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.

Yes I understand they will re introduce it. If it goes as well as last time the caddies will all be in the plastic recycling...

I find the reluctance to get on board with this astounding.

We've had four weekly collections for years, no rats yet

I already put all my compostable food waste in the garden bin.

We don't waste meat ( thanks doggo). The very small amount of other stuff is not sitting around in my kitchen.

Simple.

Daily collection here; an old boy with a wheelbarrow comes around, collects everything and takes it to the district compactor and then it is taken away from there by a truck.
cardboard and paper are collected on demand and they give you money.

We still get rubbish and recycling weekly, with no limit on the amount of either since no wheelie bins. I think we’re getting food bins too soon but we have an insinkerator that does 99% of stuff so I don’t think we’ll use it much. Mega skip days are every few weeks too where the council puts a huge skip round the corner and you can chuck whatever in it. Isn’t it likely to lead to more fly tipping if they won’t pick stuff up regularly? And how on earth do you cope if you have a baby in nappies, or cat litter? Food isn’t the only thing that smells!

Our council started that last year for garden bins. You need to have the permit on the lid or it won’t be collected.
blue/red/green(general waste) is every 4 weeks. So red bin will go out then 2wks later blue bin and green one goes out same week as blue. Food bins weekly and black box/nappy,hygiene bags fortnightly

I'm happy I live in a block of flats.

Everything goes in a black bag and into the large refuse bin for all the residents.

I don't recycle unless I have a big pizza box or something.

I put a black bag out almost daily.

People are wasting too much food!

Hear of people who roast a chicken - carve off the meat for a roast dinner then BIN the rest! Pick at the chicken til you hit bone and save that for pasta, sandwiches, salads etc

Also heard of people making a spaghetti bolognaise. Serve half of it then BIN the rest! Stretch the mince with a tin of pulses or baked beans and makes a great jacket potato filling.

I only throw out food if it’s the inedible bits (bones, gristle, peel) and a few manky veg.

They rolled out the food caddys last year for us. I've never used it, i don't want another box in my garden and it's certainly not going in my kitchen. I really don't want yet another thing to think about either. We dont really have food waste anyway.

I find the reluctance to get on board with this astounding.

It primarily space and complexity.

I currently have to have 3 indoor seperate bins for general waste, cardboard waste and other recycling because all have to be kept seperate. The general recycling has to be cleaned and dried. All of which I do. There is a fairly complex set of rules as to what can go in what bin, so I find myself at least daily checking them to make sure everything gets filed correctly. e.g. only some cardboard goes in the cardboard bin, some types have to go in the general recycling. Only some colour plastics can the general recycling, others have to go in general waste,

I then have 4 full sized wheely bins outside in the space behind the house that is 2m x 2m. That's it. Those bins each have to be wheeled down an alley that is just wide enough for them, each week. That means I am constantly juggling them like one of those puzzles where you slide the square to make a picture - so that the 'next' bin due is the one at the front.

I am not allowed to keep those wheelies in front of the house and, if I did, they would take up drive space for a small drive that is currently full.

If I add another 2 food receptacles - one indoor and one out - I will then have 9 waste vessels. That is simply bonkers to me.

Outside, the only places I have to add another caddy of any description is on top of the four wheely bins and moved each time I need to use that bin or in front of the house (where it's not allowed). And I don't live in one of the (many) victorian terrace houses around here that cannot fit all 4 wheely bins into the front garden and so have to leave 1 or 2 out on the pavement to be walked round.

Improving recycling % is important but the answer cannot be to constantly add yet another bin and yet another set of rules to homeowners. Meanwhile, certain industry wastes a phenomenal amount of rubbish and manufactuers are still allowed to use packaging 2-3x the size of the product to make it look like you are buying more than you are - and wasting all that. There also needs to be legislation about how food offers are put together so that people are not encouraged to buy more than they need just to get better pricing. Things like 3 for 2s could be better spaced out so if you buy two items in a period of time you can then claim a 3rd free within another period of time; stops you having 3 items all at once and ending up binning some.

Food waste should be allowed in the green bins for those that have them. That increases the food composted without wasting energy and plastic on yet another bin.

And I also think all councils that have to compost green and food waste, should be made to provide that compost back to residents for free or at cost price. It's currently all ar too much 'you have to do this now or else'.

