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.

4 weekly for cardboard, 4 weekly for plastics, fortnightly for general waste here. Our council will give second bins for recycling if you need them ( not general waste unless meet specific criteria)

The Government can put all the statutory responsibilities it likes onto Councils, especially the Waste Disposal Authorities; but as we have seen with SEND budgets, if the Councils haven't got the funding from central government - and can only ever raise a small fraction of what they need via council tax - then they end up rationing services even to the point of breaching regulations.

The Tories are spectacularly egregious in this regard. The previous Labour government started to do it with education and social care. Huge new responsibilities for Council, without the grants and budgets to employ enough children's social workers, pay kinship foster carers properly, or run local children's homes effectively.

I think bins are emblematic of the much deeper problems afoot.

In all fairness my local council has mini recycling centres next to various bus stops. It’s just for the three different types of glass though. There is bigger cardboard/ glass recycling next to parks which is relatively central in all the little towns close to me.

It just gone to 3 weeks here but weekly recycling - they have to up the recycling which is already very high compared to rest of UK or face Welsh government fines.

I was really worried as few years ago in effort to avoid 3 week collections instead of fortnight ones we had we'd been given some of the smallest black bin - general rubbish sizes - in UK few years earlier. In end it worked out we ended up at start of the scheme and DD1 was still doing A-levels so we were eligible for a larger ie normal sized bin again. It could have been worse for us as non driver can't drive excess to tip.

The green waste is suppose to be very 3 weeks but stops for winter but it's supposed to have started again but last two times no collections.

We do have compost bins 2 in garden - unlike otehr council we lived under no subsidy for those here- but compositing cat litter in with garden clippings and food waste isn't great option as have to be very careful where we use the compost - and have had to put beds in specially in small garden so can empty them.

Fly tipping is also a huge issue round here.

We are weekly recycling/food and just moved this month from fortnightly to 3 weekly general waste. Also in coming months an annual fee for garden waste.

Do.people 3 weekly find themselves going to take general waste to the recycling centres?

Ours will change to this too and I am a bit concerned as there are 5 of us in my house. We are going to be buying the biggest wheelie bin allowed when the time comes.

Ours is every week for food waste (plus garden waste if you pay for that,goes in same bin £52 per yr). Others are every 3 weeks - green bin plastics/cans, blue bin - paper/cardboard, black bin - non recyclable. Thought it would be a nightmare initially but actually is fine & were a family of 5 plus I'm a CM so have extra waste from that (nappies etc).

Only time I've needed to do extra trip to recycling centre was after oldest DS 18th party.

@Allshallbewell2021 - not in uk, but our glass bins are fine. They are mainly away from houses like supermarket car parks, end of roads near woods, near schools etc. they are emptied regularly so never overfilled. Until last year metal was also take there in metal bins.

It’s 30+ degrees all summer and our bin doesn’t really smell. Like I said we compost most food waste like peelings, very little other food waste. majority of other stuff is recycled, so very little actual waste. If we eat something like a whole chicken and have carcass just after bin collected, I break down and wrap carcass in newspaper and freeze until bin day so it isn’t in a hot bin for weeks.

It’s 3 weeks here and that’s fine even though we have 3dc. Weekly recycling is an issue because our box for that isn’t quite big enough. Lots of squeezing things down and occasional trips to the tip but general waste is fine as most can be recycled here.

I did some temping for a waste deposal company in different part of UK about 10 years ago and they had regulations that it was only full time household of 6 who were eligible for bigger bin and they were monitored for weeks as part of a process to get one - so step kids p/t or other p/t weren't enough even if it really pushed numbers in house up.

I was so pleased when I read the details here that families of 5 could just get a bigger bin. They just had to have permission to check their records about how many people lived here to verify - or some other longer process I didn't bother with.

It's all a massive con. I remove all excess packaging after shopping and give it to the store to dispose of.

When I return to a shop I deposit a bag of rubbish in their bin at the entrance and in between I take a carrier bags worth of rubbish out several times in the week and put it in a motorway services bin that I regularly pass.

The council are corrupt and inefficient and I will not be made to put this bag out and that bag out on certain days as I am not one of the stupid sheeple who blindly follow orders.

Two week cycle here - one week all food and non-recyclable waste, the next recycling. No sign of a change in routine here.

@DrJoanAllenby
I will not be made to put this bag out and that bag out on certain days as I am not one of the stupid sheeple who blindly follow orders.

Would you rather have chaos with no designated days? Some of us are house-bound and can't just put rubbish in shop/motorway bins.

@CrunchyCarrot well obviously there are people that have to confirm because of disability.

I'm talking about all the mindless people that follow orders from the council without question.

We have had 3 week cycle for general waste for about 10 years, recycling on two week cycle, food/garden waste every week. The general waste bin is always overfull and I sneak bags into other people's bins when they're on the kerb.

Only need to put the recycling out every 4 weeks.

It's not great but we're used to it now.

We are so lucky ours is weekly with everything at the moment

We also do food waste which makes less in general bin.

I also take soft plastics to Tesco to recycle

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

It works in other places.

We really need to put up with a bit of discomfort to save the planet and to reduce council spending so they can look after their other obligations, such as care.
Either that or we need to pay more tax - locally and nationally.

Meh our bin men are still striking. Since Christmas and ongoing. We never know what bin is going to be collected or when.

I wouldn't give a toss about 3 weekly recycling if I'm honest. It's 2 weekly for both bins when they work properly.

We fill our small recycling bins in a fortnight and there are only two of us. if we went to three weeks, anything that didn't fit in would just go in general bin. I'm not adding an additional trip to somewhere to do recycling.

Visions of chem trails and 5g stuff coming off that.

Our food waste is weekly - we'd struggle if that was reduced due to maggots. Our general waste is every two weeks - I'd want that to stay the same as it can get smelly if left for a long time. Our recycling is every 2 weeks, we could probably cope with 3/4 weeks on that as it's all washed and clean.

But I'd worry about what this would mean more generally - would we have more smelly bins in the borough, more fly tipping, rats and foxes etc. not everyone separates or wages their recycling out properly, or has enough space for it.

Perhaps it may make people more selective of what they recycle
People put a lot of things in re-cycling what shouldn't such as wet carboard
food packaging with residual fat/food on them, paper that is shiny / glittery.

If people are filling a recycling bin in 2 weeks I think they need to look at what they are putting in it and/or stop ordering as much stuff from amazon (which is also not good for the environment)

It would be fine if you knew it was there when you bought the house
once it is implemented - fine, people know it is there
But if you got a letter tomorrow saying one is getting put in front of your house can you really say you would be happy or would you be complaining 'that is not the best place for it'.

If there were 2 houses for sale in a street once with a rubbish tip outside and one without, I know which one I would buy.

Ours is recycling every two weeks and the alternate week is black bin but the council introduced " slim bins" a few years ago half the size of normal black bins" 🙄

We’re on a junction and have bags because the council deems it not safe for pedestrians to pull wheelie bins out on to the pavement. Our rubbish is collected from the gardens (just like in pre-wheelie-bin days)