to be a bit pissed off that after all the cuts, £250,000,000 has been 'found' for weekly bin collections?

[Annpan88]

Correct me if I'm wrong but after all these cuts to services and people losing their jobs, I believe the government has decided to make changes to the minor Inconvenience that is fornightly bin collections?

Yes, it is a bit of a pain in the arse but I don't see how its the most important thing in thw world and I'm guessing people are pretty use to it.

I just wonder if people are feeling like me, AIBU?

Oh dear.

and I was so PLEASED to hear it, as I live in fear of maggots rats and stink.

I lived in third world countries where the rubbish was collected daily AND recycled.

I think weekly is a minimum.

I think I may therefore be a "Middle England Daily Mail reader" then, having read this thread. But I'm foreign(and don't read DM as they want people like me out of the country) and all that (brain explodes)

That's impressive service Chaondon. Was that a daily rubbish pick-up from the house?

I had a great idea. We'll have the weekly collections, but issue little signs you can put up to say "don't collect from me this week".

It's not perfect, but at least it means they can fly past all those houses with the sign without stopping and the extra cost of a weekly collection would be reduced as much as possible.

Of course there'd be the cost of printing the signs, but I don't think that would come to much.

yes, in two countries (lat am) where I lived actually.

I guess it was also to keep pests under control (rats, cockroaches etc.) as in tropical climates it all rots so quickly ad attracts vermin.

I think in winter once every 2 weeks is fine, but my goodness, the stench when it's hot... (like now!)

YANBU.

I hated the idea of fortnightly collections, but we have a full sized recyclng bin, so manage OK. Rotting food can go in black bin or green bin, so is collected weekly anyway. We have three big wheely bins,(rubbish, recycling and green waste/compost) and the only problem is where to keep them.

If the country needs to make cuts, it needs to make cuts. Not start spending where people are happy with arrangements.

Chandon - I bet if that were introduced here, people would complain about "having" to put the rubbish out every day!

I can remember when people complained bitterly when wheely bins were introduced about having to put them out themselves to get collected because "that's the bin men's job".

CustardCake

I'm not a smug elderly person,there are five of us in this household.We manage fine with fortnightly rubbish collection.
We have recycled stuff taken away during the other week.

Can I also add that we don't have a separate food waste collection,that sounds great.I envy you.

Just found this thread. Not time to read EVERY comment but would like to tell you about Northumberland.

I lived there until 1997 and so did my parents until 2006. Weekly bin collections ceased (I think) around 2000. The bins were collected every week on a fortnightly rotation. That meant week 1 was for general waste in the green bin and week 2 was for recycled waste in the blue bin. This has been going on for years. Admittedly, my mother was not best pleased. She hated the idea of having to sort HER rubbish. But she got into it and now (living in Newcastle with a different system) recycling comes 'naturally' to her.

The point is, we NEVER had problems with overflowing bins and smells and rats.

I live in East Yorkshire now and we have three bins - green for general waste, blue for plastics, paper and tins and brown for garden, food and cardboard. Soon we will be able to put glass and tetra packs in the blue bin. So to compensate our council is giving us a bigger blue bin shortly. We have fortnightly collections on the blue and brown bin but weekly on the green. By recycling our waste so efficiently we have found the green bin is rarely half full by the time it's collected on a Wednesday.

It wouldn't bother me if we went fortnightly. The only things that go in the green bin is plastic that cannot be recycled. However the brown and blue bins probably need to be moved to weekly as they get full quicker. Especially as our grass from one cut can fill the brown bin immediately!

custardcake, I'm not a smug elderly person either. There are 4 of us (3 adults and 1 teen) and we mange perfectly well with fortnightly collections for our non-recyclable waste.
We have alternate weeks
WEEK ONE green bin for food waste and garden waste/ bag for paper/cardboard/ box for glass/tins/plastic/clothes
WEEK TWO is for anything that can't be recycled -which isn't very much now that they take the food

Going back to weekly collections will encourage people to stop recycling which will mean more going into landfill- a very bad move

Genuine question Custardo: what does your waste consist of that so much is generated?

Between my neigbours and ourselves (ie 4 adults, 3 children in total so I'm not talking about a hypethetical "elderly couple"), me working from home, neigbours at home 2 out of 5 days, we still struggle to fill one wheely bin in a fortnight. I make a packed lunch every day for ds and dh - but they bring home the "rubbish".

All that goes in my family's "general" waste bin is margarine tubs (at most, one a week), yoghurt posts (c.10 a week), empty takeaway curry container (2 a fortnight), a few empty plastic wrappers (eg from the bag of apples or the spaghetti/pasta), foil butter wrappers, crisp bags (c.5 a week), fruit juice cartons (c.10 a week - but only small ones), chicken carcass once a month, lamb bone once a month, maybe 2 or 3 plastic meat "containers" per week ..... and now I'm struggling to think what else there might be. I empty the (small) pedal bin in the kitchen about twice a week. The waste paper bins in the other rooms add up to about another small (re-used) supermarket bag's worth. That's about all the goes in the general waste wheely bin.