I’m shocked at 3-4 weekly bin emptying in the UK. That’s absolutely disgusting. Rubbish collection is a basic necessity of any civilised society. It’s not like more rubbish is generated if it’s collected more regularly, it’s just disposed of quicker which is necessary for environmental hygiene.

In yon olden days all rubbish was always collected weekly. How can we have gone so far backwards in this country? My in laws live in a small village in a relatively poor Eastern European country and even they have all rubbish collected and street cleansing weekly from March to September. Rarely see street cleansing here.

We are a family of 6 and have two large recycling wheelie bins emptied fortnightly (any household with 5+ occupants can get an extra recycling bin) and a general waste slim wheelie bin also emptied fortnightly, on alternate weeks. We can put out 2 extra bags of general waste with the wheelie bin as a larger family. We also have two food caddies, smaller one kept in kitchen to be decanted into the larger one outside which is emptied weekly. We have to buy the compostable bags to line the food caddies and they’re bloody expensive! Absolutely hate that bin!

There is a nappy collection which can be applied for and is weekly.

That’s the bare minimum that should be tolerated IMO.

The problem is with recycling is that people just stick it in the bin uncrushed.

My guess is if all my cans and bottles were crushed I could go once every 6 weeks easily because most of the space in the bin is air not cans. Of course the bin will get pretty heavy though.

I think people will just have to get used to crushing down their stuff. And councils will have to get stronger bin people and replace the bins more often as they get knackered due to the weight.

The other way round would be better. The recycling bin is usually much fuller than the rubbish for us.

Anyone in an average-sized household who is concerned they can’t do an extra week on their recycling bin needs to go back to the first steps of the equation, which is Reduce Reuse Recycle.

We should all be reducing our impact first. Less packaged food, fewer single-use plastic bottles, shop in person not order online to cut down on cardboard packaging etc.

I know it sounds sanctimonious and preachy but well, we all bear collective responsibility for making things Not Worse, if we can’t make them Better.

North West England here. Weekly bin collections, fortnightly recycling and free grass collection. Feel very spoilt and moved into this borough a years or so ago. Council tax is pretty much the same and no increase for the coming year either. It's crazy how much difference there is across country

Anyone in an average-sized household who is concerned they can’t do an extra week on their recycling bin needs to go back to the first steps of the equation, which is Reduce Reuse Recycle.

That depends on the size of the bin, surely? We used to have small plastic boxes which were expected to last us a fortnight. They were about a third of the size of a small wheelie bin - oddly they didn't last very long, lol.

We have 3 bins here, black, blue and green. Black is general waste, blue is dry recycling, green is food and garden waste. One week it’s blue and green and the other it’s black. For some reason they reduce the green bin back to once a month from just before Christmas. Kinda odd timing, I might get after but not before.

I find the general waste more useful than I feel I ought to. Probably because I’m decluttering and shredding can’t go in the dry recycling here.

Yes, we used to have those and some terraced houses opted to keep that method when we switched to 3 bins

Typo? (Or sarcasm?)

Surely no residential areas have their rubbish collected this often?

I'm zone 1 and we are weekly collection for refuse and recycling ♻️

And we see the road cleaner almost everyday.

Main issue here is dogshit. Which the poor road cleaner isn't responsible for but often deals with if someone has left shit right in middle of the pavement (he always gets a big tip at Christmas)

4 Weekly black bins and Weekly for recycling including food and nappy bins.
4 weekly for garden waste too, which now carries an extra charge. So we made a compost bin.
No smelly bins as all food goes weekly and everything recyclable is also gone each week.

Where I am we have

Recycle bin and glass box - fortnightly

Garden waste - fortnightly (extra paid service)

Other waste which goes to an incinerator - fortnightly

We are supposed to be getting a food waste collection service at some point in the next year or so.

We have a compost bin but it's too small to take our garden waste and you can't put cooked food waste in it.

Our council are canny though - they charge to take away garden waste and then use it to make compost and sell it back to people!

Our garden & food waste is uplifted fortnightly - so long as you pay your £40 for a permit

General waste every 3 weeks

Plastic & glass - every 4 weeks
Paper & card - every 4 weeks

Not great compared to a lot on here

Hampshire - black bin general waste weekly, recycling green bin every other week - brown bin garden waste every other week in the summer which is an extra cost.