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.

[cansu]

God another smug look at how utterly marvellous I am with my lovely eco friendly lifestyle. Of course you cook from scratch always. Your kids dont eat junk food and dont use devices at the table etc etc. Why cant the rest of us fools just sort ourselves out I wonder??

[limitedperiodonly]

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

Trainspotting1984 There are recycling dumpsters next to the regular dumpsters which are all within about two minutes' walk. Mostly mixed but there's one reserved for small electrical items nearby. They also collect as many bags of recycling you want from the doorstep once a week. The bags are free and are delivered within a day or two of you ordering them online.

I don't know if they collect regular rubbish. They might but we don't have more than a small bag's worth a day for two adults - the bags you get your fruit and vegetables in at the the supermarket - so I throw those in the street bin on the way to work.

There is an army of street sweepers who even clean the cracks in the pavements. It's really clean and tidy. It's expensive to dispose of business waste though and I think that's one method of subsidising residential waste disposal.

Interestingly (if that kind of thing interests you ), there used to be a dumpster at the end of my street but it was removed because it was hell for the people who lived there. There's a very busy road at the end and people were leaving their cars in the queue of traffic and nipping over to dump their rubbish from 5am. Mattresses, old loos, that kind of thing.

My guess is that these people lived in boroughs with crap rubbish collection and thought they'd dispose of it in my borough.

[woodhill]

I think for the reasons outlined such as fly tipping and vermin problems the government has a duty to its citizens to have a decent rubbish collection system.

Our recycling collection is weekly as well. We always recycle where possible but things like yoghurt pots & juice cartons don't seem to be part of it.

The manufacturers could use more recyclable packaging

[Silverdream]

Where we live there are a lot of terraced houses with very small back yards. They have an alley way at the back. The houses get taken over with various recycling bins or bags. It's easy to do if you have the space but not everyone is that fortunate. It leaves the pavement outside a bin carpark or no nice space to have out the back. The yard is just washing and rubbish.

[Laiste]

The OPs ideals and the councils reasons for cuts are not coming from the same place. This ISN'T about saving the planet from the councils point of view, it's about saving money.

If you can reduce your waste until you only need to put your black bin out every 4 weeks then great. Do it. Only put your bin out every 4 weeks. You're doing your bit for the planet. Fabulous. Well done.

If it weren't all about money, rather than a blanket reduction on collections to 'force' less waste (which we can see by this thread is unworkable), councils could find a way to reward for those who didn't make use of the weekly or fortnightly collection. A slight monthly council tax reduction or something. A cash reward for those making a big effort and an incentive for those who could, but don't. No penalty for those who have no choice and still need their fortnightly.

Wont happen though.

[LivingOnTheDancefloor]

YABU OP
You do realize some people live in flats? Tiny flats sometimes? Do you think they will keep one month worth of garbage inside or just leave bags on the pavement regardless of collection day?

We have bi-monthly collections here and I will admit leaving bags outside sometimes (I know, fly tipping). The alternatives being having a disgusting smelly kitchen or taking a 30min bus trip to the local tip carrying a bin bag and 30min back.
I have small DC, no space in the kitchen for more than one bin

[deblet]

We are always squashing both bins with my daughter standing in them and we have fortnightly collections. And we put somethings in our elderly neighbours bins as well. We could not do fortnightly where do you put your rubbish?

[bibbitybobbityyhat]

I think this is a deliberately goady op.

We have fortnightly collections and really good curbside recycling. We are a family of 4 and have opted for one of the smaller sized general waste wheelies as we are so good at recycling and composting. Our recycling bin is usually full to the top. We produce one standard kitchen sized caddy of food waste per week as we compost everything we can.

But there's no way we could cut down to 1 wheelie bin of general rubbish per month. Just couldn't do it and we are generally speaking non-shoppers and non-consumers.

[ghostyslovesheets]

I have 2 litter trays emptied and cleaned every other day - I wouldn't want to just pour the trays down the toilet! They are emptied into a bag and binned - surely you aren't supposed to put all the flushable cat litter in the toilet?

[ghostyslovesheets]

Well poo is removed asap - by emptied I mean totally refilled and cleaned before I come across as a huge minger

[Artandco]

Ghost - you dot pour whole thing down toilet. You scoop out each poo and flush that and any litter stuck to it is fine to flush with the biodegradable litter as it's plant/ paper based. So when you empty full tray every few days into bin there's no poo going into bin as that's flushed, hence smell reduced

[Otherpeoplesteens]

There's a range of issues going on here. At the heart of it is the debate between who should respond to the requirements of whom - local authority pen-pushers or the residents who employ them - and whether either side has a responsibility to try and meet in the middle which neither seems willing to do.

