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.

Well then it must the Google thats confusing you, because when I googled it properly I immediately got a full page of well referenced stats from government publications and reputable statistics portal.

I would have thought you'd look further than the Daily Mail.....

I know I sound like a nappy nut now, but I do think they should be talked about more

You could talk about them for a hundred years and it wouldn't change my mind, personally. Most people just aren't interested, and not because we don't know about them.

BoiledSprouts is right, it seems obvious that would be the effect.

*Well then it must the Google thats confusing you, because when I googled it properly I immediately got a full page of well referenced stats from government publications and reputable statistics portal.
hmm

I would have thought you'd look further than the Daily Mail.....*

I fail to see why you continue to try to derail extremely important discussions about disability rights and ableism by making nasty personal attacks and harping on about the fact "only" two million people don't have a washing machine (because obviously the very fact they are a minority proves they don't matter!). And I'm not the one claiming to have got their stats from the Daily Mail, that was someone else.

Want to get back to the actual subject of the thread, and how we implement monthly bin collections without harming vulnerable minorities?

My kids are adults now, but I can imagine the steaming pong of soiled nappies in the summer months.

Ideally, it would be great to reduce waste and increase recycling, but I am now old, tired and cynical.
Illegal dumping of waste is on the increase where I live. Some of the culprits get caught and fined - but many don't sadly.

Questioning your googling skills is not a "nasty personal attack" fgs.

Chill out.

And its actually a thread about bins, its really not an extremely important anything, let alone some epic disabled rights soapbox.

Maybe google definitions of "perspective"?

Well art&co I won't even use adult reuseable say night because they feel more uncomfortable when wet and I'd quite like my teenager to stay asleep for as long as possible. I wouldn't have even used reuseable Nappies when he was a baby because his digestive issues mean he had an average of 6 huge nasty foul smelling runny blow out poos every single day. And now he is a teenager I have enough extra Washing to do with his daily wet sheets and clothing I don't want to add a single reuseable nappy and pad to my wash loads. And it wouldn't be cheaper for me to use reuseables because his incontinence disposable supplies are provided at no cost to me personally and I don't have to spend money on washing them.

I'm not the one who Googled and found the Daily Mail article. And I'd forgo criticizing others, given your grammar.

There is a lot of ableism on MN, sadly. There are also an awful lot of clueless, well-meaning types who simply have no idea that not everyone has a luffly big house with a garden and a car, and some of them can be very judgy towards those who are less privileged. Not just in this thread, but many. It's the endless wave of, "Oh but why doesn't everyone just make all their meals from scratch/grow their own organic produce/drive their DCs to a million activities/homeschool/move/find a new job/wait for the next empty bus to take their wheelchair, etc. etc. etc." It's constant. Most of them are not trying to be nasty, they just don't realise that not everyone has lives like theirs, and don't realise how incredibly difficult life is when you are disabled or living below the poverty line.

The fact posters are responding to being gently corrected on their casual ableism and lack of awareness with such hostility is disturbing.

I live on the same street as a laundrette and they do not allow you to wash reusables in there.

My paper recycling is collected once a month. This is usually fine, and obviously no smells etc. However last month I was away for a couple of days and missed the collection and I am also going to miss this months as I will be away again. This is OK for paper, though I do now have a huge paper/cardboard pile and it will be worse by last Tues in Feb. But it would be an absolute nightmare if this was the regular refuse collection.
Here there is (rightly) a fine for leaving out refuse/recycling on the wrong day.
There is also a fine for putting recyclables in the refuse (glass, paper, PET, aluminium etc.) - which I think would be better for cutting down on landfill than reducing the collection frequency. Supermarkets should do a lot more to facilitate this.

What do the council do about people who don't comply?

Some new social housing was built nearby a couple of years ago - yes, I thought a pig had flown past - and shortly after the occupants had all moved in I was rather dismayed to see that one house's front garden was strewn with rubbish, including nappies. They were obviously just tossing all their rubbish out of the front door. It was disgusting, and a real abuse of a privilege, which social housing is now.

At the moment the council threatens to not remove your rubbish if you leave lid open/mix rubbish etc, but then it just builds up. Once a month collections would just make it far worse, unless they issued everyone with ten tonne wheelie bins.

