Gaslighting by council waste services!

[smoothieooo]

Apologies in advance for tediousness of subject matter but my recycling bin wasn't collected last Wednesday so I duly reported and was given a reference number. I followed up on consecutive days with the instant chat function and a call. I have now been told that it was in fact collected - even though it's still sitting on my driveway and full!

The last time this happened, when my garden waste bin wasn't collected, I was told it was because it hadn't been left out (it most certainly had)!

It's making me feel like I'm going slightly mad! Has anyone experienced similar?

Take a photo, complain and escalate.

Yep! I sent photos, got in touch with Waste Services through the council, emailed the local councillor. I'm just a bit obsessed that they come and take it after lying their arses off about it already having been taken!

😀

I’m exhausted just reading about it!

Not much else you do now. Make a cup of tea and take a well deserved break!

Is it something to do with the bank holiday?

Ours don't get collected if they fail inspection.

The problem is... passers by ate putting stuff like crisp packets in them. So they fail inspection...

Nope!

It's been out for so long that I've been double checking there's nothing 'illegal' in there!

I feel like reaching for the wine already! I can't though because it'll make my menopausal symptoms worse (which partly explains my current bin obsession)! I will, as you suggest, have tea and search the cupboard for some naice biscuits.

Oh I feel your pain. I live in t'arse end of nowhere and when the council changed the waste contractor last year it took them ages to cotton on to the fact that they would have to drive up this deadend lane to our teeny hamlet with five houses and a farm to collect our bins.

We're supposed to report online and what really got me is if I did this the arseholes would come and get my bin and my bin only and leave my neighbours bins out in the lane because they had not reported a missed collection.

Every phone call was the same 'You'll need to log it online...well if it's been collected what's the problem...then your neighbour needs to log it online...'

There's no way to report a missed bin at an address other than my own and my neighbours are all very elderly and not IT literate.

That took a lot of biscuits to resolve.

Randomly they weren't emptying my friends bin where they live there is a courtyard with all the bins in they come get them all apart from hers they didn't really listen to our calls so I put rubbish in her neighbours and told them to complain they soon emptied her bin

Why does it matter, and what are you hoping to achieve?

You have let them know.

Now you can:

• wait until next collection; or
• take the rubbish to a recycling bin / the tip

I can’t fathom how they would be able to identify which exact houses they have collected from anyway.

Don't worry. It's not as if you are paying for a service or anything.

I'm not hoping to achieve anything if I'm honest, just venting. It's fecking annoying to be told it's been collected when it's there in all its blue glory, taunting me. Full of perfectly acceptable recycling waste. It wouldn't be so bad if they'd said 'yeah, we didn't collect it but can't really be arsed to come back' - at least that's the truth!

I know that they only collect the bins as a favour, which means they can't do it all the time. I mean it's lovely of them to pick up the waste/recycling when they can manage to so really I should be grateful.

Yanbu. I had months of randomly missed collections until I got a ring doorbell and had concrete proof my bins were always out in time and the right place.

They don't muck me around any more. I have zero tolerance for half arsed collection crews now.

Yes, I think that's the way forward. Although the cockwombles I'm currently dealing with would still argue otherwise, even with concrete proof.

There aren't enough gluten free chocolate digestives biscuits in the world to help resolve this one.

Funnily enough, my neighbour's bin also wasn't collected and he reported it separately so they came back for his and didn't take mine which was 3 feet away. We share a drive but have different streets (corner plot) so I think that's obviously too confusing for those that wield the collection power.