3 week bin collections

[Desiredeffect]

The council last year made it so our general waste is only collected every 3 weeks and recycling every week. Does anyone else have this. I think it's not a good idea as by the time the bin comes to be emptied it stinks. I recycle to but feel 3 weekly collections is ridiculous

We've had that for years.

Bins every 3 weeks and recycling/food waste weekly. They introduced this recycling trolley a few years ago and it's useless, can't be used if it's windy in SCOTLAND and I have to either cart it up and down 3 flights of stairs to my flat every week or leave it outside and carry my recycling every time.

Blimey. I'm genuinely shocked by the frequency of some of these collections!

We have a general rubbish collection every two weeks, and I really struggle. I have a disabled 13yr old DS who is still in nappies, and I reckon that around half to two-thirds of my bin is used nappies. (Before anyone asks, absolutely no chance of swapping to re-usable nappies as he has bowel problems and basically poos continuously all day long, bless him).

We have a food caddy that is collected weekly along with our weekly recycling (plastic/card/glass). The recycling van doesn't always turn up - sometimes they appear a couple of days later, sometimes it's not until the following week. That means we have a week of everyone leaving their recycling out on the street because we don't want to miss the collection if they do turn up! Before Christmas there was a big issue with not enough recycling staff so the collections were only once every three weeks or so - hence everyone being concerned about not missing a collection now, just in case that happens again!

Other than the lorry not turning up, no issues with the general recycling.

The food caddy though - we don't use it. We live right next to the river and the area is rife with wildlife. I left a bag of dog food in the boot of my car - the rats/mice smelt it and ate through my fucking car to get to the food!!!! The car was a write-off. Livid doesn't even cover it!! But I learnt my lesson - no food to be left anywhere in the vicinity of my car - or house.

If the vermin can nibble through my car, they can definitely eat through a plastic caddy. I'm not taking the chance of attracting them to my property again. We've only just got rid of a party of squirrels from the bloody loft!

We put our food waste in the general bin but there's very little, to be honest, because we have a dog. And a human dustbin aka DP 😅 It's usually mainly chicken bones from roasting a chicken, and potato peelings etc.

So I don't think food takes up much of the main bin space, but we really do struggle because of the nappies. We regularly run out of room and have even have had to make runs to the local tip to dispose of black bin rubbish - and that's grim having that in the car!

If we went to three week collections, we'd not be able to cope - unless they introduced nappy collections, then we'd be fine! Although I imagine the bin would still be stinky from food sitting inside for three weeks....

Three weekly bin collections of general waste would be fine for us. Our bin doesn't smell or have maggots but we don't have nappies or food waste in there. We are a family of four and usually only generate one bin bag of rubbish every fortnight. However we couldn't manage if our recycling was only collected every three weeks as that bin is always full.

Having the food collection weekly really helped us. I keep the food caddy in the bigger wheely bin during the week to prevent foxes getting in. Have also started taking plastic wrapping (which was most of the landfill waste) to the supermarket where there is a plastic bag collection inside. As a result our landfill bin hardly has anything in (collected every 2 weeks). Everyone moans about our council but I think we have it pretty good. There are extra collections for people with disabilities who need them where we live.

Could you purchase a nappy bin? Then you could empty it into your wheelie bin the night before the collection and that ought to minimise the smell in the wheelie bin.

I think this is a key point.

Wheelie bins were made to be tall so the bin lorries can grab them.

They were huge compared to the dustbins people had before them.

And of course once there was a huge receptacle, people had no qualms about filling it and thinking of that amount of waste as normal.

We do need to reduce the amount of waste we produce. Not just by reusing and recycling more at a domestic level, also by emailing firms who use excessive packaging, choosing the products with less

The only problem I would have with that would the smell. We recycle and do the soft recycling at Tesco. So our rubbish bin mostly goes out empty. But I would imagine the food would be a problem. Maybe look into getting a compost bin? If then u recycle as much as u can and compost it may not be as bad.

We have a three weekly collection and it works well. We also have a food waste collection weekly so no smelly, rotting food in the general waste collection.

Remember when your councillor seeks re-election. Who probably won't be re-elected.

Make a formal complaint to the council, then the escalation process, and then the Local Government Ombudsman on health and safety grounds. Or even consider the HSE on the grounds that it could affect the health of those collecting refuse.

