Won't give me another wheelie bin...

[ThisLittleKitty]

Bins here are collected weekly. EVERY Sunday without fail my wheelie bin is full. (There collected Thursday) several times local cats (I believe) have managed to get the bags out the wheelie bin as they are open with the bags on top because they are over flowing. Anyway these cats will rip out all my rubbish so the garden will be covered. I called the council and asked for another wheelie bin as several neighbours have more than one of the same colour top bins. I was told I wasn't allowed another one and the ones the neighbours had were "obviously stolen!" Aibu to not see why I can't have another one. And before any one suggests I recycle more I do I recycle everything that can be and I have no car to go to a tip.

I think it depends on the area, family members that lives in Surrey have a bin at least twice the size of our current bin, which is crazy when you consider the fact that our current one is the biggest our council does (two babies in nappies). We don't go over our albeit large bin (240L fortnightly) but it was only just too full when we had the smaller one.

We do use the food recycling bins and have extra recycling bins. You need to try and notice what you're binning, what's making up the bulk of your waste and figure out how to reduce it.

She even laughs at the man she always sees in tescos because he's always wearing the same shirt. She took a picture and sent it to her friend. People do notice these things.

Anyway just to be clear no I didn't think they take the box back to reuse it but as they won't take tins/jars unless they are washed out and cleaned I assumed boxes need to also he reasonably clean not all squashed up.

Sounds like you need to teach her not to be rude and judgmental

That's because those items have food residue on them whereas cardboard does not. Your mum sounds like a bitch btw to be slagging off others. That man may have duplicates of the same shirt and may not be wearing the same one

SeniorRita - My NY resolution was to reduce my waste, so I bought a reusable coffee cup

Santa bought everyone in the family a metal water bottle for Christmas (we do a lot of sport) and I've not bought one plastic water bottle this year.

OP - perhaps someone could lend you the box set of Blue Planet to watch whilst you wait for your next load of washing to finish?

I’m gobsmacked that your mother didn’t teach you something pretty basic stuff about managing your life but she did teach you that it’s acceptable to be spiteful and ridicule people for doing perfectly normal things

Wow, what horrible behaviour by your mum!

Kitty you have been brought up to be nasty, and you’re bringing your child up to be nasty too. As well as the absolute refusal to countenance any of the helpful things suggested here, it leads me to think I’m damn glad you’re probably hundreds of miles away from me and mine.

As said before, get a grip and up your game.

Family of 7 here and until a few months ago we had 1 general waste bin and 1 recycling bin, fortnightly collections on both. No food waste collection yet so it goes in general waste, garden waste collection either (I refuse to pay the yearly fee to have it taken so I compost it myself). I ordered an additional general waste bin which I had to pay for but in my area you are only allowed an additional bin if you have more than 6 in the household and 1 is in nappies (I use cloth but told them toddler in nappies) or disabled and need extra bin space for things like inco/stoma items. Our binmen have a list of houses approved to have an additional bin emptied, if you aren't on the list then only 1 bin will be emptied so buying/stealing an additional bin and winging it isn't an option here.

All recycling can be crushed, crush plastic bottles with the lid off then put the lid back on and they stay flat. Cans half crushed closed, boxes flattened, large boxes I leave out in the rain to soften then I fold if I can't be bothered ripping them up. Our recycling bin is never so full tha the lid won't close and that's after a fortnight and we recycle everything we can, would never dream of putting it in the general waste bin.

Washing - Jeans and trousers can be worn more than once unless you go without underwear, infact ideally jeans should rarely be washed, Levi recommend never washing them!

I don't take pics of any one wearing the same clothes or laugh so I don't know how I'm "nasty" it not something I noticed but I wouldn't want people doing it to me as people do notice.

I wear bras a few times and rewear jeans, cardigans, jumpers, etc. I wear tops and other underwear just once as I'm a sweaty person

So what did you think happened to your (uniquely) unsquashed boxes?

Ok so going forward op, what are you going to do with your waste?

But people dont notice. I couldn't tell you what my dh wore yesterday never mind Mrs wotsit from 3 doors down. And people that do notice and pass judgement are nasty people that you don't want to impress anyway. How can you afford all the electricity 3 loads of washing a day needs and all the powder etc. Never mind the environmental impact you'd save loads of money if you cut down.

I think you've been traumatised by your mum noticing OP.
Really no one cares! So so niche. It's probably just your mum and her friend! Really it's very unusual.

Much more important to think about reducing your black bin bag ordinary waste.

Now you know about the whole cardboard squashing thing and the food waste thing has it helped?

We have 3 bins, grey, blue and brown. Brown bin is only collected through the summer months, grey and blue alternate weeks.

Food waste is supposed to go in the brown bin (so we can only use that between May and October), but anyone who's had food in a bin for 2 weeks in summer knows how that ends. I started to use biodegradable bags, they refused to take the bin. I explained they were biodegradable, they went into 'computer says no' mode. Food waste goes in the grey bin now.

I find mostly my recycling bin is full. Caught the bin men one week who said to call the council, they want you to recycle they will give you a recycling bin. They wanted £60.

Now I just keep any big boxes I have to one side and if my recycling bin is full I fill the box. Fortunately our bin men have more sense than our council.

I really hope you are not teaching your children to notice/care/say mean things about children who wear things more than once, as I would hate to think my own children are being treated like this by children in their school or nursery.

OP honestly people are very unlikely to notice but if you think they might then you could skip a day

Monday wear jeans
Tuesday wear skirt
Wdnesday wear jeans again without having washed them
Thursday wear skirt again without having washed it

All of your highly observant and judgmental friends (ie your DM) will be none the wiser since for all they know you will have washed the item.

I can't tell you what anyone outside my immediate family was wearing yesterday. It just doesn't register. I don't think that people do notice particularly. Your mother seems a bit eccentric, but you can't make assumptions about people in general based on that.

She even laughs at the man she always sees in tescos because he's always wearing the same shirt. She took a picture and sent it to her friend

That is just sad, people like that are pathetic. Notice or don't notice is actually irrelevant, normal people don't care, its only the people with sad miserable lives who do.

And if she's doing that around your DCs, they need to be specifically told this is NOT normal and in fact is very rude.

Don't know how your filling it so quickly but ours went missing a while back so I filled out an online forms for a new one. It got delivered about 3 weeks later (for free) and the same weekend ours returned. We now have 2 but i only put them out now about once every 3 weeks and we told our neighbour she could use ours if she has too much.

I think you've been traumatised by your mum noticing OP.

This could be right. I remember having a bath at home when I was a teenager and putting the same pjs back on and my mum said to me it was disgusting and who would put dirty clothes back on after they've just cleaned themselves. (They were just pjs that I had already worn no dirt or marks on them.)

The only rule with the recycling is "not contaminated with food" - since they'd have to clean them all once the sauces in jars has all dried up, it's much harder to get off. So if we send them in clean, they get recycled. So squish everything up as much as you want; just don't put in any cardboard that's food for soaked into it (like pizza delivery boxes).

I have problems with our bins getting full despite weekly collections, but that's because:
a) we have 5 adults and 3 kids producing waste, plus two dogs.
b) people down the road keep putting bags of rubbish in our bins.
We keep the black bin nearer the road so the recycling one doesn't get contaminated with plastic bags full of manky takeaway etc.

I keep bricks on top of both those bins and the food waste one, which at least stops the foxes getting in and partying.

My granny flat could have its own bins if it had separate council tax, but given the choice between carefully squashing all our rubbish and recycling as much as possible (and leaving cardboard boxes out next to the bin), or paying an extra £120 a month, we'll stick to careful recycling!