to think it would be common courtesy and common sense to that? possibly tmi.

[someonestolemynick]

To put a bin next to the toilet.

This makes me irrationally angry: My job involves going to people's houses. Normally I will be with them between a and 4 hours, so occasionally I will have to use their toilet.
Today I'm on my period and have quite heavy flow. I was on a longer job (3hrs) and bled through my tampon. I discovered that there was no von in the bathroom. Just to be clear. I try to avoid having to change my tampon in client's houses by changing in public loos, McDonald's or Starbucks and carry scented plastic bags with me tobwrap the offender in when I have to do it at someone's house.
So, anyway, i was in the very awkward position of having a soaked tampon and no way of getting rid of it. I was in charge of a very young child - so no way of nipping out to the bins or a pub (to use the loo) and ended up stemming the flow with toilet paper and going back to working with their dc for another hour.
I will not flush a tampon down the loo because I don't want to block the clients toilet.

So, aibu to ask you all to provide a bin for female visitors?

You're laughing at the idea that you would embarrass anyone.

You also seem to not understand that the person you would most embarrass would be yourself, ultimately. If you did this to me I would drop you as a friend.

I very much doubt I'd be your friend to drop. I suggest you find an activity more relevant to you; like tidying your guest tampons.

None of my friends would find it remotely embarrassing to ask me where to dispose of used sanitary items - but they all know where the bin is anyway!

I would stop arguing with your husband on this one. He is right.

BTW. I woke up my husband to ask him about this and he said I was right and you and he were wrong.

Seriously? What possessed you to that?

In regards to recycling.
I take empty loo rolls and bleach bottles out into the recycling straight away. Why would I want to put them in a mixed bin that I then had to rifle through? That's just hassle!

I don't know what makes me do it mathanxiety but when I've finished sorting through my garbage it fills me with joy to persecute menstruating guests or my snoring husband or generally irritate people.

That's the way I roll.

Though things might be different if I had a basket of guest sanpro to sort.

Why would sanpro need sorting though...

Personally, I keep the family sanpro in a bathroom cupboard on the wall behind the loo, and anyone finding themselves short can rummage there and choose from (1) tampons, size 'super' or (2) pads, size 'maxi' regular length, which is what I buy. The tampons come in a box of 48 and the pads are in a plastic bag of 44ish.

I do the same, Itsbetterthanabox. Recyclables don't need throwing out on a daily basis so it makes no sense to have a special bin in the bathroom dedicated to them.

mathanxiety Sun 10-Apr-16 02:04:07

Recyclables don't need throwing out on a daily basis so it makes no sense to have a special bin in the bathroom dedicated to them.

To be serious for a moment: I am very keen on waste management because I have been encouraged rather than shamed into doing it. This will be long but shows both my commitment and the power of persuasion.

However, if you think you should be allowed to put tampons in my bathroom bin, or that I should provide a buffet of sanpro, you'd better stop reading now. It's not going to happen.

We don't have individual bins in my London borough. We have community dumpsters for unrecyclable waste, general recyclable waste and specific recyclable waste: textiles or small electrical items. We also receive free biodegradable bags and a reusable plastic crate to leave some specified recyclable waste outside the house one day a week. I don't bother doing that because I pass the dumpsters every day.

It's very easy and free for residents. There are cameras and the council do go through your waste to catch you if you are disposing of commercial waste which should be paid extra for. They will get you.

That's why I meticulously sort through stuff. Not because I want to persecute people, but because I've learned that people often throw away things that could be recycled. It's no trouble and I feel encouraged to do it because I feel my local authority takes it seriously.

On the other hand, my husband has a bad feeling about it, because of a recent experience. He has a local business and pays extra to dispose of rubbish. He's perfectly okay with that. He sometimes takes in packages for domestic neighbours and often they are addressed to Local Resident c/o Commercial Trader Next Door. So he was extremely fucked off to receive an £80 fine for irregular rubbish disposal when the idiot next door disposed of the package with my husband's business name and address on it.

He was going to let it go, because he is a nice person. I am usually a nice person but wasn't that day. It's £80. Therefore the neighbour reluctantly coughed for the fine and promised never to be so fucking stupid again or we won't take in his many packages.

Lol at 'buffet of sanpro'...

There are three types of large communal bins in the alley behind the flat where I live. Two large bins are for normal household waste including tampons. Three are for recycling. One is marked 'organic waste', meaning gardening waste, hedge clippings, etc. You can leave out old mattresses or large items as long as they weigh no more than 50lbs and can be lifted by one person. You have to buy a sticker to attach to those items. Sometimes large items that are in good shape are taken by people who might need them, and you lose your sticker too sometimes if that happens, but heyho.. Items both large and small with a good deal of metal in them are frequently taken by the scavenger who drives his little truck up and down the alley all day every day. If you catch him on his travels he will help you haul out something like an old couch that contains a fold-out metal bed, etc.