I suppose if you use a lot of tetrapaks, the volume could mount up.

Tissues go in composting. Cardboard goes into recycling - except egg boxes and loo rolls which go onto the compost heap. Sugar and flour wrappers goes in compost.

If we are having a big clear out, then we might go onto the 2nd wheely bin - to take the broken (plastic) toys or frost damaged planters.

Even when ds was in (disposable) nappies (a long time ago now) we still generated far less waste than our old neigbours - less than half a bin a week (and back then, we couldn't put cardboard in our recycling bin). New neighbours generate a similar amount to us.

I would love weekly waste collections (or a bigger bin?) again as I find we easily fill ours up within a few days of it being emptied. Doesn't help that the council have repeatedly refused to bring me a paper recycling bin as the previous owner of this house took the old one with them!! Heavens knows why.

FWIW the introduction of weekly collections, if it ever happens that is, will not steer my vote their way. I'm a labour kinda girl.

we do have the "tiny skinny wheelie bins" & with a family of 4-6 adults - depending who's actually here at the time - we could still easily go 2 weeks between rubbish collections if necessary.

our weekly waste fits in 2 20-litre Brabantia bin bags.

we do go 2 weeks for "tiny skinny wheelie bin" recycling - glass/tin/aluminium - paper/cardboard sack collection alternates

we have a huge green compost bin in the yard but it mostly serves as a giant ant farm (must do something about that...)

we save tetrapaks until we're going near a supermarket that recycles them

all plastic tubs get taken to the recycling depot once a fortnight or so

recycling does take a bit more time than just dumping it all in one big bin but it's worth it

Boffinmum in our area you get 1 black/general bin per house, small for flats normal size for houses. If you have over 4 kids you can have 2, over 6 kids you get 3. The blue/recyclable ones are 1 per house unless you need more so we have 2 although on occasion we could do with more. Our council is really keen on recycling so is keen to offer as many bins as you need, escept black.

Custardo how do you use so much and make so much waste. There are 6 of us, 3 in nappies, although they get incinerated but still only fill 2 black sacks a week. We are also at home all day and we almost neder fill the black bin in 1 week

Riven what do you do with the nappies before council take them? We store ours in a swing bin then out the sack in our spare black bin. The downstairs loo stinks in the summer though and by the end of the week in winter is very whiffy

YANBU

What a shortsighted, regressive waste of money

People will go back to not bothering to recycle because it's easier to stick it all in the waste bin. Fortnightly collections force people to sort out their waste.

Another example of this government's emphasis on placating the middle classes and not using the money where it's most needed.

I could scream at this moment.

I dunno, where I live I think its only this house that bothers to recycle. Every other fucker just puts the waste into any old bin (and extra bin bags that they leave out next to the bins), the bin men leave it, it rots and so on and so forth. No point in saying that the people need to change because they wont, most of them seem to be happy to live in that kind of filth. The bin men seem loathe to do any additional work so they arent arsed either

Rats are now a big problem, you can see them jumping out of bins and scuttling across the road to the next one. I worry about DS and the dog playing in our back garden because of them. Yes I know they are around anyway, but the risk is alot greater round here now.

I for one would be very very glad if weekly collections came back

I should add that eventually the bags are removed by the bin men, but its a battle of wills and it only goes after about 5 - 6 weeks of festering in the street

this has nothing to do with listening to voters. rarely do politians from any party listen to voters.

there has to be some monatary gain - of huge proportions to either a tory mionister, his family, or someone donating to the campaign fund - like viridor or something

Haven't read many previous posts, but this is just wrong. There are so many more important places to spend the money.

I also have never understood how my neighbours' landfill wheelie bins are often overflowing. We are a family of four and I think it would take us 2 months to fill ours.

Here in the Cotswolds, we have a weekly green collection which takes away our food and garden waste.

The other recycling and general waste gets collected every two weeks.

Works great as there is no food hanging around, so no problems with rats or smells or anything. My bin is never full either.

i'd guess there's some kind of stipulation about where councils spend the money too, in terms of contractors; i'd be willing to bet an awful lot of wealthy tories have money tied up in landfill rather than recycling organisations. it's about stopping people recycling.

reminds me of that simpsons episode where homer becomes the 'garbage man'! seem to remember it didn't end particularly well...

Haven't read the whole thread but just wanted to say I'd be very pleased if weekly black bin (general waste) collections resumed. We do our best to re-cycle for the other collection and compost other stuff and would continue to do this just the same.
But occasionally we miss the collection ( forget it's bin day - have to put bin out on pavement ) and with a weekly collection that's just a small inconvenience - as you know you can catch them the following week - but with fortnightly collections missing one is a depressing calamity.
I feel there has to be some room in the system for human error and frailty - there are some vulnerable people out there who need decent levels of helpful support.