We still have weekly collections! No food waste option so everything in general waste except your easy to recycled, trade off is that our council incinerate waste rather than landfill, so there’s an air pollution trade off. Over lockdown it went to 2 weekly and that was fine, but I think 3 weeks would be a challenge.

We have been 4 weekly for years now, not great but it's mostly OK. We have to pay an additional fee for garden waste collection.

This month our recycling wasn't collected due to industrial action so we've to wait another 4 weeks...

3 weekly collections would be a dream.

Once we have reached the maximum amount of bins they will collect, I take a carrier bag of rubbish with me when I go out as I regularly drive pass a motorways service station that has twenty bins or more, probably a lot more and I put the carrier bag in a bin there.

When I go to the supermarket, I take a carrier bag full of food wrappers and put in their bin before I go shopping.

Job done.

That’s disgusting and not ok.

My friend in Manchester has a similar problem: council will only collect one bin of rubbish, every two weeks. If families have kids and dogs you end up with a bin overflowing with shit basically. The bin men don’t take the extra and say people with more waste should drive to the tip.

So, do you think families with lots of bin bags of dirty nappies and dog shit and rotting food, pop all that stink in their car and drive 30 minutes to the tip?

Or do you think they drag it down the road and fly tip?

Councils that won’t do a weekly bin collection of at least two bins should lose the right to charge council tax in my opinion.

Just to contrast: we live in an area with a huge majority Tory council and unlimited waste is collected from outside my house every week. If I leave ten bags outside (did once after house move) they will take it. If a fox shreds a bag and scatters it all across the street, the bin men clear it up. They’re amazing and we tip them well at Christmas and take them iced water bottles in heatwaves!

But it isn’t fair that some postcodes get that service and others get a monthly collection.

Ours is fortnightly and that's often a struggle. One week it is general waste and food waste bin and the next week it's recycling and glass. And we have a separate glass /cans recycling bin in our kitchen as we use so much (we use lots of tinned tomatoes) I normally bring these separately anyway to the recycling en route to tesco click and collect. When we had two in nappies I really struggled with the fortnightly collection. I have a great local company who comes and cleans the bins every month. It keeps all the smells away

It's the same where I live. 3 weeks to collect the general waste. It's horrific. I've had to order another general waste bin because I explained to them that a small general waste bin isn't enough with a baby and cat and a dog lol

We have to have 5 people in a household to get an extra bin!

I agree with you three weeks is too long. But I also think people shouldn't have much general rubbish going to landfill. Most things should be recycled, food scraps should be composted, and people shouldn't be throwing food away anyway.

We have 3 weekly collection, rotating round paper/ plastics and general waste.

It's absolutely fine and if your bin smells a little bit, well, who cares? It's a bin.

We have 4 different wheelie bins, each emptied every 4 weeks plus food waste and glass

Meat/dairy/fish/cooked scraps, I keep a tub in the freezer and scrape it into that.

I just wanted to acknowledge this rather genius idea from @WhereYouLeftIt, which I shall be using.

Ours has gone 3-weekly for general waste recently and it’s fine for us. I take all my soft plastic/food wrappers to Tesco so my black bags are 90% cat litter. We’re allowed 3 bags per collection, if we didn’t have the cats I think we’d struggle to fill one every three weeks. Our council does offer a separate nappy bin, not sure how often that is collected. Recycling (including the food caddy) is collected weekly.

You need to produce less rubbish and make sure it's not filthy with food when you put it in the bin.

We've also had the 3 week general waste bin collection for at least 10 years. Like most folk, I thought it would never work but it does.
Glass/Plastic Bin and Paper Bin are also every three weeks.
Food waste goes in the same bin as garden cuttings and that's every two weeks. We're only provided with 52 bio bags per year but sometimes if it's chicken/fish/meat waste and not winter time then I double bag it and put it in the freezer and pop it in the bin when I wheel it out for collection. It's worth trying if you don't want a bin that smells and no danger of contamination in your freezer. Try it!😀
Also some councils let you purchase an extra bin especially if you have a family member with a disability.

Exactly, job done. But people just want somebody else to resolve the issue for them. It's not so difficult to work out, is it – shit and food is what makes the bin smell, so find a solution for these things, and if you can't fit all your waste in the bin just produce less waste.