I've just watched my mum wipe the bin lid then her work surfaces with the same cloth.

[YoScienceBitch]

I mean come on.

Even me, the queen of slack and low standards thinks that's just too gross.

Her argument is that she cleans the bin lid everyday. (She doesn't)

AIBU to want buy her colour coordinated cloths for the kitchen 😂

[TheNorthRemembers]

Well, it depends on how often the bin lid is cleaned and wI think what.

[TheNorthRemembers]

I mean "with what".

[Ontopofthesunset]

Doesn't it depend a bit what sort of bin it is? If it's a pedal bin, nothing touches the lid, including people's hands so the lid isn't dirty. If it's one of those push-in flip top lids, it might get pretty dirty. The only things that would make it much more germ-laden than the worktops would be if people were pushing the bin lid with raw meat on their hands, or pet litter or something. I only use pedal bins in my kitchen so that when your hands are dirty from raw meat etc you don't need to touch anything.

[YoScienceBitch]

I'd say she cleans it once a week. And no soap, just runs the cloth under a cold tap and off she goes.

[TinselTwins]

you're swinging a black bag full of bleugh and God knows

it's not "God knows what" though is it?
All that's in my bin is the scraps from our last 2 meals and some packaging bits that can't be recycled.

[EuropeanSwallow]

YANBU OP. If it's the same as my bin, uncooked and unwashed vegetable peelings go in, bits of gristle, bone and fat trimmed from uncooked meat go in, waste food goes in, the dirt from the floor I've just swept into the dustpan goes in; so yes, there is a real possibility of cross-contamination of harmful bacteria and entero-viruses from bin to work surface if you're using the same dishcloth to clean both.

Would any of the no-one-ever-died-from-kitchen-germs-in-my-house-and-I-use-the-same-cloth-I-wipe-my-arse-with-and-blow-my-nose-on camp be happy to see someone doing this in a restaurant or hotel kitchen?

[blueshoes]

I would think your mum is so not uptight about dirt and hold her in esteem as a kindred soul. Does it really matter? I think of when our family go camping. Of course things cannot be sterile with colour-coded dish cloths. Nobody has died.

My family's constitution is pretty strong. Everyone else seems to fall ill regularly.

[TrustySnail]

the bathroom bin gets emptied into it so all bathroom debris

It sounds like some of this debate depends on bin habits - in our house, all bins get emptied directly into the wheelie bin, rather than into other bins.

[TinselTwins]

raw vegitables don't suddenly become "dirty" when they go from being whole in the veg bin to being peelings in the actual bin

[GreenTureen]

Bins are for rubbish though - they're not usually completely clean containers that only contain food/clean refuse.

Some food will go off very quickly for a start - so the scraps that are put in there 18 hours ago will probably be festering with germs by the time the bin is emptied, even if not smelly/visible.

I can't think of any examples but just general crap goes in the bin sometimes - one of the dc came in the other day and they had a chunk of what looked like old crisp packet/mud/leaves stuck to the underside of their shoe...so I gave them the obligatory bollocking for not wiping their feet then the bit of 'God knows what' got picked up and binned...could have been full of dog shit for all I know. Tissues used to blow noses go in there. Just...stuff...that is binnable and by want of that tend to be dirty/germy/used things.

[TinselTwins]

I also don't gut my own fish and buy meat that's ready butchered, so there's no need for raw bits to go in the bin. any scraps of meat /carcasses are cooked, and with a family to feed the bin bags are changed at least every 24 hours so I agree it depends on bin habits.

I don't think my bin is massively "dirty" by default of being in the bin, nothing is really there long enough to rot much

[Costacoffeeplease]

Why would you empty a bathroom bin into a kitchen bin ?

[GreenTureen]

I'm confused by all the talk of food scrapings and peelings though...we're talking about a general waste bin, no?

Does no one have a separate food recycling bin for that? I thought everyone did that nowadays, not put food waste into black bags .

[GreenTureen]

Why would you empty a bathroom bin into a kitchen bin

Because the bathroom bin is tiny and gets full quickly when there's still a half empty black bag in the kitchen bin - what else are you supposed to do with it?

[YoScienceBitch]

No

It's a bin. Everything goes into it. The upstairs bins when they are ful go into the larger kitchen bin.

[CaraAspen]

Eurgh. That is not nice.

[NoFuckingRoomOnMyBroom]

I literally couldn't stand this, though I'm happy to admit I have bin issues

[TinselTwins]

Does no one have a separate food recycling bin for that? I thought everyone did that nowadays, not put food waste into black bags

No, our council does do some compostable collections but it doesn't extend to us, and we can't compost ourselves.

It's a shame as its a large chunk of what we chuck out

[GreenTureen]

That's awful Tinsel, I thought that was a big push, composting and recycling - I just assumed that it was all over the UK tbh.

[YoScienceBitch]

Never even heard of it!

[TheNorthRemembers]

YoScienceBitch

I'd say she cleans it once a week. And no soap, just runs the cloth under a cold tap and off she goes.

That is not good.

[TinselTwins]

Yeah well our council did make a big deal about it when the started collecting compostables, but it's only on request, and we've been requesting they do it for us for a few years now but due to layout and the way our other bins are collected the computer has said no so far. It's okay if you're on a regular terraced street but where we are we all leave our bins out together in big bins on a back road and because of that for some reason the council says we can't have the individual compost bins as well - annoying!

[weegiemum]

I put my bin lid through the dishwasher once a week. Is that vile too?

[DJBaggySmalls]

They should teach the Environmental Health food hygiene course at school IMO.

[cece]

I don't get the horror if wiping bin and then the work surface. I probably do it myself without a second thought. But who would put dirty nappies in their kitchen bin? Now that is minging!