Three weekly black bin collection

[ivykaty44]

Our local council is going to change the black bin collection to 3 weekly, green and recycling 2 weekly the same BUT they will collect food waste weekly

When black bin collection changed from weekly to two weekly there was an outcry, but slowly people got used to recycling more

so is it ok to change to 3 weekly black bin collection now? and everyone will just adjust again

or will it make life difficult for some

[WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll]

Wow, this thread was resurrected from over two years ago!

That's not to say that it isn't still a relevant issue, but how do people find these threads? Do they trawl through AIBU threads through to page 43 - or is it that 'similar threads' thing picking up vintage ones?!

[PinkSparklyPussyCat]

@Bargebill19

@user1493494961

Food waste bins are small caddy with a handle - about the size of a largish handbag! Food waste /tea bags can be put in a composting liner or the caddy can be lined with newspaper. They honk.

The foxes always seem to be able to get the bloody things open as well, no matter how careful people are!

[StripyHorse]

@Aroundtheworldin80moves

Nappies hanging around for three weeks in summer... Nice...

I suspect OP is in my area. In which case, people with babies / toddlers can register and have nappy waste collected mote frequently.

If it is, it's in response to not hitting recycling targets. I can't help but wonder if better recycling bins would help increase recycling rather than resort to this. We currently have...
Black wheelie bin
Brown garden waste wheelie pin (annual charge)
Green food waste bin
Blue lidless box for glass
Grey bag for plastic / cans
Blue bag for recycling.
The bags blow about, the box fills with rain. It's a pain in the backside!

And yet we see councils nearby that have mixed recycling bins. I am sure this would have an impact.

[Oblomov23]

Family of 4. My recycling is full every other week. My black bin is full every other week. So how is every 3rd week going to work.

[Caspianberg]

Ours is monthly now. Household between 3-7 people. I don’t find it a problem at all and think people must not be recycling or throwing away loads to have constant full bins.
We don’t have food waste collect either, but compost anything possible ourselves in garden. Used washable nappies until recently so no problem with those.
Our black bin is collected tomorrow, and I have just put it at the end of the driveway and it’s barely 1/4 full after a month.

[woodhill]

Ours is weekly but we hardly fill the bin as we obviously recycle, have a food caddy and we take plastic stuff up to the supermarket, they also collect garden waste

[BashfulClam]

Ours is similar now, all bins every 3 weeks except food and garden waste (compostable) which is still every two weeks. The bin gets fairly full even with just two of us, if you have 2 or more children still in nappies you can get an extra bin free for that. Weird thing is our collection day is a Sunday.

[Apricotlemonade]

I think it’s fine.Family of 5 and we’d manage perfectly ok. Barely fill our black general. Anybody who wouldn’t manage I don’t think are recycling properly. No way would you get away with putting rubbish in the recycling in our area. You get a note if they find anything.

[Elphame]

It's every 4 weeks here in Conwy and a complicated weekly recycling collection. Food waste is also collected weekly.

It's really not nice.

[EssexMan55]

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

One tip anyone can use is to put rubbish in their recycling bin. This is especially convenient if your recycling is collected more frequently than your landfill bin. As long as you cover the rubbish with a layer of legitimate recycling the bin men don't seem to notice or mind.

That's like saying your dear old granny with dementia doesn't seem to notice or mind when you steal tins out of her cupboard, as long as you leave the ones at the front of the shelf.

Do you think the bin men go through every bin by hand and, upon finding a manky black bag of landfill waste under the top layer of legitimate recycling, chuckle good-naturedly to themselves at what a hilarious wag you are? By doing this, you are contaminating everybody else's recycling and meaning that that the whole load of several tons has to go straight to landfill. How would you like it if somebody waited at your workplace at the end of the day to destroy the productivity of your whole day's work?

The recycling is sold for a small profit to waste companies and the money earned used by the council to subsidise the cost of the service. If, instead of getting money for lorry-loads of recycling, they have to keep paying to send it to landfill, your council tax will increase. Are you OK with that?

People wouldn’t have to do that if they took the rubbish. They only take three small bin bags every two weeks where we live. It’s impossibly small for a family. So now anything that looks like recycling has to go in the recycling eg cardboard containers contaminated by food. They will take that, but don’t take extra black bin bags with it. Very short sighted on the councils part.

