What do you tip your bin men?

[ChocolateTVandbaby]

Inspired by a podcast I'm listening to... wondering whether people tip their binmen and if so what with? My mum leaves beer out for them. Some people I know give cash. What do you give and how much?

Do you tip your children's teacher, the nurse who does your smear test, the person serving you in a shop, the shelf stacker at the supermarket?

I don’t. Tipping is outdated, feudal and, with the living wage now above £11ph, unnecessary. Bin collectors work hard & do an important job, for which they are presumably paid fairly. They are not serfs and I am not lady bountiful.

I don't tip the bin crew, or anyone else. I don't get the inconsistency really between who people tip and who they don't.

I have never tipped a bin man or postie in my life. I mean, why would you ? Do you tip cashiers in supermarkets ? Bus drivers ? Pharmacists ? It’s bonkers.

They miss one of our bins about 1 in 4 times so no...

Because they do a really horrible job in all weathers and don't get paid very much.

And ours are lovely. Our old ones were horrible, throwing our bins through our hedge etc so I never gave them anything at Christmas. Then we moved and our new lot were lovely so we've always done it since.

So do you give money per person, or a lump sum per crew?

Nothing. My council tax is extortionate.

Different crew every week, our last providers were brilliant, I was very sick several years ago and they always put my bins back for me.

In return I left water out for them in hot spells, Easter eggs, and beer at Christmas. I see my old bin man in Sainsburys. We still chat.

£10 or more if I can afford it, our bin men are lovely and will stop the cart lifting up the bins when we are out walking as they know my little rescue dog is frightened of the noise. Lovely guys.

I agree they are paid to do a job however in my area they get a lot of abuse for doing that job and maybe an unexpected pack of mars bars takes the edge of having to put up with that all the time

QUESTION - How do you tip the postman if you never see him?
Do you just stick an envelop on the front door with ''Postman'' written on it and hope it's not stolen?
Thanks

Nothing. They do a job, they get paid for it. I do a job, I get paid for it, no one bloody tips me.

Why would people abuse bin crews? That's terrible, I've not seen that in our area.

Nothing. Wouldn’t occur to me to do this, especially as they quite regularly fail to actually collect the bins on the days they should. I also live in centre of town and lave my bins on the main shopping high street so think if I did leave something with my bins it would probably get taken by someone else walking past before the refuse collectors actually arrived.

@Maireas I agree. I know they are probably fairly well paid (for a basic manual job), but it’s not a nice or easy job and abusing them for following the councils/contract rules is so wrong.
The “tip” isn’t to line their pockets, but just to say hey you’re appreciated

Nothing. I once had to do a piece of analysis on how many hours binmen worked as they were on a task and finish contract. That was eye opening

Wow - some of these replies 😳
We must be very fortunate as our bin men and our recycling men are amazing and very considerate. I had a catastrophic back injury in January and one of the recycling men used to come in and take the recycling out for me. We have always treated them with respect and give them £20 (it is my understanding that they put all the money they get on their round together and pool it. I guess this is a self fulfilling prophecy as I know that they know we tip them and therefore feel respected and more inclined to be helpful. Its a shitty job and they put up with a lot of crap literally and figuratively.

It's fine to appreciate people, and give them extra rewards, I'm just wondering why it's some workers and not others.

I graciously make my extortionate council tax payment each month, that's all.

£20 to the crew, and yes I sprint out in my pjs if needed.

Its a grim job done outside all year for minimum wage. And it's quite personal, they are taking my crap and dealing with it. Also it's traditional. A bit of Christmas goodwill here and there is fine with me.

Not the binmen. If they can get away with not emptying the bins in our close they will (that's 9 households). The garden waste bin costs an extra £65 per year and, as there are only three of them in the road, they are missed more often than they are taken.

We have a different postie every day - that's if they bother to come round. We sometimes get one delivery over the course of a fortnight.

I do tip the paper girl and the milkman. Just put an envelope with the empty bottles or taped to the letter box.

I suppose if someone else was providing me with a weekly service which was a hard job and for which they were abused I might tip them also?

I either make them an Xmas cake and slice it all up or a batch of sausage rolls depending on time and what I feel like. I know the sausage rolls went down a storm last year as my DD woke up really early with teething and was a massive grouch but knackered and so we ended up on a 7.30am walk in the pram and we ended up catching up to and following the bin men and the trail of crumbs. They were scoffing them as they were doing the bins.

All I know is that is whatever food I make them, it seems to affect their eye sight and they are not as good as spotting the bin lid isn't completely down.

I do but I work in the same department, bin guys remember who has tipped and are much more obliging about taking away excess waste. Emptying contaminated bins etc.