To be annoyed with council's '3 black bin bag' rule?

[sallymanda]

Now, don't get me wrong, I do recycle and -9 times out of 10- usually manage to put out only one bin bag out a fortnight.

Yesterday, a leaflet came from council stating that no household should put out more than 3 black sacks a fortnight (for those that don't know, black sacks=non-recyclables).

They say that people can have an exemption from this but there are so many problems with this in practicality:

1, How will bin men know?

2, What about houses of multiple occupation? Flats etc.

3, How much detail must be given to have an exemption? What if a person suffers from an illness that means they cannot control bladder/bowels, do they have to tell the council such personal information? Or, as this is mumsnet, have to put out nappies? Which, after all, can't be recycled?

I am also at the tone of the leaflet- you'd swear that people were committing murder not putting out their rubbish!!

I mean people PAY council tax- it's not as if it's a free collection service.

All this will mean is rubbish lying around the streets.

I'm annoyed (as you can probably guess!) AIBU?

I do want to know though OP, what do you think should happen? Do you think waste/landfill etc is an issue?

The public bins on our road now have an 'ILLEGAL DUMPING UNDER INVESTIGATION' sticker on them with a number to call if anyone has any information on who is doing it - so watch out!

We still get weekly collections with no restrictions, all picked up on the same morning. We do pay very high council tax though so I see this as one of the benefits of paying so much.

I think that the catch more flies with honey approach would work better, JanePurdy.

We are very limited on what we can recycle here and our council doesn't do compostable waste so kitchen scraps go into the general waste (thats the procedure given) I get the bulk of my veg straight from the farm so have more trimmings than most. I couldn't cope with the additional space for nappies so use washables. Fortnightly collection and no extra bags can be left but they have dropped the rules over closing the lid.

Lived in this area for 14 years and we have always had alternate weekly collections for the black bin (holds 4/5 bags) for non recyclables and brown bin (same size) for gardening waste and 'compost'ables'. We put our used wood based cat litter (minus solids) in this one, plus the used small pet's hay and sawdust.

Weekly collection of square blue bin for plastic and glass and square red bin for card and paper. Plus a scrap bucket for food waste.

all works well till you miss a week or put the wrong bin out - then it's tricky playing catch up for 4 weeks. We suffer from maggot infestations in the bins in the summer months sometimes. yuck.

if a person has time on their hands and are able, they should recycle, however, people don't pay council tax for the council to pass moral judgement on their behaviour.

I think we should go further than that. We should all make the time and effort to recycle, because we all have a responsibility to reduce the amount of unnecessary waste going to landfill.

What I can't get my head round is just putting bin bags out- does this really happen? Without wheelie bins? Don't all the bags attract vermin and get ripped open??

Sorry I didn't properly highlight that quote from PP

We only have bin bags PorkPie. And if you put them out the night before you often get foxes etc ripping them open. So now we have to get up and put them out early in the morning. Very annoying. Plus if its windy they blow all over the road, if the bag splits they won't take it, etc. You are allowed to buy yourself an ordinary bin though, but they won't do wheelie bins.

No recycling here apart from the glass collection in our parish or cardboard in my sisters parish.

Everything goes in one green wheelie bin which is collected once a week. Its all sorted and incincerated here.

Cloth nappies. Cloth San pro/mooncups. Recycle everything than can possibly be recycled. But a smaller kitchen bin to make you think twice about filling it up. We have 2 DCs and out out less than 3 bags a fortnight so it must be doable.

I ran for council (sadly didn't win) and am not a jumped up self aggrandising twit, honestly. I just wanted to make some positive changes. Rubbish collection costs a fortune, recyclable waste can be sold for profit to pump more money back into the council. And I don't think that money needs to be fed back to the householder, as a PP said, council tax doesn't come close to meeting the costs of running a borough. Instead of chipping about our 'value for money' how about taking the view that savings in this essential but rather uninspiring field frees up extra cash for the other valuable services that are council funded? School transport, older peoples provision, libraries, leisure, parks and playgrounds.

