Council to reduce recycling collections to every three weeks

[Allshallbewell2021]

I saw this in the fine print coming to us for spring 2025.

Fortnightly for black bins and every three weeks for recycling.

I get it - they're all completely broke.

No wonder my council charges the 4th highest council tax in the country, we still have a weekly collection for everything.*

I live alone, so generate a lot less rubbish than a family would. My non-recylable rubbish would barely fill a shoebox, so it wouldn't bother me if they started collecting 4-weekly, and I only put my recycling out every other week. The council here will happily give households a second recycling bin if they ask, and they come in (iirc) 3 different sizes, so you can ask for the biggest.

I suspect that this may change though. The food waste is now collected by a small electric lorry, not the regular binnies with the big truck. I see no reason why the non-recyclable, non-food waste shouldn't be collected fortnightly, and recyclable stuff isn't going to smell or attract flies unless people are putting tins etc in there unwashed.

My only gripe is that the compostable bags for the food bin seem to start to compost themselves in a few days, so often the bags split and all the peelings and stuff fall out all over the pavement. I double-bag mine, but it's not pleasant.

*For avoidance of doubt, this is a joke. I know that waste collection is a tiny part of the overall bill, and that it's adult social care and education that rightly get the lion's share of council tax.

Ffs

We could cope with three weekly if council provided a food waste bin. But until they do, we'd just have to go to the tip to get rid of stuff in between collections.

Ours is the other way round, fortnightly for the recycling and black bins every three weeks. Food waste is collected every week though, so even in the summer there wasn’t too much of a smell. We are a family of four with one in nappies and just about manage to fit everything into the black bin and push the lid closed.

@Angeldelight50 i know I should but most leftovers go to the dogs and it honestly makes me heave so I am admitting defeat on the food recycling 😬

We have weekly collection for both recycled and general waste, every two weeks for garden waste collection. We only have bins for the latter, the others are still bag collection. Even to go to two weekly collection would mean changing to bins and adapting the lorries, so far the council have resisted and stuck with bags!

Why does it feel like we are continually slipping, falling head over heels backwards. Miss the third week collection for whatever reason and it doesn’t bear thinking about!

Our recycling bin is fortnightly and it is really full by then. Our black, rubbish bin- other waste is fortnightly and usually less than a quarter full. I'd rather the black bin was 3-4 weekly.

@spanieleyes are you in an area with lots of terrace houses and no where to put wheelie bins?

Where I am the council collect general waste and food / garden fortnightly. And the recycling bins are 4 weekly.

The bin lorries do different areas on different weeks.

We have 2 recycling bins because one wasn't enough for fortnightly, although admittedly we could be better at squashing cardboard down, which we'd probably need to if it was only emptied every 3 weeks.

It was free, so worth asking your council if one isn't enough.

I live next door to an HMO with six young adults. Refuse and rats are a constant issue with even two weekly collections. This is despite the tenants doing everything they can. They just have too much rubbish which does not fit into the bin and that they can not dispose of as not one has a car. I helped during the strike last year but can't commit regularly. We are a smaller family and our bins are pretty much full each collection. Next door have asked for another bin and this has been denied. Every three weeks would be a nightmare

I think all LAs are being forced to look at refuse collection to try and save money due to massive deficits.
Ours is currently proposing to charge for emptying our green bins fortnightly (garden and food waste). As this charge will be option, lots of people will refuse to pay it. Food waste will no longer be allowed to go in the green bins. Everyone will revert to putting it into general waste (collected fortnightly) until 2026 when the LA will be compelled to provide a weekly food waste collection!
In addition to this they are proposing to close some of our household recycling centres so people will have to drive further - if they can be bothered!
I foresee more recyclable waste going into general waste, fly tipping increasing and garden bonfires being the way to get rid of garden waste! No harm to the environment there then!!

Every 4 weeks here.

This means we have throw recycling in the general waste or make regular trips to the nearest recycling centre, burning fuel for the 20 mile round trip. We go for the latter where we bump into lots of people from nearby villages all doing the same in their cars.

It's nice to be green, isn't it

I am astonished that some people only have bins emptied every 3 or 4 weeks.

We have 2 weekly collections and due to the recent Bank Holidays they are being emptied a day late. I have already squashed down the recycling as much as possible and still have a large carrier bag of things to go in once it’s emptied.

We are not a very large household but I don’t know how we’d cope with less than 2 weekly collection. I suppose we would have to put more in general waste, which seems a shame.

We don’t have separate food waste bins, and are not allowed to put any kitchen waste/ veg peelings, etc in our garden waste bins ( which are charged separately).

We aren’t in uk. Black bin is every 4 weeks, recycling every 6 weeks. Glass isn’t collected so we wash and take to communal glass bins near supermarket.

It’s fine tbh. Even with monthly collections our black bin is very rarely more than 1/4-1/2 full.
We home compost all food peelings, egg shells, and garden waste ourselves in garden. Have very little food waste after fruit/ veg cuttings in compost.

Ds I used reusable nappies for so no full bins of pop.

Theres 3 of us daily. 7 of us throughout summer (attached holiday let).

I try and buy fruit and veg loose where possible so less packaging, and we buy yogurt in large glass jars.

@Catcherintherice - could you just put a compost bin or two in own garden. That’s where all our peelings/ egg shell/ tea and coffee grounds go in there, as well as grass clippings and garden stuff.

It's confusing when people talk about black and green bins. Ours seems to be the wrong way round. Our black bins are recycling. Green is household waste. Our recycling bins are always overflowing. We only have two bins: one for landfill; one for recycling. Both are collected fortnightly. We then pay extra for a garden waste bin. We struggle to fit everything into our recycling bin and often have to take extra stuff elsewhere. We simply couldn't manage three weeks.

I had no idea anywhere had free garden waste collection. I've paid £60 a year for mine for years and years.

I think councils should put recycling bins on street corners like they do in some places in Europe, and in supermarket carparks here.
It's not beyond the ability of most people to walk to the end of the street with their glass bottles and jars, old clothing, cardboard etc.
Recycling areas should be built in to new estates.

We still have all our rubbish collected weekly, we even have our street swept three times a week, guess we are really lucky.

@Needanewname42

No, not at all. There are a few roads in the middle of town of terraced housing but the rest are mainly semi or detached houses. The surrounding local councils have bins but we still have bags!

It's infuriating to have posters talking about "the black bin" or "the green bin" rather than referring to them by their contents. Different LAs have different coloured bins, it isn't standard across the UK!

We have landfill (and garden waste if you've opted in to that, you have to pay separately for it) one week and recycling the next. Happy with that, we do have a lot of parcel packaging so if we've too much for the recycling bin we either store it (in the outside loo!) for next week or take it to our local tip with the WEEE and other stuff that can't go in the landfill bin.

Our food waste goes in our kitchen bin so it's already bagged before it goes in the landfill bin, so no maggots here.

We have food waste and recycling collected every week ( I don’t understand why people don’t like doing the food waste caddy )
Black bags ( other waste ) and glass every 3 weeks
Garden waste ( pay extra for this ) every fortnight ( March to November )
The only hassle is remembering which day of which week we need to put them out
Rural area , so we can’t just copy the neighbours

edited to say what goes in the black bags

Knickerless** - this is ok unless you live near these bins. Glass recycling is really noisy and recycling points always get stuff dumped around them

Are you in the UK?