[Becca19962014]

Ours were free when they first gave them out - years ago. But they're made of cheap plastic and don't last long as they break easily. Now they charge for them, new or replacements.

[woodhill]

@Becca19962014

I know people who flush food. Not everyone can afford the expensive food caddies our council insist everyone pays for, nor the bags that go inside or for that matter have the space for huge caddys; same for the glass boxes or stamped wheelie bins. They won't accept any others. If you put out others they get left by the kerb.

Barbara might be joking, but some people do this. I don't - I'm too well aware of the rodent problem round where I live.

We got our caddies for free fortunately

[NancysDream]

Yes we have a fly tipping problem locally which has got much worse since they reduced the bin collections, so any money saved will be going on clearing up the fly tipping. The tip have changed their rules too this year. There have consequently been issues with vermin, foxes, flies and other insects. You could smell the bins everywhere weeks 2 and 3 in the height of summer.

[ruby4ever]

Our black bin gets collected every week, 2 week wouldn't work for us as ours gets full every week and we've seen neighbours get full too. Recycling is every 2 week. Food is every week. 3 week is far too long! Dirty nappies, sanitary towels, certain food you can't put in the food waste bin. It will be worse in summer

[SlopesOff]

We don't fill our bin any more, recycling gets filled more often. Ours are weekly and I see houses with bins jammed open with rubbish, many put the wrong stuff in the recycling, too self centred or stupid to read the guidelines so cause the entire load to be put in landfill. We have to pay for the green bin collection which is 2 weekly. Food waste was stopped. We used to have combined garden and food waste which worked well but they changed it.

I suspect more councils will be actively encouraging composting, ours did, special price on compost bins.

Nappies, sanitary pads, wee pads, all increase landfill, so if plastic is being reduced maybe something should be done about those too, not sure about the incontinence pads but there are reusable options for the others.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4562613.stm#:~:text=Disposable%20nappies%20consist%20of%20a,layer%20and%20into%20the%20core.

Unfortunately reducing waste collection won't result in lower council tax due to the shortage of funds plus the increase in fly tipping which has been mainly caused by the councils refusing to take vans at the tips or more than one load per household and various other ridiculous rules.

[NancysDream]

We don't have food recycling though! But the bin situation has made me research home composting and reusable nappies. Haven't done either yet! But have made some more minor changes.

[NancysDream]

I have 2 kids in nappies and we have moved to a 3 week collection. I put the nappies outside in the recycling bin until bin day, tbh. I would rather keep clean recycling in the house than dirty nappies.

[AdoraBell]

Our bin is only half filled now on 3 weekly collections because they now take much more things for recycling.

Food waste and recycling is still collected weekly.

[safariboot]

We recently had to, at the demand of our landlord, remove a lot of rubbish (not ours) from our garden. We still need to considerably decluttter our house. Both those tasks would be made more difficult, and more car-dependant, if the bin is only taken every three weeks. More costly and time consuming to us too.

Even absent any such extras, a decent amount of our residual waste is non-recyclable food packaging. We also routinely fill our recycling.

Like an above poster mentioned, adults who need to use incontinence pads are ignored in such policies. At best, you're forced to disclose your private medical issues to the council, which you should not have to.

[MissMatchedClaws]

it would be OK if they provided bigger recycling bins to compensate. Paper and card is only collected every 4 weeks (black bin every two, glass and tins every 4, no food waste collection, no garden waste collection).

Our recycling bins are small and full by the end of the second week. So a lot of our black bin waste is recyclable, if we had the space to put it.

[JumpingJamboree]

Every three weeks here. It's one of the reasons I went with reusable nappies as I couldn't bear the thought of nappies festering in the bin for 3 weeks in the summer!

[jojomolo]

Our bins are out of control. We have three weird bags, which blow all over the place, a black bin, a brown pail, and a black box, and they all come in and go out on a schedule more complicated than the Mayan calendar.

I say come in and go out, but everyone has given up and now the street is just filled with millions of bins all the time. It's horrible. I wish we could just have giant communal skips on the end or something.

[ellentree]

Our area is doing this too -was supposed to start this autumn but next year now. We have both nappies and dog poo in our bin, I am not supportive of this change!

[RunningFromInsanity]

My food waste is only collected every fortnight.

[rsababe]

@BubblyBarbara Stews flush well also jelly and porridge and cereal in general

Why are you throwing away food? You either need to cook less, meal plan better or use leftovers for the next day.