Bin day - Now once a fortnight

[RibenaMonsoon]

Anyone else have their general waste taken once every 2 weeks?

It used to be once a week, they've changed it to once every 2 weeks and Im really struggling. I've got 3 (yes 3) recycling bins, which for the most part get used to capacity. There's always a little room left. (Myself and DH aren't driving yet so we order a lot from Amazon)

I recycle everything that can possibly be recycled and I've scoured the website to make sure I know what can and can't be recycled.

My issue is that I have 2 young children in nappies. I've tried reusable nappies and I can't find anything that doesn't give them nappy rash. Also excema runs in the family and DS is riddled with it, the reusable nappy irritates it. So those are out of the equation.

I emailed the council to request a bigger waste bin and explain the situation. They have fobbed me off. Offering another recycling bin. Which would leave me with 4 bloody recycling bins!!
The nappies alone fill the general waste bin in a 2 week period.

Is anyone else in a similar boat? What did you do?
AIBU to be really cheesed off that the council have just sent a pointless, unhelpful, generic email back and haven't listened to the problem?

We could manage having our landfill waste every 4 weeks, hardly fill the bin now.

This has come from a lot of work understanding recycling, looking at the packaging of what we buy and doing runs to the recycling centre.

Green bin and recycling bin we find 2 weeks is a stretch! Miss on and I'm hauling to the local recycling again!

@Elphame I'm in Conwy too. I don't think it's complicated. General waste every 4 weeks and recycling weekly. I don't like the trolibox but have extra containers/bags from the council.

I'm not in the right place to be giving myself extra work to do in the form of extra laundry or finding alternatives to my usual way of shopping.

Yes, life is crazy with a newborn but honestly - three recycling bins! Apart from nappies, your small children shouldn’t be producing any extra waste really. Newborn doesn’t eat food (maybe you have formula cartons but tins are huge and last ages) and toddlers eat what you eat so food packaging would be minimal.

Order less frequently from Amazon (keep a list) or from a supermarket who delivers - less/no cardboard boxes.

Three recycling bins is three times the average. Reduce before you recycle.

I do a weekly Iceland shop and DH does a couple of a Tesco shops a month.

It's mainly nappies. Wipes and general stuff we get from Amazon. DS birthday is next month so we've ordered some bits for that and his party.
Baby stuff, recently bought a little rocking chair with a vibrate to help with her wind.
We just buy stuff as we need it. Because neither of us are driving, we tend to order bits and pieces as we need them as it's easier. Plus stuff for the business as well.

But as I said, we don't really need the 3rd recycling bin. I got offered it when I asked for a larger waste bin, so I took it in the hope that I could recycle more and it would sort the issue out. It hasn't. We need the larger waste bin. The nappies aren't filling the waste bin to capacity, it's just not leaving a huge amount of room for anything else.

Baby is EBF so no formula bottles to recycle. Have been drinking a lot of caffeine free diet coke though.

That's a hell of a lot of nappies! A whole wheelie bin of nappies in a fortnight

I might be in the same area as you as we go over to fortnightly collection this month.
We have two small recycling bins and one normal refuse bin. No waste food bin but I either compost of feed waste food to the local fox population. 4 adults soon to be five in the house and I see a regular tip run being part of my future.

We have a smaller waste bin as we live in a flat, but we have two children, one in nappies and it fills quickly.

We end up just taking it to the tip ourselves.

Where I am it's fortnightly but families with kids in nappies can request bigger bins or they might even take them weekly.

Caffeine free Diet Coke- so that’s all recyclable packaging. Either cans or bottles. That shouldn’t be in your general waste bin.

They aren’t going to give you. Bigger waste bin. They are under massive pressure to reduce landfill waste, they can’t give out bigger bins to people just because they’ve had a baby and don’t have time to think about what they’re throwing out. You say you can’t do anything that gives you extra work, fair enough. But your DH is as responsible for this problem as you are. His kids, his nappies, his bin. He can do the extra washing. And order the grocery shopping from Tesco or wherever.

Ours is every weeks,with 2.5 children in nappies, (one part time ,one full time) and it's fine. But then with no nappies going in we could easily make it 6 weeks without filling it if we missed a collection.

Maybe do a careful audit of what you are throwing away and if you can cut down on packaging/unnecessary tat anywhere- better for the planet and your bin would be fine.

Two recycling bins is still massive amounts - one bin a week of packaging for 2 adults and a toddler (baby making no recyclable waste). I do get some weeks/months are more waste-heavy if you order something big like the rocking chair, but in general it is still too much waste. For comparison we’re a family of 4 with 2 primary-school age kids and sounds like our age-gap between children was similar. We never had an issue with fortnightly collections for nappies etc. Even now our standard size recycling bin is mostly full fortnightly but if we miss the collection (always a PITA!) then we can make it to 3 weeks easily by squishing and just about get to a month with maybe a binbag full left over.

Perhaps your business is making a lot of waste? I think I might start putting all business stuff in one bin to see. Commercial businesses are charged business rates on bin collections, so if it’s something you’ll need to think about in future start thinking now!

In most cases you don’t need next day delivery of stuff if you keep a list. Tick the ‘group into as few deliveries’ option if you can.