Have fortnightly collections of both. Recycling bins are both full to bursting by time the fortnight is up and they've got very fussy over the quality of the cardboard and paper they'll take so imagine they'd start to struggle with accepting it. (In which case landfill would definitely overflow.) Food waste has to be kept in house thanks to foxes and is pretty grim really. Would not want to keep it a month. Would probably invest in a sink grinder. Don't imagine that's at all green.

Reducing bin collections has nothing to do with reducing waste and is everything to do with council cut backs. Considering it will not only unfairly impact the elderly and disabled more than anyone else, it will probably also be a health hazard. It's quite laughable that anyone would think it is a "fab idea"...

I know I sound like a nappy nut now
Oh no you don't sweetie not at all

Haven't read full thread but our local authority has just announced that they are decreasing the types of stuff that they collect for recycling. At the moment they take all paper/card, aluminium and all plastic with the recycling logo on. They don't take glass (we take it to the bottle bank) and we have a composter for food waste so what goes in the black bin is minimal.
They've just announced that from next month the only plastic they will take is bottles. So no meat/veg trays, yoghurt pots, butter tubs etc. I'm astounded. It seems awful to pile all this extra stuff into landfill. I reckon it's because dirty buggers were putting that stuff in the bin unwashed and contaminating the lot. We always washed ours first. Why not give peeps the option to recycle clean items? Frustrating.

Complete madness IMO. Our local council still haven't woken up to the fact that by changing our collections from weekly to fortnightly,that we would need extra bins (I live in a block of flats so we don't have a bin for each household,we use communal wheelie bins). The result has been numerous bags of rubbish dumped by the side of the bins when the bins are full,leading to foxes,rats etc ripping them open,scattering it everywhere and creating an unsightly mess and a health hazard. Added to which,the majority of the time,the bin-men won't take any bags left on the floor,they just get left. This leads to a build-up of bags of rubbish,which the council then has to send someone out with a truck,every couple of months,to clear up. We then get a narky letter from the council telling us that 'bags left on the floor rather than in the bins won't be taken'. Well what the hell are we meant to do with them if we can't fit them in the bins? We are provide with 3 wheelie bins for 22 flats. Obviously some households are going to generate more rubbish than others. There are quite a few households with babies or toddlers,so obviously,their bin bags get filled up quicker due to used nappies. If the councils propose cutting down on refuse collections,then they need to get their act together and provide more bins!

And to which I will add,what is the bloody point of giving us bags for recyclable stuff,then throwing these bags into the refuse lorry along with all the other rubbish? Sheer madness!

Our council has never collected any plastic apart from bottles, right from when we moved to a fornightly collection. Our council is monumentally shit though.

I don't understand how the reusable nappies washed twice a week works. My DC used to crap constantly as newborns- I once counted the 8th nappy change by 11am how many would you need to save up all those crappy nappies to wash twice a week?!

I lived in central London until recently- huge communal bins at the end of each street, emptied daily, if you could drag it down there they'd take it (mattressss etc) no recycling at all; never struck me as particularly environmentally friendly. Mind you that was an extremely naice area full of elderly sloanes: presumably if they couldn't access the service they'd be expected to move elsewhere because no concession was made.

Janey we have bags as well. On windy days the contents end up all over the street before the recycling collection even gets here. Then the guys that do it spill most of the rest because they aren't paid by the hour so they go as quickly and shit-ly as possible. Green my fucking arse.

Wouldn't work. How about regulating the packaging that goes onto products.

It's not the fault of the people that you can't even buy fruit and vegetables without a ridiculous amount of plastic packaging.

I lived in central London until recently- huge communal bins at the end of each street, emptied daily, if you could drag it down there they'd take it (mattressss etc) no recycling at all; never struck me as particularly environmentally friendly.

Perhaps we were neighbours Trainspotting, though perhaps not because my central London local authority is keen on recycling. But they make it very easy to dispose of rubbish and recycling with dumpsters and collections which means that most people behave sensibly and don't litter.

How did they collect your recycling? We had no curb side collection at all

And yes- no litter- so lovely

I'm with you OP.

Our LA is just about to introduce 3-weekly bin collections with waste food and recycling collected weekly. We are a family of 5 (3 children in nappies), from the waste we produce i don't think a 4 weekly collection would be an issue at all. Our council is moving towards 0 waste being sent to landfill which I think is fantastic.