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

Can't it be both? About the environment and saving money?

Also. Council tax paysfora lot of stuff. Care, roads, social housing, planning, leisure facilities, parks, etc. Am sure most people use most of these. All underfunded and much closing.

Everyone complains when council tax goes up. Everyone complains when the services they receive are insufficient.

I don't understand why shit goes in the general bin. Whether that's cat liter, dog waste, nappies, incontinence. Its a question of hygiene. For some of this you can request special collections. The rest? The council doesn't collect my horse shit. I have to deal with it. And it's a lot.

For those who don't have food waste collection. You will soon. Made a huge difference to us. What can be recycled goes up before black bin collection goes down.

What else causes smells or risk of rats and flies? Food packaging is almost all recyclable and should be washed first.

I think this is coming to us soon as well. It's going to be a nightmare, particularly for recycling. For the general waste, its already an issue every 2 weeks in the summer as it just stinks.

But what i find most frustrating is the council guilty-tripping everyone by arguing it's about the environment, when the reality is that's it's just about them saving money.

Have you birthed multiples or had kids in close succession? Our large bin used to be overflowing with nappy bags. Some households need more space.

@SunnySideDeepDown no, my two are long out of nappies now. Regardless, as other posters have said, if you have 2 or more children in nappies then you can request a larger bin. Or use reusables.

Not all areas have a food waste bin, so a lot of mine is nappies and food waste. Also we seem to have so much food packaging which isn’t recyclable

It’s fortnightly here but the bins are tiny so the second bin bag sometimes has to be squashed down a bit depending on how long we’ve left it before it goes out. We must have massive bin bags compared to some as two is about doable, three then they’d have to be half full or the lid would be open. Sometimes they take an open bin, sometimes they don’t.

It’s purple for general waste then we have a blue one for paper and cardboard and a big grey one for metal and plastic which are taken once every four weeks each (alternating between the purple bin collections). Food waste is weekly at least. Still didn’t stop the fun maggot summer I had one year.

The grey one used to have glass as well but our council decided it was costing too much so they installed public glass bins all over the place for people to use instead. I’m disabled and struggle with that so we pay a private company £5 per month to take it away for us and we have their box at the top of our driveway where they collect it from.

There are also green bins for garden waste but they have an annual fee and we don’t have enough garden waste for that so it goes in our purple bin.

Do you have a single or elderly/mobility impaired neighbour who has room in their bin and would allow you to use it? In return you could offer to put out and return their bin so they dont have to bother. A win-win situation.

I live alone so I dont produce much waste. I dont have access to a car. However a relative visits twice a week. He takes away a black bag of general waste and puts it in the communal waste bins for the flats where he lives. If its heavy he just leaves it (under cover of darkness) in the waste bin in the park.

You just have to be creative.

And for people who don't/ can't drive? - Sorry, just saw your last sentence. This is an issue! I would be happy to go on foot but I have no access to a vehicle and taxis aren't an option (not that I could afford that either!)

If you have incontinence contact the council. We have a white bin for my mums pads that is picked up by a specialist company for medical waste.

Why does the general waste smell? You should have food waste recycling? Our food waste is every two weeks and general waste every three.

Ours have been 3 weeks for the last 9 years. Recycle everything you can and you’ll find it works ok.

We have 3 cats and 4 litters trays! We use wood litter and it expands when wet! We use 20litres every 2 weeks!
Indoor only as they are rescue and we live on a busy main road. Plus I don’t want them fouling other people’s gardens!
But that’s beside the point as they indoor only, we do have a catio.

Ours have been every 3 weeks for years.

Exactly. Not everyone can make a general waste bin last 4 weeks or 6 weeks like someone claimed. Or was it 4 weeks with a family of 6! Or 3 weeks with a family of 5???

And as I said, the smell is unholy in the summer. Like fuck am I putting up with that for weeks on end in the summer. I pay enough council tax. Empty my fecking general waste bin!!!!!!

Thing is, like some others, it is often only half full by the end of the fortnight - occasionally only a third full.... because we do recycle a lot. But I still want it emptying fortnightly. They can feck off with any suggestions of 3-weekly or 4 weekly. I pay enough council tax - £2.5K a year - and get very little for it.

