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

[Becca19962014]

Ours is every three weeks and it's been a real mess.

The council expect to be able to still cancel collections (without notice) asking people via social media to "pop uncollected waste back inside until next collection day"; which whilst ok for a weekly collection is not for what will be six weeks. Especially when you live in a tiny room, and the waste must stay out from 7am until 6pm for possible collection, usually it's soaking wet by then.

Those doing the collections are also gritting the roads as well as doing other duties which take precedence over collections.

This summer I had people complaining about the stink from my room - I've nowhere to store waste at all and suffer with double Incontience which includes blood in waste so cannot use the Incontience service. They didn't collect every time because of covid risk.

The rats around here are now looking much bigger and healthier, and certainly don't view people as a threat in any form. The place where I live, once lovely, generally stinks as there's a lot of people in my situation with only a small room and no storage. The council say tenants must complain to their landlords to make some form of storage; even after someone pointed out that'll just result in them being asked to leave they've continued to do it.

[Disfordarkchocolate]

We'd be fine. Especially if they collect food waste. Getting a compast bin made a massive difference to how much general waste we produce.

[Grenlei]

I wouldn't have a problem with it, even though I don't recycle food waste our bin is normally only 3/4 full when collected fortnightly. We are lucky as we also have wheelie bins for paper/ card and cans/ bottles. However 2 sets of neighbours have constantly overflowing bins (those next door to me have 5 children, 2 waste bins, don't recycle anything and their bins are full after a week). They would never cope with a 3 weekly collection and would end up leaving the excess rubbish in the street causing a health hazard. It's already a bit like that in summer.

[woodhill]

@Grenlei

I wouldn't have a problem with it, even though I don't recycle food waste our bin is normally only 3/4 full when collected fortnightly. We are lucky as we also have wheelie bins for paper/ card and cans/ bottles. However 2 sets of neighbours have constantly overflowing bins (those next door to me have 5 children, 2 waste bins, don't recycle anything and their bins are full after a week). They would never cope with a 3 weekly collection and would end up leaving the excess rubbish in the street causing a health hazard. It's already a bit like that in summer.

I thought not recycling was an offence in their case?

[EggysMom]

Every family's need for refuse arrangements is different: for example our neighbours (two adults plus two teenage children) can fill their 120l can/bottle bin within a week whereas we (two adults) barely half-fill the same bin in a fortnight. It doesn't mean they are recycling a greater proportion of their rubbish, more that the composition of their rubbish is different to ours. [So any virtue signalling can stop!]

We have retained a 240l general waste bin when almost all houses here were reduced to 120l - this is because we have an 11yo disabled child still in nappies/pads. We fill our bin in a fortnight, so the size/frequency is appropriate for us.

[spanieleyes]

We still have weekly collections, recyclable one day and black bags the next. But we only have bags and not bins. Green waste goes in brown bins which are collected weekly too but are charged for.

[WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll]

Ours is fortnightly for all waste. We don't have a separate food collection. In the summer the smell is awful.

Ours is first week landfill, second week recycling and garden, but we have wheelie bins, which we keep outside and only lift the lid momentarily when putting something in, so unpleasant whiffs only last a second or two at a time. I do feel sorry for those who have to make do with plastic sacks, though.

I'm with the PPs questioning how a typical household can create so very much rubbish. I know there will always be a few households with circumstances meaning that they produce a lot more, but I would have thought the vast majority wouldn't have an issue.

I always put our bins out on collection days, as why wouldn't you (unless you have lots of steps, health reasons etc.) - no reason having it around on your premises when the council are coming to the edge of your property and wanting to take it off your hands; but it wouldn't bother us at all if our landfill bin was only collected once every three weeks or even every four weeks. Even the recycling bin would be the same - I'd just compact down plastic bottles and milk cartons instead of leaving them fully puffed out.

It's easy to complain about less frequent collections than we traditionally had, but then conveniently ignore the extra bins/receptacles for recycling (and food/garden waste in many areas) that we now have. At one time, families had one small old-fashioned metal dustbin for everything and that was that.

[Becca19962014]

I create more due to my disability. You would think the council would accept that, especially as every twelve months I must apply for assisted collection (so I don't need to carry waste all the way to the road). But no, I've had fines and visits to "help" reduce my waste down to a single "standard size" black bag but it's impossible, not that they accept that. I find it upsetting to be treated in such a way; I've depression so that doesn't help.

Meanwhile I know someone who puts everything in black bags because they can't be bothered to wash everything to be recycled and no one has called on them - they throw out much more than I do; think pile of black bags that blocks the pavement; no fines and no sarky visits to "help".

[Becca19962014]

We must pay for our bins and the liners from the council. Purchasing from elsewhere means waste isn't collected and left.