Separately, from what I have witnessed amongst my neighbours, the attitudes to recycling and waste generation amongst large swathes of the UK population truly stinks. Like someone else upthread, I've seen the results of landfill bins blowing over on windy days: full of drinks cans (not even crushed) and glass bottles/jars, paper, food waste and everything else, all of which could be recycled. I had one set of neighbours, now thankfully repossessed and gone, who filled their full size general waste wheelie bin in two days - with cardboard pizza boxes. Nothing else.

We get four full size bins. One is for paper, collected fortnightly. One is for glass, cans, foil, and plastic (bottles only, no caps), also collected fortnightly. One is for garden and food waste, collected weekly. The other is for everything else.

It genuinely takes us well over a month to fill the general waste bin, with the biggest problem being plastic fruit punnets and trays for meat/fish. We're going to three-weekly collections later this year and I suppose I'd wash the meat/fish trays to avoid them smelling in the summer, and stack them separately to reduce volume in the bin, but it really doesn't take much aforethought to cope. My neighbours, meanwhile, are howling with hysteria at the perceived injustice but still can't be arsed to recycle.

Ultimately though, as has been pointed out upthread, we're trying to adapt a municipal service designed a century ago for a vastly different environment and lifestyle, and it's crackers. Mainland Europe has, once again, a vastly better system which produces much higher recycling rates. But we all know what happens when Europe tries to help us...

[jdoe8]

Has it been pointed out todays news about the idea of using a german style system for a deposit on bottles? That would be great imo.

My neighbours, meanwhile, are howling with hysteria at the perceived injustice but still can't be arsed to recycle.

I think that's most peoples reaction. Around here the food collection is weekly yet people still put food waste in the green wheelie (and everyone could compost) and are still upset it's not collected weekly. If you have a weekly food collection you shouldn't be putting it in the general waste.

[SirChenjin]

The German style system for a deposit on bottles (at some, but by all means not all supermarkets) would be great - I mentioned this in an earlier post, as have other people. This is just one example of where the supermarkets could do so much more, rather than simply pushing tonnes of packaging out into the community, providing no support or alternatives, and expecting the end user to cope with it using limited recycling services.

[OOAOML]

Although the Barrs return scheme was stopped because people weren't returning the bottles stv.tv/news/west-central/1326905-ag-barr-cumbernauld-not-accepting-irn-bru-glass-bottles-as-of-2016/

I used to love taking bottles back - in the holidays I used to go into my dad's work and I'd get to tidy the workshop and keep all the bottles. I made quite a bit of extra pocket money that way.

[SirChenjin]

Anyone know why Lidl's in Germany have the recycling/deposit points, but not here? We love them when we go on holiday there - it's like being in the future

[CatsRidingRollercoasters]

I'm guessing you don't have 2 in nappies OP?

Wouldn't work for us. We have fortnightly and it's always full. Dh once had to jump up and down on it to get another bag in.

[CatsRidingRollercoasters]

And yes we recycle everything we possibly can

[NotCitrus]

Different solutions work for different levels of housing density and different places for sending recyclate to. That was pretty much the only conclusion of case studies of 92 boroughs around the country trying to improve recycling rates and diversion from landfill, except for one really important finding: rubbish collection is pretty much the only council service that everyone gets. Which means everyone has an opinion on it, so as soon as any change is made, you need to at least double the number of council staff who know about waste and can answer phone calls on the subject, for at least six months. Or you end up with loads of hacked-off locals muttering "what do I pay my council tax for anyway?" and lack of buy-in as people start rumours and ends up with people not doing what is needed for the system to work.

I have problems at the moment with 5 adults, kids and one small bin. Given we recycle everything we can, and loads can go in recycling sacks, this wasn't a problem until the local foxes got even braver (as the chicken shop started composting their waste so the foxes didn't get it!), so no matter how well the dog food cans are washed, even in a dishwasher, the foxes rip the bags open...

We're about to get bins for recycling instead, which will be interesting as apparently they hold as much as 5 bags, but we routinely produce 5 bags of recycling a week, often more. And will have the dog food tins in them.