As has been said, all much reduced collections will do is result in people flytipping.

A recycling site not a million miles from me tried making people book their slot to take rubbish to the skips, and even tried making them pay for the privilege. Result? SHIT loads of crap flytipped all over the place. Fucking shitshow. They withdrew the idea after about 4-5 months LOL!!!! (And went back to the old way that worked fine!!!) Who knew?????//

I had to pay for a larger bin and it's full up every fortnight. I use incontinence pants. People with kids in nappies also fill theirs up. But thanks for your consideration.

The recycling centre only accepts vehicle bookings. I've actually tried walking there and they turned me away with some hostility.

I don't know where you live but here it isn't going on building new schools, sports centres, community facilities, activities or clubs for young people, improving the high streets in towns etc. They've even done away with Christmas lights. And this is a very large council area when almost every other one in Scotland is managing these things. It's a dump. So I highly doubt they're spending money on bins either 😂

And I hope you’ll also volunteer your 40% unused bin to larger local families who need more space? Because just because you are ok with it, doesn’t mean others will manage.

For the past 6 years I've had at least 2, often 3, children in nappies at the same time. I'm just done with any kind of nappy tbh 😂 And washing.

Exactly, are we really expected to be able to juggle everything these days?!

Now, as well as having multiple kids, a huge mortgage which requires both working stupid hours, school admin at every turn, we now need to find a way to cloth nappy our babies or fit another trip to the tip each week to dispose of household waste?!

All in the name of the environment my arse. The government don’t care about the environment, they care about cutting public services.

Where are our taxes going?!

Currently our nonrecyclables are collected fortnightly but the nonrecyclables wheely bin is only ever 60% full so I wouldn't have much problem with a proposed reduction to every 3 weeks. We recycle more than 75% of our waste by volume and frankly we are quite slack and could reasonably up it to 80-85% if we put in a bit more effort. Each week we put out loads of recycling, including compostable food waste, and add a single smallish binbag to the wheely which is mostly thin plastic film from food packaging, bits of used kitchen roll, occasionally the shattered shards of a broken bowl and occasionally a jar of something that went mouldy in the fridge and I am too squeemish to do the responsible thing and decant the mould into the food waste, wash the jar and recycle it and instead throw the whole thing away. But seriously most stuff is recyclable.

I hope any LA reducing to 3-weekly has a really comprehensive programme for recycling absolutely everything that can be recycled though.

Omg. That’s appalling. In my London borough, we have weekly waste and recycling collections. I have respect for anyone who manages like you are having to.

We have been on a 3 week cycle for years where I am. Week 1 general waste, week 2 plastics etc week 3 cardboard/paper. Food waste is collected every week in a much smaller caddy.

We have to do our own glass at a supermarket bin.

We manage fine with one bin every 3 weeks. It’s never full, often only halfway. Usually only one maybe two bags worth for a family of 3 (teen DC). I can’t think of much that we put in it actually! Loads more goes in the plastic/foil/metal/cans one, it’s always the fullest. It wasn’t even full after Christmas (I try to buy recyclable packaging and wrapping paper etc so not much extra goes to landfill waste).

I think if you have more than 2 kids in nappies or a bigger family you can ask for a second bin here.

What else is in your bin apart from cat litter? Surely you don't fill not full of litter in under three weeks?
There is very little in ours. We probably manage one black bin bag a fortnight. Adding cat litter to that, even if you change it every day wouldn't fill the bin. Maybe if we had multiple kids in nappies...I don't know what else would generate quite so much waste.

Ah! Well, I can recommend reusables if you did want an alternative way to reduce their waste 😅 A bit easier than stopping them pooping altogether anyway 😂

We moved to a different town twelve months ago. We have a general waste collection once every three weeks and the bin is smaller compared to once every two weeks and a full size bin

We recycle a hell of a lot more now as we’ve been forced to and we also have a food caddy here which we didn’t have before (no option) We put 2-3 bags in that a week and it’s emptied every Friday

I’m not sure how a family of four or five would cope with the smaller bin and a collection every three weeks.

Nappies. So many nappies.