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?

bbc link with a video of the pickles interview

The clip contains pickles explaining detail about how we are to deal with our "refuge" in a way that is "the way in which the world actually operates" and points out that "we don't want people in landfills".

Well that all sounds very carefully thought out then

My husband used to work for the Audit Commission.

I am disgusted by this too. I have a lot to say about Eric Pickles and not one of them is good.

We have no problem at all with our fortnightly collections. We have the space for wheelie bins - recycling/green waste and black bin collected on alternate weeks. Excellent service from the Council.

In Kensington, refuse is collected twice a week, because the borough is full of flats with no gardens or space to keep large amounts of refuse. Fortnightly collections certainly wouldn't work for them and so they've kept their twice weekly collections. Anywhere where you have space for a wheelie bin doesn't need refuse collecting any more frequently than every other week.

YANBU.

slavetofilofax Fri 30-Sep-11 10:09:05
Because they already pay Betsy, so they shouldn't have to pay more if they want extra. They pay council tax based on the size house they have.
I would rather my council tax paid for weekly collections rather than libraries.

No I disagree - in our area they have paid council tax to cover alternate fortnightly collections, and it has been like that for 10+years, working very successfully 99.9% of the time.

If people (and I'm thinking of a neighbour across the street who has TWO black bins, but is always sneaking rubbish into other people's bins on black bin morning, and conversely never puts recycling out - it is only her + teenage son so not sure how she "acquired" an additional bin anyway, it's only supposed to be for families of 5+) can't be bothered to co-operate with the recycling scheme and need an additional collection of non-recyclables then why shouldn't they pay, as the council will have to pay additonal land-fill tax for their rubbish? We should all be trying to cut down on what we put into landfill as we are rapidly running out of places to dump it in some areas.

and I would much rather money be spent on libraries than unnecessary extra rubbish collections.

YADNU

People MUST get used to throwing out less for the sake of the environment. They simply have to. Fortnightly collections are a big encouragement to do so.

I'm aghast at the government's cynicism.

YANBU. I couldn't believe it when I heard this on the news this morning.

We have weekly food waste recycling collections, weekly collections of various recyclable materials and also weekly collections of garden waste. Our general waste is collected weekly and usually only about at 3rd full and wasn't much fuller that that when DD was in disposable nappies. I think our general waste should be collected fortnightly!

Just recycle more!!

Well done Daily Mail - what a wonderful use of £250m in these cash strapped times....

YANBU, I was thinking the same thing today... Why is there so much packaging with everything too, really winds me up.

Surely the amount that people recycle has nothing to do with how often the waste is taken away?

Whether you put your waste in 2 different bins including recycling ones, or two landfill bins, the same amount of waste still has to be taken away. So the point is surely about how long it stands there for, not what kind of waste it is?

Or are people living in areas where there recycling gets collected every week and only there landfill waste stands about for two weeks?

YANBU

I couldn't believe how rude and patronising Pickles was to Susanna Reid as well: sighing/huffing like a stroppy child, "Not everyone UNDERSTANDS the Economic reasoning behind this move...".

This man is the Communities secretary and he can't even have a respectful discussion on live TV!

And as for the "Chicken Tikka" test he was wittering on about - isn't it a better idea to encourage people not to waste food?

Why do I need cardboard round my pack of four yogurts. Why do my multi-packs of baked beans have plastic round them? Surely the supermarket tills are sophisticated enough to be able to give me the discounted rate per tin on six cans without banding them together?

Betsy, we are coming at this from two very different personal perspectives.

My area has weekly collections, so to me, there is nothing extra about it, it's just standard.

You have neighbours that are obviosuly being lazy and abusing the system. But my situation is completely different to that. I don't have space at the front of my house to have one wheely bin, let alone anything else for recycling. We also don't have access from the front to the back of our house. So our bins are in our small back garden.

From my point of view, we are already have to have a big bin out there for landfill, one for green waste, and boxes for tins, bottles and paper. Landfill gets collected every week, green waste and other recycling get collected every other week. I would be able to recycle more if they collected recycling every week, because atm, I end up putting things that could be recycled into landfill because the recycling boxes are full and I refuse to pay for more and take up any more space in my garden.

YANBU it's madness.

Fortnightly collections have never been a problem for us. I'd have far more of a problem with cuts to essential services for vulnerable people.

Clearly not everyone would though.

The recycling issue is a separate issue. They could provide everyone with proper recycling facilities and then limit landfill to two bags per household. It could all be collected every week. The landfill amounts would be no different to now, where in my area you can only put four bags out a fortnight.

The issue would then simply be one of vermin control etc. More frequent emptying of proper recycling bins would allow for more recycling.

In my borough I think they are talking about charging if people want their green bin (garden refuse ie compostable) collected

another council who were thinking about this

It's terribly regressive, isn't it.

It is bloody Eric Pickles messing things up again.

IMVHO, there should be a weekly collection of food waste and either recycling or rubbish.

Ideally, it would be like the rubbish collections where we used to live where rubbish was collected every 2 weeks, recycling and food every week but the money should be put into disposing of waste properly not just shoving it in the ground until its time to build over-priced executive homes on it.

I am very fortunate to have my bins collected weekly. I would be really annoyed if this had been taken from me. we are also very conscientious about recycling.

Council tax is very high and I think people are entitled to have their bins collected weekly especially when it is hot. This affects all residents regardless of whether you are rich or poor. . It becomes a health hazard. when we were on holiday in Florida people had twice weekly rubbish collection

Pickles has been qouted as saying it is "a basic right" to have bins collected weekly
Basic right! So,jobs and welfare for the disadvantaged are not basic rights?
Lord I have heard it all now.

It does seem like a backwards step and an unnecessary expenditure where the money could be used elsewhere.

Its only a couple of months ago that our cities were being looted and torched has the government learned nothing from that?

How can they continue with cuts to the police service but see weekly rubbish collection as a priority?

This is outrageous. The Conservative party as a whole just doesn't seem to give a stuff about the environment.

We're a family of four, with two still using pull-ups everynight (= 28/fortnight) but we usually have no more than 2 (or 3 at most) black bags of rubbish to put in our wheelie bin each fortnight. The rest goes to the compost bin (veg peelings, etc.), or recycling bin (paper, card, tins and plastic bottles). Annoyingly our (Conservative) council doesn't collect bottles, so we have to take them to the supermarket recycling point when we go shopping.

And they want to increase speed limits as well! Think of the extra carbon emissions that will cause!

Not to mention adequate healthcare, crazynanna. I was reading something very scary yesterday about the way maternity services are headed.

I think there has been far too much spent on the so called disadvantaged and welfare over the past few years. they often seem to have more disposable income than the working population. However I do take on board the point about the cuts for the elderly.

People pay extortionate amounts of council tax and the least they expect is to have their bins emptied on a regular basis. Plus they are paying for the above group with their taxes.

I am not in the least bit impressed about this - although have to say where I lived before we didn't have wheelie bins and 2 weeks worth of rubbish wouldn't be great -the recyling was mainly done after collection - special seperating plant
but where I am now they have altertive normal and recyling all in wheelie bins and it works great and I wouldn't want it changed

but if I had to choose it would be libaries, schools, SN, social services before weekly bin collection