In our area you - rightly so! - arent allowed to buy another bin. They will collect one from each property unless you meet the criteria for a second bin which is marked so to what it’s for (medical etc)

We've been doing this for a few years now. We have a recycling bin, our general waste is a smaller bin and we have food and glass boxes too. You learn how to manage to be honest. And your children are not likely to be in nappies forever.

Btw, I was assuming your DC1 was about to turn 2. But if he’s about to turn 3 then I’d be looking seriously at potty-training, which would help the nappy/bin situation!

It will take 200 to 500 years for a disposable nappy to decompose, leaving a legacy to your children's grandchildren. "The production of disposables uses 3.5 times more energy, 8.3 times more non-renewable resources, and 90 times more renewable resources than real nappies.

On this, a relatively small proportion of waste is sent to landfill now. 15 years ago, 20 million tonnes a year was sent, now it is about 3. The difference is a large increase in recycling, a lot more incineration and an overall reduction in the amount of waste produced. Chances are that the nappies would be burnt and generating electricity rather than in landfill. It would still be better not to produce the waste in the first place, but these days it's unlikely that they will be taking 500 years to rot away in a landfill site.

What reusables have you used? Are you familiar with fleece liners to keep babys bottom dry? What was your routine with washing? Wool covers to be more breathable. Nappy rash is not a common thing with reusables I'm led to believe? Our baby has never has a disposable on and never had an issue with nappy rash - she does have sensitive skin but never had an issue in the nappy area. PM me if you need detailed help.

Ours just switched in July to fortnightly. We have 2 in nappies too and use lots of tetrapak cartons (daughter with dairy allergy so going through a lot of soy and oat milk!) which our council won't recycle but take a lot of bin space. We are a lot more scrupulous with recycling and food waste, plastic wrapping goes in a bag to take to our 'local' asda where they accept plastic wrap and bags (but not trays) to recycle in store and tetrapak now goes to our big tesco, though both have been full recently and not accepting more so my car boot is full of bloody recycling that I can't get rid of and our town is getting even more disgusting as people are fly tipping their rubbish bags which the council are refusing to move we are having issues with reusable nappies too annoyingly and I can't afford to buy some different ones to try right now. Though I'm not sure what the answer to nappy rash is as that's an issue for our baby girl in them too (they don't fit our eldest).

We still have weekly general waste collections and fortnightly recycling. The wheelie bins are huge though and, as there are only two of us, I only put the general waste out every few weeks. Even then it is only about a third full.

Can't help OP, but can't believe how different each area is.

We still have weekly bin collection with green waste one week and recycling the next. No food waste collection here and the recycling all has to be separated, so you have one box plus 3 bags. Would be lovely to just have one bin to put the lot in for recycling.

Interesting how different every ones bins are collected. Just a word to the cat litter people, there are now types of cat litter that can be flushed down the toilete or go into the compost bin which can help in reduce what goes into the rubbish bin

Like others, I cannot believe that there are parts of the UK that have only just gone on to fortnightly recycling.

We've been on three weeks for general waste for several years and were fortnightly for over a decade before that. You only qualify for a bigger bin if there's six in the household. No separate nappy collection: the council's advice is to try reusable ones and flush the biodegradable liners down the toilet. That's fine, but our sewage system (new build estate) is connected to the mains via a pumping station and the utility company makes it clear that this is not allowed...

Like OP, we recycle absolutely everything we possibly can but we run it close every three weeks, and that's with just one DC in nappies. What we do is keep a separate bin liner in the garage with bulky but dry and clean waste which isn't urgent: things like fruit punnet or the cartridges for the nappy bin. On bin day, if there's space left it can go in but if there isn't then we'll take it to the tip.

I've also found that wrapping up used nappies very tightly to compress them, then using the side tabs to keep them in a compact ball, makes a noticeable difference.

We've also become much more judicious in our shopping habits so, for example, I buy a shrink-wrapped half leg of lamb or a pork loin joint and cut it up myself into steaks or cubes, rather than several rigid plastic trays of the same thing which takes up much more space.

I'll just echo what a few PPs have said and suggest looking at cutting down waste. Reuse what you can and when shopping look at items with less packaging. We have smaller sized bins (general, cardboard and plastic, and garden waste) along with a recycling box for glass, tins etc and a blue box for paper. I have a 4 month old and a 2.5 yr old. Reusable nappies are helpful ( I'm aware you already have tried this). I try to use soap and shampoo bars when I can to cut down on bottles, get fresh veg and fruit without bags etc. Small changes have helped but sometimes waste is inevitable.

We got a 2nd bin from council for £30

Fortnightly here for years and now three weekly for about 18 months. We can get a larger bin if a family of 5 or two children in nappies so may be worth checking that.

There are also a few companies round here that will do an extra general waste bin collection for about £10 or bags for about £3 each so that might be worth looking into.

To be honest though you do get used to it, highly recommend Jayes fluid powder for the smell and flies in summer not envy!

Ours is still every week but we don’t have plastic bins in our area; we just put the black bags and recycling bags out on the street once a week for collection. It’s good as we can put out as much as we want. The bags do sometimes get torn open but it’s always tidy on the local roads so it must get cleaned up if it happens.