Monthly bin collections is a FAB idea

[jdoe8]

There is outrage over this on LBC. But I think its a really good idea, I remember the same outrage when they went to fortnightly.

We're a family of 4, we recycle, compost and avoid buying over packaged stuff and anything in plastic (especially veg and fruit!). As a result the bin only goes out once a month and often isn't full. If you don't have a garden then a weekly food collection pickup is available.

I see other people with only one or two people in their house and every other week their green wheelie is bursting. I know from times they have used ours that they put alot of food waste and packaging in the bin. We are rather wasteful in this country compared to just about every other European county.

For the vast majority of people it wouldn't work

We have chickens and so very little food waste, we have a furnace and two multi fuel stoves and so use all scrap paper and card to start the fires every day (including in the summer). We still need fortnightly collections.

Wouldn't work for us. Four in our household, we have a large black bin and large blue bin. Blue bin recycling takes everything (card, paper, tins, plastic etc) and even squashing things flat it's full every fortnight. Our black bin less so but we still have one in nappies and would hate for a month's worth of nappies to be hanging around in summer. We throw away very little food waste - about 1 30litre bag a week, mainly coffee grounds, peels, shells and the heels of loaves.

Nappies alone would be a nightmare for me...the smell as much as the overfilling after a month would be awful! Then there is dog mess from the garden. I would have a bin full of dog and baby poo for up to a month...

Good for you

Here's your medal:

I can't stand my fortnightly collection. I would much prefer the centralised, communal bins that the rest of europe have. Much more hygienic. Lots of recycling options and it must save ££££ I don't know why we're persevering with our rubbish system!

Fortnightly was a nightmare when I lived in a tiny flat in s converted terraced house as I had nowhere to store bags of rubbish or recycling.

Councils should only do monthly if they have separate nappy type collections as some do. The council next to mine does this, not sure if it's weekly or forthrightly.

I'm guessing that you don't have babies in nappies and live in a flat in an area where your access to food is the local convenience store where everything comes in packets?

It's a mental idea. We are a family of 5. I cook from scratch most days but we still fill a blue bin and a normal bin in 2 weeks. Our collections are fortnightly and I couldn't cope with less frequently.

I agree as long as the council has adequate measures for collecting all recyclable stuff including food. Our council has an very good , simple recycling collection. All food waste, cardboard, plastic packaging, glass etc is collected.

Last week it was extremely windy on bin day. Our neighbour's bin was full to the brim and the lid wouldn't close properly. When I came home an hour later the bin was on its side and the rubbish was all over the street and on our driveway and front garden. I spent 10 minutes picking it all up. It was our normal bin day but I collected two empty wine bottles, numerous bread rolls, cardboard boxes, yoghurt pots, a ceramic dish half full of pate and a chicken carcass! All of which could have gone in the recycling bins meaning our neighbour would have been able to close her bin properly and I wouldn't have had to pick up someone else's rubbish! People just don't recycle as much as they can.

Monthly!!!!!!. It might be a fab idea for you. We can't even cope with fortnightly, and There's only myself and dd who lives here.
They (council)/ better not start moaning at me. If rats start waltzing around. They've chosen to move from weekly to fortnightly and Now it could be monthly, because. The bins aren't staying in my home. Stinking the place out. When they over flow. They over flow

Very few people in our area use the food only bins due to the foxes who, despite every deterrent known to man and foxkind, routinely drag the entire contents open and across the front gardens and pavements. Then they take a shit.

So the big bins would get extremely stinky in summer. You may have some legitimate points, in Switzerland you pay for landfill waste and there is much less but they are better at providing recycling facilities.

Our council are quite good but they vary completely from area to area.

We're in Scotland and have fortnight collection but we have a special nappy service provided by the council every week. We also have fortnight collection of recycling and glass.

We could NOT have nappies rotting for a month though.

Also tax packaging and junk mail. Some deliveries are quite ridiculous! This is rubbish I have not even asked for. More paper and cardboard would be much appreciated. I had to change my dog food because I couldn't cope with the plastic, a good thing obviously. But not always an option.

I agree with running

Our rubbish collection system is antiquated.

We are years behind Germany & Switzerland. We should replicate there model

Their, not there

I am so pleased that we still have weekly bin collection, we only have a paper bin plus tin and glass bag fortnightly, we don't have food waste collections at all

Absolutely not. We recycle a huge amount of packaging and the bin is full after two weeks- things like Amazon boxes, milk cartons, tins, how can you save on this even if you buy your fruit in a paper bag? We do recycle a lot of stuff though as our council gives us a huge green bin and expects pretty much everything to go in it! If you only recycle a few tins and some newspapers, I think it's a different story.

Also, food waste is really not acceptable to be left a month, the smell and the maggots are bad enough after two weeks and in summer, I have to clean the wheelie bin out a lot.

It says a lot about a country if they can't organize their rubbish and waste to be collected so it piles up- it's a job for someone to collect it, I can't think why cutting those services, and then having to have other services to deal with rats/additional flytippin/rubbish that doesn't fit in the bin/street cleaners would be a good plan, better to collect the rubbish comprehensively and often in the first place.

We are a family of 5 and o would hate it, our blue recycling bin is full, and we jump in it to make more space, my youngest is just coming out of nappies, could you imagine a month worth of nappies in the summer?? Our black bin normally is full by the day they come, it would be awful

Every 3 weeks here and in general it works well. We have general waste, plastic/glass, paper and garden/food waste - collected in a rota with the garden & food waste collected every week.
Monthly I think would end up being a problem, even though we recycle we can easily fill the general bin in 3 weeks.

My area is on 3 weekly collections and it is bloody horrendeous. Both my blue bin and green household waste bin are full and ive got bag that needs to go in the bin but can and its another week until my green bin is emptied. The council wont empty it if its lid is even an inch open nor do they take bags of rubbish beside the bin

What happens to food waste? What about the people that are on a water meter and can't afford to wash all the waste - who wants food covered rubbish lying around for a month?
What about the people who don't have gardens or live in flats? They can't compost. Who's going to sort out the increase in rats and mess that'll be around the streets?

I clearly answered that in my OP.

All these complaints are exactly what people said when we went to fortnightly. Maybe a few central bins collected daily as running said would be better. It works well for other countries. Makes people more conscious if they have to walk a bit with all their rubbish.

YY running. Its reduce, reuse, and then recycle and allowing companies to bombard people with unwanted junk mail or overpackage food to ridiculous levels just spits in the face of any recycling efforts.

We don't even have food recycling in our area.

Its:

brown bin for garden waste but you have to pay approx £45 per bin per annum for this service
glass bin
green bin for recyclables (no tetra-pack, no foil)
black bin for everything else including food.