Aibu to wheel my bin to council and empty it out?

[pumpkinsweetie]

Blue bin wasn't collected yesterday as a member of the public dropped one small piece of paper in it so they wouldn't take it as only plastics, cans etc can be accepted from that bin.

Although angry I was polite when I phoned and asked if I emptied said contaminant would they do a re shedule.

I was basically told tough and to keep it until next collection and apparently keep watch on bin day for litter droppers as it's my responsibility.

So do I camp out front from 6am bin day keeping watch or would I be unreasonable to walk the bin down to the offices under the cover of darkness and dump the recycling they refuse to take?

I don't own a car and I pay £115 in council tax a month!

OneStep We are not deemed worthy of a blue bin, just a blue box, which isn't big enough.
But we put glass jars/bottles, plastic and tins in it - that's what it says on the label, till it gets full, then put the rest in the black bin, because there's nowhere else to put them.
I would imagine the blue box has an entirely separate rule list to the blue bin though. Just because they are both blue, doesn't mean they work the same;)
They have a whole website dedicated to it, that might tell you? It's on the council's website (not, surprisingly, at www.worldsmostcomplicatedrecyclingsystem.com)

onestepcloser We are allowed to put glass bottles in our blue bin, but tbh I don't bother cleaning them especially as we are on a water meter soon and they are cleaned at the plant anyway. I also don't take the labels off either as I cba with all the faffing about everytime I put a glass or plastic bottle outside

Guess will have to start now if they are going to get pandantic

The next bin is going to be a small blue box and if I remember correctly it's going to be for glass
Yet another trip to add to my bin walk

As someone has just suggested another bin for kitkat/penguin wrappers/crisp packets would be great lol considering by law they are recyclable, except our council don't think they are worthy

[Grin]

Ive been doing the walk of shame each week to my car janggling a few ahem, rather a lot of wine bottles, I didnt realise that we could put them in the blue bin! Wash them out I would have thought they would be washed out at depot? Umm yes I read the literature very carefully

Oh come T council, we just dont have room for yet another bin, its ridiculous. Seriously so many people dont actually have front gardens and you cant walk past because of so many bins. That`ll be five bins. Perhaps T council are going for some kind of record.

Arf perhaps they`ll be different shades of blue and then a pink one for KitKat wrappers.

DH has driven off into the Sun with the car full of bags, hes a happy man.

Why do people think councils just make these rules for the sake of it? Doesn't it occur to people that they might just be having to administer the rules?

Where my brother is (south-east) they used to take cardboard in their garden bins. Then the national standards for compost changed and they couldn't let residents put cardboard in with their garden recycling. Of course, the barrage of phone calls then came in from people who thought the bureaucratic councils fat cats who just enjoyed messing around with people decided to fuck it all up and stop collecting their garden bins with cardboard in for no reason. This is despite months of promotion telling people when and why the changes were coming in.

Then this year, they have stopped being able to take plastic carrier bags in their recycling because the places where they have to take their trucks to offload the recycling will no longer take the bags because they ruin the machinery when they get stuck in it and the company can't make any money from them anyway. Yet still, despite being told in every way imaginable about the reasons for the council not taking bags and when things were changing, people still ring up screaming and swearing that they haven't been told and "what do I pay my council tax for?". There have been two incidents where people have dumped their recycling in the car park of where my brother works and he gets told all the time "I pay your wages" by people and therefore he should just do exactly what they want. One of his colleagues has had an actual death threat from someone whose bin wasn't collected. I shit you not.

Do people honestly believe that councils change their systems just to annoy people? I bet if you asked, you'd find out the reason.

So is it the norm Tidy to have five bins now?

I dont know the ins and outs and I could be wrong (probably) but I was under the impression that central government were giving councils financal incentives to do more for recycling but the problem is that the local councils are not geared up to cope with this, and that a lot of recycling was in fact not recycling properly and a lot of stuff was still going to land fill, although maybe just abroad? We know our own council has admitted that they dont yet have the dust carts to recycle properly, so hence the frustration from residents.

Unfortunately council staff do take a lot of abuse for many things, and of course thats not on.

OneStep, I don't know if it's the norm, because each council will do something differently (they take their recycling to a number places that will impose the rules) so will end up having a different number and type of bins. I don't think it's possible to have a uniform way of doing things. I've never heard if there being government incentives at the heart of any changes. If anything it's the opposite. The Pickles twat wants to pay councils to bring back weekly collections but I don't think many took him up on it. It obviously costs lots of money to send waste to landfill and councils can make money from recycling (goes towards the cost of landfill) so maybe that kind of incentive is what you mean?

You honestly wouldn't believe the amount of abuse my brother and his colleagues get from idiots who call his office. People really have no perspective. We're talking about bins here. It is never okay to swear, abuse and make death threats to someone about a bin! And anyone who calls up the council saying "I pay your wages" or "I pay £xx in council tax per month" just make themselves look like a twat.

number of places

I know Tidy its the same in any service job, my poor DD works in Next shes only young and some of the abuse she recieves is shocking. People get very irate and it can turn them into twats.

However, our council bin csar is still a complete ninkinpook we are drowning in a sea of bins .

ninkinpoop even!

There is no "norm" - every council has a different system, and as usual they have to reinvent the wheel by trying different things that others have already tried then changing round until both bin men and residents get fed up and confused. Hilarious how some people will use the tiniest reason to stop recycling altogether. Lazy and selfish, IMO.