We have had fortnightly bin collections for about 10 years now. I have 2 DC in nappies but we manage. We can put unlimited recycling out so recycle everything possible.

I can appreciate the need for more recycling but these draconian rules are getting ridiculous. And as somebody else said you can buy giant binbags. Here you can get an extra large wheelie bin or extra small. Most people can hardly be bothered with the hassle of ordering one.

Is it draconian? You're paying for a service, yes, but is it unreasonable for councils to say "this is the service you get for your money".

Nobody seems to be grinching that Tesco will only deliver the groceries they actually pay for, and not free extras on weeks they have visitors.

We recycle , have blue bags for cardboard (which blows away..) a food bin and a green bin along side the usually blue wheels bin for normal waste. We have a fortnightly collection, one child in night nappies and pets. We still have to go to the tip once a week.

We have 4 wheelie bins and a small organic caddy (Glasgow City).

Caddy for all food waste.
Blue for plastic, tins and cardboard recycling.
Brown for garden waste.
Purple (small size) for glass.
Green for everything else.

Organic caddy emptied weekly.
Blue and green on alternate weeks.
Purple once a month on blue day.
Brown once a month on green day, once a fortnight in summer.

The thing that annoys me about this is that makes the same allowance for a single person as a family of 8 or 9 people.

3 bags in a fortnight is not enough for a moderately large household.

What is never mentioned is the actual disease risks that fortnightly collections of non-recyclables carry

What disease risk? Do you regularly go diving into your dustbin? Bagged and binned it represents no health risk at all.

What on earth are you all throwing out? Or are your councils very limited on recycling? Ours has just extended what we can recycle, so we only have 2 carrier bags of 'normal' rubbish a week.

If they want to go through my nappy-filled bins and count them, they can feel free.

500 Nappies and non-recyclable plastics.

Its fine unless we miss a collection, but we travel a lot (DH often works away near where DM lives) and being away for 2 days doesn't compensate for being unable to put our bins out for 4 weeks. Or are doing a big clear out or something.

Basically if you are anywhere near the max its very easy to have more rubbish than you are allowed to throw away a few times a year.

sallymanda, you didn't tell us what the leaflet said would actually happen if you did put more than 3 bags out.

Our council say if you feel your wheelie in won't accommodate nappies, look into cloth. No, they don't have a scheme to help.

They also want us to use their biodegradable bags for food waste but for three weeks they've ignored the yellow tag we put out to request more bags. I want to get DH to use the compostable waste bin more but we need those bags to do it, and they don't allow other bags.

I'm afraid a lot of people happily reduce their waste by putting non recyclable items in recycling bins. DH puts plastic trays (for example from cherry tomatoes), bubble envelopes, and anything you would describe as "plastic" in the recycling bin. Our parents (both sets) try to recycle plastic bags and tissues in addition to the above. The bags are not recyclable in our council or theirs. It drives me crazy. I have to sort after they've sorted it.

Where i live, we have 3 bins and clear plastic sacks to deal with.

Black Bin for non recyclables, fortnightly.
Green bin for garden waste, grass, hedges, flowers, also fortnightly, alternate weeks to black bin.
Small green bin for food waste, collected weekly.
Sacks for recyclables, collected when garden waste is.

Luckily for us, since the small green bin was introduce, theres no maggot problem in the summer, due to food waste sitting in a bin flies can get into.

nothing personal to the poster, but the example of plastic trays from cherry tomatoes is one of the reasons we generate way too much rubbish in this country.

don't buy pre-packed veg and fruit - always buy loose. Don't buy out of season stuff.

instant massive reduction in recycling, let alone waste.

we all need to buy less and use less. Also don't see why Christmas should mean more rubbish unless too much crap is being bought. Are people throwing away presents?