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.

I travel a lot for work and the fortnightly collections already cause me issues.

On our estate we're not allowed to put out bins other than the night before collection day so quite often I miss it due to being away.

I also have four cats so can end up with a bin full of cat shit in summer for a month crawling with maggots!!!

Don't ask me how the flies get in, but they do.

With monthly collections I'll end up creating a fly swarm if I miss one

And xmas has been a nightmare for packaging. We have bought products over the internet that arrive in loads of packaging. We didn't know that would be the case when we ordered them. We still have things that we are putting into our fortnightly recycling bin from xmas. And here you can only go to the tip so may times for free. After that you have to pay.

Maybe a tax on any product that uses more than 1 layer of packaging?

Exactly. I think it's time for the supermarkets and manufacturers to face up to their role in this.

Its easy when you're fit, healthy, and dont live in a flat.

Our council incinerates most non recycleable waste. They collect recyclable one week and non the next. The system works ok.
People dont like the incinerators. They could be fitted with carbon and gas filters to improve them.

IMO, all non recyclable waste should be incinerated, and the ash disposed of in empty coal mines.

people largely cook from scratch. So not much packaging

As mambono5 says, this is nonsense. I cook from scratch mostly and all the fruit, veg, meat I buy comes with plastic packaging, much of it unnecessary. We need to encourage supermarkets to use paper or no packaging.

Yabvvvvu its a bloody bad idea, people are just going to dump their rubbish anywhere, or go to the tip, which will end up in landfill anyway.

Okay so tax manufacturers. More than 1 layer of packaging gets a tax. Any tax money to go back to local authorities earmarked for waste collections.

Plus the backlog of rubbish that the bin people have to collect, 3 weeks worth of rubbish from each house, will slow things down.

So if you want to buy overpackaged goods you still can. But you are paying for the cost of disposal.

No good for us there's 7 of us!

But we still seem to have less rubbish and more recycling than some of our neighbours where there's only 2 of them so I think alot of it's down to the houseold and if they can be bothered to recycle.

When you think about what you'll do with the waste, you find you buy fewer ready meals and cook more from scratch.

Firstly, I really doubt "thinking about waste" will have any impact on whether people "cook from scratch". Those that buy ready meals do so to save time or because they can't cook (for whatever reason).
Secondly, I bet that for single people buying ready made meals reduces food waste. Much of the packaging for fruit and veg is designed to make it last longer which also reduces waste.

The only species benefitting from lengthy collections are flies (and the diseases they support)! How this will impact upon society to the future I suppose we will have to wait to find out.

Anyone noticed maggots in their bins yet?

Flies carry diseases on their legs and the small hairs that cover their bodies. It takes only a matter of seconds for them to transfer these pathogens to food or touched surfaces. Mature house flies also use saliva to liquefy solid food before feeding on it. During this process, they transfer the pathogens first collected by landing on offal. Diseases carried by house flies include typhoid, cholera and dysentery. Other diseases carried by house flies include salmonella, anthrax and tuberculosis. House flies have also been known to transmit the eggs of parasitic worms.

Monthly collections.........the flies would love it!

In our area they are proposing seperate bins with weekly/fortnightly collection of nappies/continence waste. I think this is a flagrant breach of peoples' right to privacy/dignity. Ok, if you have small babies the fact you are using disposable vs reusable nappies is not so bad. But if have continence issues why on earth is it ok to have to advertise the fact to the whole street every other week?

What a wonderful idea, the massive rat that jumped out at me from our neighbours bin when I went to put it out when we first moved to fortnightly collections would love this idea

Chufty badge for you op

I hope you have given yourself a very well deserved clap on the back OP

We recycle everything we're allowed to recycle and still it's a struggle to get stuff in the bin by the middle of the second week.

Plus, maggots. We have no food waste collection, so they're often a problem. We compost vegetable matter, for the warmest 6-8 months of the year, but had to abandon that early, last summer, when rats got at it and kept digging it all out.

In fact, now I think about it, the move to fortnightly hasnt changed anything, for me anyway, I have a bag in the kitchen where I put 'dry' small bits of rubbish and then I just drop them in the bin at Tesco etc when I go there, so actually the fortnightly collection hasn't done diddly shit to reduce my rubbish (and I do recycle everything I can)

Other people where I live just drop bin bags on to the side of the road.

Yes, well done Council.....all you have achieved is, well, nothing!

Are you writing an article OP?

Blae thats shocking

I'd just carry on putting that sort of thing in the normal rubbish tbh.

We have fortnightly collections and one bin wasnt enough. The council gave us an extra bin because a member of the house has a lot of medical waste. If collections were monthly we would need 4 general waste bins and we already struggle for space with the five bins we have (green, blue and brown recycling bins and 2 black general waste bins). In the summer we had maggots in one of the black bins before the fortnight was up - I assume due to meat juices on packaging / medical waste. Monthly collections would be grim.😷

Stonewash - I just came on to say exactly the same thing! I'm willing to bet actual money that this is topic will now appear on the Wright Stuff or in the DM.

In some larger cities (mainly abroad) they have shops you can buy in bulk straight into reuse-able containers. I really wish this would catch on a bit more, you take your cotton bags to the shop, fill it with as much or little flour/oats/pasta etc that you need and no need for any other packaging. People use mason jars for liquids too.

I think it's a two way street, manufacturers and shops have to start being accountable and providing low packaging ideas and consumers have to show they are willing to buy them and recycle what they do need.

It will work for some people but not for others, cloth nappies do save landfill but not everyone can manage to do that which is fine. But if for example nurseries started using them (as some do) it would have a big impact.

Family of 5 here with 2 dogs. We
*Recycle. A. Lot
*Compost most food waste or feed to the dogs.
*Reuse packaging where practical.

Our fortnightly waste collections still overflow. Especially if it's a recycling week. The main culprits are cardboard and plastic packaging, junk mail, newspapers, jars, tins and bottles.

Monthly waste collection in practice would mean more trips (by car) to the tip 9 miles away. Assuming most households in the village did one extra trip by car per month for this purpose, how is it better for the environment than one truck each week?

There are only two of us and we would manage with a monthly collection because our bins are not full after 4 weeks.
I have noticed that people put boxes and packets in recycling bins without tearing them up or squashing them flat and then moan their bin is full.

Most families these days won't manage with a monthly collection. Fortnightly seems reasonable.

Yep Buttered, whats madness to me is our bottle/tin bin isn't big enough, so this is what I usually end up having to chuck in my local Tescos bin so they are losing out on a good few bags of recycling there.

I would have just kept them in a bag in the shed or something to put in the recycling once they have collected it but after seeing that rat I aint taking no chances!!!