Chelsyhandy would love to see your evidence

Anyway we are talking about the Council workers at the end of the phone who, as TidyDancer says, have to listen to these rants. Talk about first world problems. I assume that many waster collection services are privatised now, and the staff having been TUPEd over are definitely Not earning £45k pa.

Mind you, I totally agree that keeping recycling as simple as possible is a good thing. I have a waste bin, collected fortnightly, a recycling bin for glass, plastic, paper etc, collected fortnightly, a food waste kitchen caddy and an outside bin collected weekly, and a green waste bin which costs an extra £40pa and is collected fortnightly. Sounds a lot but actually is very straightforward.

IceCream Councils act like picking up your rubbish is a favour they are doing to you. Actually, not providing a proper service means everyone suffers because of flytipping and waste in the street

I couldn't agree more. The refuse collectors in my area are recognised by the local council as being right prima donnas. They walk out on strike at the drop of a hat and are heavily unionised. The council has tried to reform their contracts to make them more useful but they resist, backed by their union. Some of them earn over 50kpa with overtime.

I actually find the service so useless I would rather not have it and be charged slightly less council tax and use a private service or take my own rubbish to the tip. What would work is communal neighbourhood bins, like in Spain. I don't even believe my local council meets its recycling targets because it doesn't yet have the facilities to deal with segregated rubbish once it gets there, so most of it gets mulched back together again!

Obviously, if you go on holiday or have to go away with work and miss a couple of the fortnightly bin collections, you are stuffed. I do think they would rather people did not work but sat around monitoring their rubbish.

I now live in a development which has its own communal bins. You can put your rubbish in them at any time and they are out of sight and not attacked by rats or birds because they are undercover. Its so much better.

ChippyMinton

Admittedly this was a few years ago: www.express.co.uk/news/uk/222811/Binmen-earning-45-000-a-year-for-24-hour-week

Local authorities won't reveal pay rates as its a breach of data protection, and only average salaries across the board. This doesn't include overtime and bonus payments. They also tend to sack employees who talk to the press about it.

I'm sure we are talking about binmen as well as those who deal with the complaints. I agree it is rotten if the latter actually have better qualifications than the former, do a better, more competent job and still earn less.

Livvy can't you request and extra bin our council provides two recycle and two regular bins to families with five people or over.

Bin bin earn £35k here, private company not bad money as average wage is around 20k.

Waves to the others from the council with a 'T'. I am also in the town of many seagulls and a current folk festival :)

thought of a better plan, going to bag some up and take a bag each day to the public bins at the local parks and such. Can't stop me doing that. They can shove the recycling where the sun doesn't shine from now on

Do not do this it is an offence and they do target it

Oh and my bin men have a list! A fucking list and if your bin is not on it then it stays full.

I have an extra bin issued to me due to disability related waste that has been full for 9 weeks because some prat has forgot to put it on the list.

This is despite 73 phone calls 9 letters and showing the bin men the council letter confirming they issued it to me

I hate binmen and all their works. Ours will take the bin of it's ajar (but this is imo what they should be doing anyway so I refuse to be grateful) but they frequently spill rubbish all over the road and don't pick it up.

They also just stop in the middle of roads making no attempt to pull over or park somewhere more courteous and wheel the bins to the van. They are obviously so Very Important that this is ok.

They didn't take my food bin twice (no idea why) so that doesn't get used anymore. Once we forgot to put our main bin out (young baby, forgot what day it was). When I rang the council there was a charge (can't remember what it was but it was CONSIDERABLY more than the 60p that it's claimed on here that they cost) so I took my bags down to the tip for a week. I realise that was my fault but when the bin is right next to the front gate it wouldn't have been a hardship to have a quick look if it was full and nip in and get it. That's what a decent person would have done.

I blame the councils and their pathetic pettiness over their recycling rules for the increase in fly tipping and the obvious increase in vermin.

Our council is actually pretty good. We have black bags for general refuse and (council provided) orange bags for cardboard, plastic, tins and other recycling. They both get collected once a week, on the same day.

We are in SW London so any bins that are put out early get savaged by foxes, but the bin men even clear up that mess if necessary.

I have a small kitchen and no garden (live in a flat) so would struggle with multiple boxes and bags.

Maisyblue - have a read of the thread before making a comment like that. It's not pathetic pettiness, as you put it. The rules are there for a reason and are not always even the choice of the council administering them. If the bin men pick up things in bins that aren't recyclable, the whole lorry load of recycling will go to landfill when they get to the recycling centre. That's why they are strict.

And let's be clear, if there's an increase in fly tipping (I presume you have a source for this?) it's the fault of the flytippers, no one else. There is no excuse for it.

obfusKate If one bit of contamination from any one of hundreds of different people's bins will render the whole lorry-load worthless landfill, then the whole system is clearly untenable and not fit for purpose. People make mistakes, always have and always will. If the system is not robust enough to cope with that then it's a bad system

I agree. But then its a system set up for the benefit of those who deliver it, not the customers.

The history of pay in the world of binmen is interesting. It does tend to be a very heavily union dominated world, and some areas did see ridiculously massive overtime and bonus payments abused. Councils now have no choice but to reform this because it was deemed a breach of equality legislation, on the grounds of equal pay for like work. The comparators were the uniformly council employed cooks and cleaners, who tended to be paid far less. So it was deemed discrimination on grounds of gender.

The job is now so mechanised now as well. Compare it to a real manual labour job such as in the equine industry and many of the binmen would be squealing bad backs before they had even lifted a bale of hay. Tiny girls (and boys) in the racing industry work much harder than them.