Is it a legal requirement to recycle?!

[Neonrainbowxx]

I’ve just moved house last month and for some reason there isn’t a recycling bin- I need to buy one (£36) but I don’t have a spare £36 to hand until next month for various reasons so I just put it on the back burner and have been sticking everything in general waste. Not ideal I know but buying a recycling bin was low on the list of things to buy for the house!

I didn’t think much of it until tonight when I’ve put the bin out and the neighbour next door for some strange reason has decided to rummage through the bin (god knows why) and has proceeded to hammer on the door all guns blazing for not recycling. She yelled that the bin men would refuse to take the bin and I’d be fined (along with some other choice words 😤). Is this true?! Starting to panic that I need to bring the bin back in now!

No obviously not. My neighbours don’t have a recycling bin and never have.

If I was you I would approach your neighbour (if she's calmed down), explain you can't afford a new bin so can you use her bin if she has any room left on bin day. That will show that you are very willing to recycle if you have the means to do so...and will also make her the mean one if she says no.

Tell the council there wasn't a bin when you moved in, and that you cannot afford to buy one. Ask them to provide a solution.

Well I rang the council this morning and it turns out there’s no wiggle room on the bin charges! She did tell me it’s absolutely fine to put everything in general waste in the interim though

Tell your neighbour that it's all contaminated.

Which council is this OP? So we can all avoid moving to your area.

I guess the interim will be until you move (to another council run area) then. Good grief, the sheer short sightedness of some councils is ridiculous.

It all goes into the same hole so I wouldn’t worry about it OP.

Eh? I put whatever I like in my usual bin. If my recycling bin is full I use my neighbours. We're not supposed to put garden waste in, but I do. They don't check.

Us your neighbours bin next week!

It’s probably well established in the thread that your neighbour is a little too preoccupied with other peoples lives, they can be technically correct that a fine can occur but they may be reading too much Daily Mail

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1990/43/section/46

Your council can opt to provide bins for free or to charge for them. If they really were to fine you for not recycling then they would have to justify their position. If they were sticking to charging you for a recycling bin/box/bag then it is not reasonable to fine you if you offer to put recycling out in an alternative suitable container

From your communications with them they are taking the reasonable point of view that you don’t have the right container and they will accept recyclables in general waste. This could of course mean, and probably would mean, that what could potentially be recycled is going to end up in landfill. But they could also have a waste treatment process that goes into a level of seperating the waste - this is less likely at the council level and is more likely at the commercial level as the ‘customer’ is charged for the service. It could happen though on the basis that ideally most items are pre-separated and that a basic level of check picks out amounts of recyclable from non and Vice versa.

In my workplace we have multiple bins for different types of waste but they are collected as one - the waste contractor sorts the different types of waste on their site. Though one lorry has multiple types in one load, it’s likely to be bagged by type, so in theory they direct the bags down each route of the line but supplemented by ‘pickers’ pulling specific items out of each line

I hope not but if it is, you're in good company

Basingstoke & Deane have made it so difficult to recycle some stuff, I've given up. The closest tip run is now a 34 mile round trip, and they've closed all the little local recycling sites so I stick all sorts of stuff in the general bin.

I think your neighbour needs to keep to her own business.

Historically individuals were responsible for their own bins, hence the tongue in cheek prize of a dustbin in the game show 321

You would expect a new build home to have bins provided by the developer and for property sales to leave the existing bin.
When it became too battered then it was up to you to replace it

When things moved on from manual handling of staff picking up a bin and tipping it into a lorry to the automated systems of wheeling a bin to be lifted and tipped by the machinery there was the need for consistency in the bin design to fit the machinery. Therefore those running the waste collection service would supply the bins - perhaps for free (but paid for as part of your council tax)