Thing is, since the council started charging for all bulky waste collection, there is an epic fly-tipping problem. Loads of skint people round here can't afford £20 to have a broken pushchair/soggy mattress removed, and it's a 45 min drive to the tip even if you have a car. So lots of justification that 'it's not fly-tipping, I'm just adding to the piles on the main road that get collected every night' or just "what else can I do?"

Education is the only way - the council newspaper has articles about successful prosecution of fly-tippers but the fines are so low that I expect they encourage rather than discourage!

SirChenjin The amount of waste packaging in the supply chain as a whole has hugely reduced over the years. The amount that's left for the consumer has increased - but then if people want to buy the guaranteed clean/unsquashed products in packets or boxes, like corn on the cob or strawberries (and believe me, that's what they actually do in practice, no matter what they say in surveys), and added packaging round the final item means huge reductions in food waste as well as much-reduced needs for thick cardboard or extra pallets during transport, then that's a good thing on the whole except for the councils who have to pay for the disposal.

Some German regions pay the supermarkets to run the deposit glass/can scheme - it certainly doesnt make money for the supermarkets - and the bottles and cans are usually recycled, not reused.

[chipsandchilli]

NotCitrus That's what happened in the west end of Newcastle, they downed the collections and people just fly tipped, the bins were full and smelly and some people were just leaving black bags in the lanes, well that's what i read on the comments on the news article about it. Now they are on communal bins. I wouldn't mind communal bins if they are collected and not just left for weeks, wouldn't fancy one outside of my house and not sure what the elderly or people with mobility issues will do if they cant make it to the communal bin as its at the other end of their lane/road.

[SirChenjin]

Not - it's the amount that is left for the consumer that I'm questioning. Knowing how much packaging is involved when you buy a toy for example , or prepacked fruit and veg, I don't believe that the supermarkets can't do more.

The recycling in Germany are not available at every supermarket - Lidl only accept bottles you've purchased from them, and then customers normally spend the money in their stores - win/win

[lemonzest123]

Ewww what are you supposed to do with the litter box?

[limitedperiodonly]

since the council started charging for all bulky waste collection, there is an epic fly-tipping problem.

Agree. Whether people can afford it or not, many of them won't or can't pay. In my street people were driving in and fly tipping from other boroughs who presumably had poor collections and punitive measures such as the OP is getting excited about.

The council solved it by removing the dumpsters at the end of my road that were causing noise nuisance from 5am - by mid morning no one in my road could get their rubbish in because it had been filled to overflowing by commuters.

They also put up signs warning people that cameras were in operation - people were stopping their cars in the queue of traffic and running over to dump their shit in our bins or on the pavement. I guess there might have been some prosecutions for pavement dumping because of number plate recognition. The council is pretty aggressive about that and heavily fine businesses putting commercial waste in residential bins - they do go through it. Obviously anyone else can and should use the bins.

If you make it easy for people - whether it's disposing of rubbish or paying taxes, most of them do the right thing. That's what it's like where I live. The OP's smug glee at the prospect of punishing transgressors makes me much more sick than the prospect of a wheely bin in July after a month.

[grannytomine]

I used to live in a lane and people would fly tip in a disused gateway further up the lane. One day we saw a van doing it and reported it to the police. The offender was traced, we had his reg number, and the police gave him a choice of being charged with whatever the offence is or being escorted back, reloading his car and removing all his rubbish. A crowd of us walked up the lane to watch and cheer as his car was reloaded. I have never seen anyone with such a red face. The police who were supervising him got lots of praise from all of us.

It was a lovely experience and I wish we could have caught more of them.

We lived within half a mile of the local tip and it would have been almost as near to him and coming to our lane so total madness.

[Silentplikebath]

One of my DCs lives in a very deprived area (one of the poorest in the UK) and there is almost no recycling there. If they fined people for not composting or using separate bins nobody would be able to pay the fines as most live on benefits. If their benefits were stopped or reduced far more people would end up in prison, more children would be in care due to residents committing crime or become homeless, so it actually ends up costing the council a lot more in the long run. Local recycling and communal bins are popular places for getting rid of needles by drug addicts so can be quite dangerous to use. Luckily that local authority have sensibly stuck to weekly collections with black bin bags to stop an outbreak of serious disease (there's already a high incidence of TB in the area) or greater social problems because it's cheaper in the long run. What would you suggest for rubbish disposal in these types of areas, OP?