...to think the bin collections are getting 'jobsworth'

[MrsMuddlePluck]

Put my bins out yesterday, including 4 tied black bags that I forgot to put out last week, that wouldn't fit in my wheelie bin. Bin collection has been and the bags have been left for dogs etc to dig into. The sacks had food waste in them so made a bit of a mess. Their reason, when I complained, is that if it doesn't fit in the wheelie bin, they wont take it and I should take it to the local dump [which is hell to get to now due to reduced times and huge queues.]. They only needed to chuck the bags in the back of the van?

AIBU to expect bin men to collect bags of household waste? Its what I pay my council tax for.

I think incinerators are considerably more unpopular than fortnightly bin collections...

I thought this thread was going to be about Birmingham. Wish the council would negotiate - it's getting out of hand and apparently going on until 1st September.

Our council is one of those with a great recycling record - we rarely have a full general waste bin (for 4 people)

they come every 2 weeks and alternate weeks for general waste and recyleable waste - We have:
a general waste wheelie,
a garden waste wheelie,
a bag for cardboard,
a bag for paper,
a bag for plastic bottles,
a bag for general plastic (food trays/butter tubs etc..)
a box for cans,
a box for glass, and
a food waste system - caddy for indoors, composter for the garden and large caddy to leave out for non-vegetable matter.

There's not a lot left to go in the actual "bin". I'm just glad we've got room to put it all!

oh, I forgot - the food waste caddy gets collected every week.

We have food waste recycling. However it's only collected ONCE a month. It's like a particularly potent soup by that point.

Hang on, if EVERY HOUSEHOLD had just one extra bag, can you imagine the extra space & weight that would take? Use your brains girls!!

However, here in Harrogate the Recycling is a joke! We don't get Recycling Wheelie Bins! Ohhhhh no. Little box. Stacking box. A bloody small stacking box! And they will only take cardboard if it's not only folded (fair enough...) but in the little blue bag that doesn't fit more than a book in

They have now started charging for Garden Waste too, and if you have subscribed, you get a little 'licence' attached to your bin!

If you at least have a Recycling bin you can chuck anything recyclable into, then be thankful!!!!

They are soon to be changing general trash waste to once a MONTH!!!!

Oh and what's a 'food waste caddy?'

Why can't the cardboard be folded? What would you do with say a cereal box?

Why can't the cardboard be folded? What would you do with say a cereal box?

food waste caddy - we have 2 - a little one for in the kitchen, a larger one maybe 2 ft high for weekly food waste (bones/teabags/used kitchen towel etc)
Like these:

Our council has recently changed our system and privatised the service.It didn't go smoothly in fact it made regional news it was such a disaster! However overall I think it's good. Previously I had two brown bins collected weekly. Now I have one collected fortnightly. So effectively 1/4 of previous capacity. I will admit before I was lazy - I would recycle some stuff but didn't really bother to if it needed much washing etc. Now I have too. Over the last 4 months I have managed (just) with the reduced capacity for the general bin. It has also made me think more about food waste seeing it like that. I'm lucky and have not really had any maggot issues as food waste is taken weekly. I'd rather they saved money on bin collections in this way than cut more vital services. I do think some people really did overreact about the change.

We have a black bin collected on weeks 1 and 3. An orange recycle bin (no glass allowed) collected weeks 2 and 4.

No food caddy or glass collection. I think they are fab ideas and would love them to be done around here.

I've got a compost pile in the back garden and when I remember i take the glass jars to the glass banks which are always over full and surrounded by broken glass.

How would a supermarket react to me removing the excess packaging from my items after I've paid for them?

In my area the recycling system works brilliantly if you have room for all the bins.

And I do feel sorry for non drivers because recycling centres aren't accessible at all. They tend to be out in the country miles from bus routes etc.

It's ridiculous when every one is getting used to the fact that the council tax doesn't actually cover what it is supposed to, why give over so easy? It's ridiculous the cost of it and look at everything... no proper bin collections, no proper public facilities and people getting used to that! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up.

Supermarkets might like the return of packaging. The more they recycle the less tax they pay not that they pay anyway

I can't imagine our rubbish wheelie bin ever being even nearly full. It's always virtually empty - that's for five people. Most stuff goes in the one recycling wheelie bin - paper, glass, card, plastic, foil, etc - that's one bin for everything recyclable. We have a small food recycling caddy as well, so food waste goes in there. Everything is emptied once a week by the council. But there's so little to go in the general wheelie bin - just those soft plastics that they can't recycle and the other odd bits and piece that aren't recyclable.

I was shocked that in a communal dwelling such as private flats people don't have to recycle so they don't.

No one wants to take collective responsibility.

We have this one bin fortnightly rule coming in soon, and from looking at our street on the currently weekly bin days without wheely bins its not going to go well.
What are they expecting to happen with excess bin bags? If people don't drive surely it will just result in bags being left on the streets indefinitely.

I think our council does well too. With two of us we generate about one and a half crates of recycling a fortnight, a big bag of cardboard and paper ( shocking, I buy one newspaper a week, don't shop online and try to minimise junk mail. There's a half a bin or less of landfill a fortnight. No food waste collection but we have a compost heap, guessing a small caddy a week on to it.

Apparently we can put out up to six recycling crates.

I used to live in a terrace and had to drag my multiple wheelie bins across the back of 6 people's houses just to get it emptied... I then got a shirty letter from the Council complaining that it was obstructing the pavement in the evening. Well yeah, that's because I am still at work earning money to pay inflated council tax so that you can ignore my bins I don't know now how people without cars manage.