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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Putting rubbish in a public bin

233 replies

HippyPippy · 20/08/2023 22:18

Someone I know regularly puts a carrier bag or two in a public bin. It’s because her bun is always full and she doesn’t want to put the dog waste in her own bin.

She has said that sometimes people driving by will give her dirty looks and beep their horn as if she’s doing something wrong?

I personally wouldn’t bat an eyelid if I saw someone putting rubbish in a bin, but it got me thinking whether others think this is wrong and if so why?

OP posts:
BananaSlug · 20/08/2023 23:28

ElEmEnOhPee · 20/08/2023 23:26

I don't use a wheelie bin, I've got two big black dustbins but just leave the black bags out for the bin men. Neighbours all do the same, wheelie bins would be pinched in two seconds flat here sadly.

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Bags of rubbish would be ripped open by foxes here, I put out a carrier bag of rubbish one night and forgot to put it in the wheelie bin As got distracted. By the morning the whole thing had been ripped up and thrown all round the garden.

Pimpmyfeet · 20/08/2023 23:30

Maybe the people beeping are her neighbours who are pleased to see her taking the dog poo off the garden walls!

ReginaRegina · 20/08/2023 23:31

Couple of carrier bags isn't a huge issue IMO. As long as she isn't cramming full size black sacks in there

liveforsummer · 20/08/2023 23:31

Lol at the fly tipping/ human and household waste comments. So you go the park with a picnic and change your baby, pick up your dogs shit then bin it alongside the picnic litter and it's fine but a carrier bag with the same items without the trip will get you a fine? Unlikely! As for food waste bins. If anyone can come up with a fox proof design then maybe people locally will go back to using them but most got tired of scraping the contents up off the pavement

uhOhOP · 20/08/2023 23:33

Runningover · 20/08/2023 22:55

Thanks! If you had something like a bokashi compost bin what would you do when it was full if you don't have a garden?

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Do you live in a neighbourhood that has a WhatsApp group? Maybe some of your neighbours have gardens and compost bins and would be happy to take it from you. Or maybe the local allotment holders, actually. Maybe you can befriend them and agree to give them your waste to improve their soils and in return they agree to give you some of their harvests? 😁

Cattenberg · 20/08/2023 23:34

Runningover · 20/08/2023 22:50

I do not know anyone who scrapes poo from a disposable nappy into a toilet.

Also where can you put meat waste if not the bin.

If it’s solid waste, you just hold the nappy over the toilet, flip it inside out and maybe give it a quick shake.

Anyway, I think councils need to accept that they’re going to be dealing with the rubbish one way or another. If they reduce wheelie bin collections to once every three weeks, people are going to use the public bins more and they’ll need emptying more often. If they deter people from using the public bins, then more people will fly-tip, creating extra work for the street cleaners. Or maybe some people will burn their rubbish on bonfires, and you can bet that this will make work for the council’s environmental health department …

ElEmEnOhPee · 20/08/2023 23:35

BananaSlug · 20/08/2023 23:28

Bags of rubbish would be ripped open by foxes here, I put out a carrier bag of rubbish one night and forgot to put it in the wheelie bin As got distracted. By the morning the whole thing had been ripped up and thrown all round the garden.

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Ours get ripped open by rats and seagulls but only if left out too early or the night before. Where I used to live it was badgers that would get them.

charliechaplins · 20/08/2023 23:35

BananaSlug · 20/08/2023 22:25

Gosh everyone does that round here! Our bin collections have recently this year gone on to fortnightly so now all the public bins are full of huge bags of rubbish and rubbish by the side of them too because people are resorting to dumping it in public bins, I do it too as I’m not putting things in my bin that will be left rotting in the summer for 2 weeks I had maggots the other day so now I’m putting no food in my bins and taking it to public ones

Lol ours is every three weeks

daffodilandtulip · 20/08/2023 23:36

Deadringer · 20/08/2023 22:35

We pay for bins in Ireland, do you not in the UK? We pay a yearly charge, then a pay by weight and lift charge every time they are emptied.

Doesn't this take ages though? Binmen round here move faster than any workmen I've ever seen. They even send a bloke round walking before the truck gets here, to empty peoples bins into others, so there's less to empty and they can be even quicker. (Which irrationally pisses me right off!)

uhOhOP · 20/08/2023 23:45

Cattenberg · 20/08/2023 23:34

If it’s solid waste, you just hold the nappy over the toilet, flip it inside out and maybe give it a quick shake.

Anyway, I think councils need to accept that they’re going to be dealing with the rubbish one way or another. If they reduce wheelie bin collections to once every three weeks, people are going to use the public bins more and they’ll need emptying more often. If they deter people from using the public bins, then more people will fly-tip, creating extra work for the street cleaners. Or maybe some people will burn their rubbish on bonfires, and you can bet that this will make work for the council’s environmental health department …

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Can people not just think to reduce their waste if they find they produce too much to fit in the bin? Can't believe (but also can believe) how fucking lazy and unwilling we are.