The bins are emptied and waste dispersed to its appropriate destination by a commercial firm that won the contract to do so from my municipality. They make money in their business, so the amount of sorting and dealing with inappropriately disposed-of items couldn't be costing them so much that they have to go to the expense of cameras and Soviet-style checking up on people. That's not persuasion. That is coercion.

Nothing in your explanation of why you do not welcome tampons in your bathroom bin makes sense. You could easily ask your guests to bring recyclables to your main recycling bin and leave them in peace to dispose of their tampons discreetly in the bathroom. You could sit them down before they go to the bathroom and use your powers of persuasion to convince them of the necessity of bringing recyclables out to the kitchen with them and not leaving them in the bathroom bin.

You would not baulk at touching a used plaster in your bathroom bin apparently, so I can only conclude you have some sort of issue specifically with items associated with menstruation, and have constructed an elaborate explanation to account for your mental block about menstrual waste.

Fascinating though I find it, I feel we might be losing the wider audience with our detailed descriptions of our local waste management solutions

It answers the 'would it be common sense to have a bin (where sanpro would be welcome) next to the loo?' question. Of course it would be common sense.

No amount of complication in a municipal waste disposal system makes it necessary to go through the contents of a bathroom bin. So it makes sense to have one and to assume women will use it for tampons and pads. Otherwise women would be left thinking their menstrual waste was less welcome than a plaster that might have come off a popped boil.

limitedperiodonly which London borough do you live in that you don't have a bin for your house?! Or do you just mean your block of flats?

Westminster sawdust.

Huh, looks to me like it's the same as my borough - putting out our rubbish & recycling in bags to be collected rather than having a wheelie bin provided (we all buy our own bins from B&Q). I thought it meant they didn't collect waste from your house and was a bit !

I'm not sure whether they collect non-recyclable rubbish from outside houses sawdust. There are plenty of dumpsters and smaller bins nearby so I've never left it out and neither do my neighbours. Occasionally I see bags of rubbish but they often have council stickers warning of severe fines for fly tipping and then there is a blitz of similar signs on lamp posts until it stops.

Two days ago we had to dispose of a defunct vacuum cleaner and to be on the safe side my husband put it in his paid-for commercial waste. The council is that strict.

What a gripping life I lead

There are always bin lorries, mini dust carts with water sprays and street cleaners going up and down. But I've watched so many spy films that I can't be sure whether they're real or some kind of special ops detail.

I'm in Westminster too. No front garden so no designated wheelie bin. It's fine though. Westminster are really good at collecting - we have twice a week collections (once a week for recycling in Westminster bags) including bank holidays. The only day they miss is Christmas. I feel embarrassed that our service is so good when others have this mad three weekly thing.

In my bathroom I have a bin with a lid - for bathroom waste including tampons.

AND a recycling basket for loo roll tubes, plastic bottles, cardboard packaging etc.

The bin gets emptied into a binbag for landfill and the recycling goes into the replying wheeliebin.

Job done. No need to police the bin. No one has been foiled by the system yet.

You can have as many bins as you like in your house. Because it's your house. My house is my house. Neither of them are public places.

I feel embarrassed that our service is so good when others have this mad three weekly thing.

YY Backingvocals I stare at my feet and whistle when people rail about the petty tyrannies of having their stinking waste left for another three weeks because the lid was slightly open.

My mum had the ludicrous three-weekly two bin thing on her doorstep and she paid more council tax than me. She didn't generate a lot of waste and used to let a neighbour with two children in nappies use the spare capacity. The neighbour asked, though

you should not ever be leaving a used tampon in any ones bin without express permission
Ha ha that's the most ridiculous thing on this whole thread. Even if it's wrapped up and placed discretely in their bathroom bin?! Like other PPs, I'd be horrified if my guests felt they had to carry a used tampon in their handbag rather than disposing of it in the bathroom bin where it belongs. And I don't think guests should really have to ask about waste disposal arrangements, particularly if it's for items that (eg teenagers) might feel embarrassed to talk about. TBH even now in my mid-thirties I'd feel a bit embarrassed to ask a male host "excuse me, should I put my used tampon in your kitchen bin (or shall I keep it in my handbag)?"

But here's a question that I'd welcome views on (sorry for blatant hijacking of the thread): do people recycle their recyclable bathroom rubbish eg loo rolls and shampoo bottles (rather than just tying the drawstring and to hell with the environment)? If so, do you just take the recyclables to a different/kitchen bin in the first instance, or do you fish the recyclables out for recycling when you empty the bathroom bin? Can you get mini bathroom bins with two separate compartments? The only dual-compartment bins I've ever seen have been massive ones for the kitchen.

No bin fishing here. All loo roll tubes and plastic shampoo/shower gel bottles go straight out to the green wheelie, they don't go in the bathroom bin in the first place.