I think of the problem now is disposable items, a lot of people throw things out that would traditionally have been kept.

[BubblyBarbara]

It was an absolute nightmare in my area when it went three weekly. I have got better at figuring out what I can flush down the loo now but initially it was tricky and cutting out certain foods that don’t flush well or float too much. Stews flush well also jelly and porridge and cereal in general

[woodhill]

Are you being serious Barbara?

Is there no food waste recycling

[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.

[sadeyedladyofthelowlandsea]

Forever relieved that we have communal bins here - general, recycling, food, and glass - which all get emptied every week or so. They're not the prettiest to look at it, but all of the rubbish is kept out of sight and smell. It's a very simple solution because you never have to worry about forgetting to put the bins out. More councils should adopt it where they can (I appreciate it's not going to work for a cottage two miles from the nearest village).

[WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll]

Barbara is just being extra efficient - cutting out the middle (wo)man

How are we actually defining food waste? Is it just things like potato peel and banana skins or are we talking standard edible parts that have gone off before eating or unwanted meal leftovers?

If the latter, we try not to waste food unnecessarily, but when we do have things that hid in the back of the freezer or otherwise can't be avoided, they just go with the rest of the rubbish in a black bag and then into the black bin - a lidded wheelie bin that lives outside. Other than possibly a slight pong for the couple of seconds that you open the lid to put more rubbish in, we've never had any issues at all.

I can see how food waste can be recycled beneficially for fertiliser, compost or whatever, but in the absence of such schemes, I would have thought it was among the very least concerning stuff to be sent to landfill - back to where most of it originated anyway. Or am I missing something?

[liveitwell]

That wouldn't be acceptable for us. With twins in nappies our bin is full every fortnight. Our food waste is minimal.

Our bin stinks as it is in the Summer, despite us paying for bin cleaners (who follow the bin men) so 3 weekly would be disgusting

[Audreyseyebrows]

Ours is weekly for bins, fortnightly for recycling. I wish they would swap it.

[kowari]

@BubblyBarbara

It was an absolute nightmare in my area when it went three weekly. I have got better at figuring out what I can flush down the loo now but initially it was tricky and cutting out certain foods that don’t flush well or float too much. Stews flush well also jelly and porridge and cereal in general

You throw out food for meals? All our food waste is egg shells, cores and peelings, things like that.

[contrmary]

Interesting ideas about flushing rubbish down the toilet - I'd never considered doing that. I often force stuff down the sink and just leave the tap running for a while to clear it (fortunately not on a water meter here). I think what puts me off using the toilet is a blockage there seems harder to clear than just a sink blockage.

Unfortunately I don't have a garden at the moment otherwise I'd probably turn to burning rubbish, one of the more traditional ways of disposing of it.

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.

The best arrangement was when I lived in a place with large communal bins - unsightly but you could literally chuck anything in them, no questions asked. An old CRT TV, a guitar, a microwave, even a sofa - admittedly I had to break the last one up a bit to get it to fit!

[GlummyMcGlummerson]

My area has this, it's fine, it's made people be more careful with no they dispose of their waste.

[Twigaletta]

@ivykaty44

That wouldn't be okay for me as we don't have a food waste collection

We don't have a food waste collection in our area either, but they are going to introduce this with the 3 weekly collection

Based on your clues I think I know where you mean. They do have food waste collection as part of the green bin fortnightly collection. Just get a food caddy or small plastic bin with a lid, line it with compostable liner, fill with food, tie and put in the green bin.

I love the argument 'just use reusables' for nappies. I'm very green and had them all to use. But DC had intolerances that didn't get discovered until practically toddler and the reusables all leaked. It's not the solution for everyone. No way can we go 3 weeks with non recyclable waste not being collected.

[OneForMeToo]

Wouldn’t work for us. We have a extra large waste bin and two recycling bins. Our waste is due to be collect end of this week as it was recycling last week. The lid won’t close it’s been jumped on. One recycling bin is full nearly as well and we have a birthday this week.

The amount of fly tipping near by is ridiculous. Forever in the paper about the recycling being contaminated as well as people are just using what ever bin has space and make sure it’s cardboard on the top for when they lift the lid to check before putting it on the lorry.

[GrolliffetheDragon]

Our black bags are collected fortnightly, but we can only put out two, which is a nightmare largely due to cat litter. No restrictions on the amount of recycling and we put out two to three bags a week of that. Food waste is collected weekly as well.

If black bags went to three weekly our bin outside would be disgusting in hot weather. We don't have wheelie bins here, so we have to carry each bag out which is horrible when they're covered in maggots.

[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?

[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.

[RunningFromInsanity]

My food waste is only collected every fortnight.