The councils have to expect it, do they? Hopefully nobody who thinks this is complaining each year when they receive their council tax bill and notice it's gone up.

liveforsummer · 20/08/2023 23:46

If it’s solid waste, you just hold the nappy over the toilet, flip it inside out and maybe give it a quick shake.

Usually it's easier to just wrap it up wherever you are which could very well not be right beside a toilet. Also baby nappies are rarely 'solid waste'

TheThinkingGoblin · 20/08/2023 23:53

drpet49 · 20/08/2023 22:48

It is classed as flytipping. Someone where I live was prosecuted for this.

Could you please stop posting disinformation.

This can be searched online in literally 10 seconds.

It is NOT fly tipping.

PriamFarrl · 20/08/2023 23:54

I love how on threads like this some people are unable to comprehend that council have different rules. It’s like the thread about the front door when someone people couldn’t understand that some front doors don’t have handles.

In my area waste food cannot go in the compost bin, that is garden waste only.
I’ve been throwing my food waste in the bin, but apparently I should be burying it in the garden every night.

TheThinkingGoblin · 20/08/2023 23:55

charliechaplins · 20/08/2023 23:35

Lol ours is every three weeks

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Where do you live?

3 weeks sounds crazy. 2 weeks is awful. Used to be 1 week.

BIossomtoes · 20/08/2023 23:55

PriamFarrl · 20/08/2023 23:54

I love how on threads like this some people are unable to comprehend that council have different rules. It’s like the thread about the front door when someone people couldn’t understand that some front doors don’t have handles.

In my area waste food cannot go in the compost bin, that is garden waste only.
I’ve been throwing my food waste in the bin, but apparently I should be burying it in the garden every night.

I was being facetious when I suggested that but true to MN form someone took it seriously!

megletthesecond · 20/08/2023 23:56

Our council have removed some local public bins because of this. (I'm a litter picker so always complaining about something). You shouldn't put household litter in a public bin.

Apparently people who avoid council tax use public bins as they don't have home bins or don't want to put them out and risk being found out.

PriamFarrl · 20/08/2023 23:58

BIossomtoes · 20/08/2023 23:55

I was being facetious when I suggested that but true to MN form someone took it seriously!

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I can’t tell anymore. I asked about the best eco toilet roll the other day and was pilloried for not refitting my bathroom so I could have a bidet

CutTheBSJustGiveMeCake · 20/08/2023 23:59

The public bins where I am say "Not To be Used For Domestic Waste" and then It says "if you need help with waste removal to call this (the local council) number.".

We had a bin strike in our area recently. It was horrible as public bins weren't emptied either.

BIossomtoes · 21/08/2023 00:01

PriamFarrl · 20/08/2023 23:58

I can’t tell anymore. I asked about the best eco toilet roll the other day and was pilloried for not refitting my bathroom so I could have a bidet

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Oh dear, that’s awful. I wasn’t having a pop at you - somebody really seriously agreed with me and added we could burn it!

pizzaHeart · 21/08/2023 00:02

There is a sign at a supermarket car park near me saying that it’s illegal and the fine for this is £50.

Deadringer · 21/08/2023 00:07

daffodilandtulip · 20/08/2023 23:36

Doesn't this take ages though? Binmen round here move faster than any workmen I've ever seen. They even send a bloke round walking before the truck gets here, to empty peoples bins into others, so there's less to empty and they can be even quicker. (Which irrationally pisses me right off!)

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People usually only put them out when they are full, or very nearly full because of the lift charge so no time wasted emptying half full bins or tipping one bin into another.

Cattenberg · 21/08/2023 00:11

Our council have removed some local public bins because of this.

Brilliant! I know that our council have removed two bins from outstanding de a particular block of flats. Now they are complaining that rubbish keeps piling up in the place where the bins used to be.

This is the same council that reduced wheelie bin collections from every two weeks to every three weeks “to save money”.

Cattenberg · 21/08/2023 00:11

Outstanding? Outside.

pastypirate · 21/08/2023 00:14

No food waste collection in my La never has been. No caddies nor collection nothing.
Bins alternate every week between refuse and recycling. We do have a seasonal garden waste bin too.

Fly tipping is dumpling your sofa in the back lane!

uhOhOP · 21/08/2023 00:22

Cattenberg · 21/08/2023 00:11

Our council have removed some local public bins because of this.

Brilliant! I know that our council have removed two bins from outstanding de a particular block of flats. Now they are complaining that rubbish keeps piling up in the place where the bins used to be.

This is the same council that reduced wheelie bin collections from every two weeks to every three weeks “to save money”.

Well, yeah, putting rubbish where there used to be a bin is no use to anybody, is it?! Much better to put the rubbish inside a bin, wherever that might be. The council is hardly being unreasonable to complain about that!