 is ok, but only just. I suppose if I had every 3 week collection I’d worry that it would be 6 weeks on the odd occasion I forgot to put the bins out on time and 6 weeks would be very, very difficult.

No one NEEDS even one child so what's your excuse?

As for @Badbadbunny

YABU. We're on 3 weekly and our wheelie bin went out yesterday - it was about one third full. That's a household of 3 people and one pet. Our recycling wheelie bins go out every 2 weeks completely full.
We generate very little that won't go into the recycling bins.

We meal plan, so there's virtually no food waste. Certainly nothing that's gone out of date, just the "leftovers" from what we've not eaten on our plates which usually isn't much as we don't cook/serve large portions, and save anything unserved (i.e. half a chicken or half a roast etc) to be used the next day.

We tend not to "snack" on rubbish food so very little in the way of chocolate bar/crisp/biscuit wrappings etc. Tins, packet foods, and plastic yoghurt/butter/milk/juice containers all go into recycling after a quick rinse if needed. Obviously, cosmetic/toiletries/shower gel/shampoo containers can be recycled so don't go in general waste either.

We just have a small bag of "waste" from the bathroom each week (wet wipes, cotton buds, floss, tissues etc), and a larger bag of kitchen waste we put into the general waste every 2-3 days containing the leftover food waste, kitchen tissues/paper towels, wet wipes, etc., as well as other general household waste such as dud pens, foil/plastic pill packet inserts, kitchen foil from the oven, etc. To be honest, we could probably go to general waste collection every month and still wouldn't fill the bin.

#smugoverload 😆

Bet you're one of these posters who never has your heating on between 10pm and 8am, even when it's minus 10 degrees Celcius, and never has it above 5C in the day. Bet you and your family wear lots and lots of layers......😂

Oh dear.

They’re useless, aren’t they. Yet when they don’t perform the service paid for you get no refund to recompense you for having to seek alternative service providers. I really feel for those who don’t have a car.

Oh dear. You think that just because waste is in a bag it isn’t a health hazard?

You’d be happy with a landfill site right behind your house them presumably and expect no flies/ maggots/ rats/ smell whatsoever, as long as it was in bags?

Why do you think the EU issued a Directive requiring all member states to make regular collections of biological waste if, according to you, it isn’t a public health hazard to leave it in residential areas for weeks on end in bags? How odd of them. And all the scientists and health professionals whose evidence and data informed the shaping of the law.

I’m sure you’re right, it’s all the fault of babies who have the audacity to poo and women who have the audacity to bleed. How very inconvenient of them.

This post sounds a lot like the early version AI which was asked how best to address climate change and suggested eliminating all humans, Terminator style.

Actually, if you look at global population trends it’s clear that within a generation or two there’s going to be complete population collapse.

Never mind about data though, or silly mathematical concepts like exponential growth/ decline, eh?

@Badbadbunny has made choices that generate very little waste. You could do the same @HazelMember if you wanted to.

Most “civilised” people bag up the poo/nappies/san pro properly before putting in the main bin.