to ask what my son is supposed to do with his rubbish when he returns from uni

[dreamingofsun]

we have a new rubbish and recycling regime, which frankly is rubbish. we are allowed 2 bags refuse over 2 week period - based on family of 4. my 3rd son is classed as a temporary resident so his rubbish isn't included and they won't provide another wheely bin. so what am i supposed to do with his rubbish - ask him to take it back to uni with him on the train? council have ignored my question.

We're a family of 2 adults and a 6 month old baby. We get fortnightly rubbish collections and weekly recycling. Our bin is half full every fortnight.

YABU, reduce (buy less stuff in plastic containers), reuse (get washable cloths for the kitchen, use washable nappies etc) and then recycle. Buy stuff in glass jars which you can recycle rather than plastic which you cannot.

So it's one full wheelie bin a fortnight of waste and that's not supposed to include food waste as they're supposed to be collecting that seperately?
What are you throwing away?

cream - we can recycle plastic and glass and do. as i said previously our recycling bin is nearly full after one week and won't get picked up for another. i think you are making my point - so 2 adults and baby= half full; which suggests 3 adults and 2 large children are going to generate more than one full wheelybin.

mutt - yes you are right. i'm just annoyed and fed up cleaning rubbish off the road as animals have ripped bags open despite rebagging (things i don't even like to mention) and have glass of wine to cheer me up (will recycle bottle don't worry)

I completely agree that you shouldn't have to find other bins to put it in, and I know plenty of people have complained to our council. But it hasn't made any difference and I can't see their policy changing any time soon, so what else is there to do?

We also put carrier bags of rubbish in the public bins when we go shopping or take the dog for a walk. When you get into the habit it's not that big a deal. We get given a limited number of particular bags that household rubbish has to be put in (which are crap and flimsy and break too easily) or it won't be collected, so it helps us save those too. We have to pay to get more if we need them, and there's no way I'm doing that!

Most councils collect so many items for recycling now that there is very lttle that needs to go in the landfill bin.
We are just two adults at the moment, with all the glass, tins, plastic and paper going into the recycling the rubbish wheelie big is less than half full after a fortnight.

I'm trying to imagine what your bin is full of.

iwipe - the things i have swept off the road included bags of dogs poo and, as a female, your worst nightmare to be seen in public on the road. but there were other things in the bin (in part food because they didn't pick that bin up last week)

Well, one more lad in the house won't increase the amount of dog poo or sanitary towels in your bin.
They'll get the hang of the new system soon and pick your food waste up regularly soon.

If your bins aren't being picked up as per the schedule then keep ringing your council until they do. Ours will come out the next day when they've occasionally missed our road. Sounds like your problem is partly that things just aren't being collected on time. We keep our recycling bags outside until they're collected and they're fine (but I do wash recyclables), you can get little storage tubs for the garden though, which might help keep bags intact until collection day.

We have a normal sized wheelie bin and it's only ever 1/2 full and collected fortnightly. We put out food waste and 2x recycling bags a week. There's 2x adults and a toddler.

We have 4 wheely bins provided by the council, 2 of them are only collected once a month (paper/cardboard and plastic/tins).The other 2 are collected fortnightly (landfill and garden/food waste).

There are between 4 and 6 (1 baby and 2 pets) of us depending whose home, and we struggle to keep to the landfill limit, especially when we have guests staying.

The Plastic/cans bin is full in about 10-14 days (for 2 weeks of the month it's piling up all over the utility room), and there is no glass collection (but no room for it in the landfill bin). I drive to the recycling centre twice a week with glass/plastics/cans- I try to do it as part of the school run to reduce the milage. Most families of 4+ I talk to do the same.

We are in a rural area and there has been a big increase in fly tipping - most weeks I have to pick rubbish (sometimes entire black bags dumped), from our driveway and lane.

how much extra rubbish would one person realistically create? I cant see that it would make a huge difference at all.

Anyone taking household rubbish and putting it in litter bins, you do realise you are not actually allowed to do that, don't you?

I seriously can't understand how anyone with a fortnightly collection struggles. We have a 3/4 full bin at the most, most of the time it is less than that. We use our green bin for gardening stuff and then the dry recycling crates (which we always fill, but the council takes everything you put out with those).

No problems at all, fantastic system.

Maybe the service depends on where you are in the country?

Why does he bring rubbish back from Uni? They must have access to bins whether he is halls or privately renting.

YABU, you really need to look at how you generate so much rubbish. We are a family of 6, plus many animals and only put our wheely bin out once a month (could be collected once a fortnight) It is not usually full on the monthly collections.

We are a family of 6 and only put out 1 black sack a week - we have unlimited recycling and put out 2-3 sacks of it weekly