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.

We have weekly recycling (3 separate boxes for glass, cardboard and plastic) then fortnightly black and green wheelie bins. I'm shocked when I see my dsis have only black bags that are taken fortnightly. They are overrun with foxes so now have piles of black bags in their garage.

Food waste is collected weekly
General waste is also collected weekly
Recycling collected fortnightly, doesn't include glass. That has to be taken to Recycling points.
Small electrical equipment can be put out with the Recycling as long as it fits in a standard carrier bag and is left on the top of the Recycling bin
There is still a lot of things that we cannot put out for Recycling.
Soft plastic can be taken to supermarkets for Recycling.

Garden waste is collected fortnightly. There is an annual charge for this which works out at just over £1 per week.

Jesus!! Ours is every week for normal bins and every other weeks for recycling. I cannot imagine every 3 weeks! The roads would be littered in maggots 💀

I think you are right

Maybe buying loose veg and using a reusable net bag each time or if not recycling soft plastics at supermarkets

I know not everyone can do this

We don't have a garden but those who do now have to pay for a permit for a brown garden waste bin which I think is collected every 2 weeks.

We were all given a small brown bucket type thing with a lid for food waste. I only ever see one person putting this out. We have hardly any food waste so what little we have gets wrapped up and put in the general waste bin.

If this was a private contractor they would be sued for a service which isn't for purpose. 3 weeks?!! This has got to be a joke. Disgusting.

*fit for purpose.

I'll need another big recycling bin then. Mine can be full up after two weeks.

We pay £60 a year for garden waste. I'd pay for food waste collections if I could but our grotty town doesn't do things like that.

3 weekly collections work fine in many areas.

Who says they work fine?! Perhaps in single person households but say for a family of 4? Really?

We've tried hard to reduce the amount of packaging we buy but feel thwarted.

The amount of public bins has been axed including removing every single bin in the railway station. So if you buy any food, you have to take the packaging home.

I used to take reusable boxes to the supermarket & buy meat at the counter with no packaging. All the supermarkets have got rid of the counters and the local butcher is extortionate - the prices are around 2-3 times the cost of sainsburys.

The supermarket have reduces the amount of veg sold loose. More and more is in plastic bags. There's no greengrocer locally. We try and grow some fruit but our garden isnt big enough.

We put coffee grounds on the garden but attempts to compost other food waste just attract rats and foxes, and masses of flies in summer, not to mention the smell. We avoid peeling veg now.

We receive vast amounts of unsolicited junk mail in the post, all if which goes straight in the recycling. We've filled in every damn opt out you can but these don't seem to stop bam/boden/laithwaites wine/the local Liberal democrat mp sending crap we don't read. Even the school send crap like this home. Flyers etc.

The local milkman went bust despite charging very high prices.

We buy eggs from a local farm who reuse the boxes.

Despite all this if they dropped to 3 weekly it would not be good (2 weekly currently).

I think the supermarkets should be made responsible collectively for their plastic waste.

They have been privileged in every respect and seem to have more clout than any shade of government. Of course I use them as they have made sure there is no real competition.

I do get a local veg box whip reduces the plastic. I was amazed last time I went to the local Aldi and almost all the fruit and veg were in plastic. How do they get away with it?

I love those protests when shoppers took all the packaging off and left it in the store before leaving.

@ohthejoys21 - we have between 3 and 7 people here. 7 all summer. It’s monthly for black bin, 6 weeks recycling. It’s fine

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.

We do what we can but honestly, shopping in person just isn't an option. I work full time & have kids, spending half my weekend shopping is time i just don't have. I do the supermarket shop in person because its the only shop a short distance away. Everything else i just order.

The likes of tesco etc have massively increased their profits this year despiting rising wages and other costs.

Some of that profit could have gone on taking a small hit on wastage/spoilage by shifting to unwrapped fruit & veg.

What annoys me is that often the better quality ripe fruit is what goes into the overpackaged tubs. You can buy good mango if you buy plastic tubbed chopped stuff, if you dare to buy the bare unchopped fruit you are sold an unripe rock. This is the supermarket actively influencing bad behaviour. We only buy that sort of tropical fruit in winter when there's very little local fruit, and would rather not buy it chopped in plastic!!

Ours are proposing to close the nearest 'Household Recycling Centre' (aka tip) - which is 15 miles away and proposing that we should use the next nearest which is 35 miles away.

They are also introducing charges for garden waste - which I understand to be quite common - as it is not something they are required by statute to collect.

We have weekly collections for general waste and recycling - we do not get bins though, only bin bags.

There has been trials for the food waste bins in some areas so I assume it will be rolled out at some point.

Garden waste is every two weeks - we have to pay for that, and an actual bin is supplied for that.

So during the summer you manage to get recycling for 7 people into one bin which is only collected once every 6 weeks?!! That's interesting...

@ohthejoys21 - no, I didn’t say that. I said recycling is collected 6 weekly, not one bin.

paper - 1 bin
plastic and metal - 1 bin
glass - we have to take to communal glass bins. So this can be as often as we like.
black bin - monthly

Compost - garden and food peelings we compost ourselves in garden

But yes it’s fine. I mean we don’t produce much black bin waste. I have 12l bin in kitchen and only empty that weekly to outside bin so it doesn’t smell. It’s often only half full. So we probably have 30-50l max black bin waste a month, our outside bin is a small 120l. Nappies and wipes we used washable so they didn’t go in bin.

I don’t know. Everyone locally has small size bins (not uk), and I haven’t ever seen bins overflowing or people complaining.
I try and buy loose produce if possible, in summer we grow a lot so no packaging on that. Things like tomato passata and yogurt, milk bottles, any juice I buy in glass (can return most bottles for glass return money here in supermarkets), and the other glass to bottle bank.

So now we return to Victorian times where in summer (IF we get a heatwave) the streets stink? Three-week rubbish collections - yes, a very bright idea on the part of some 'genius' to bring this one in. But of course Council Tax will keep increasing, with less and less services.

Everyone's different I guess you're right.. our black bin (only 3 of us in house at moment) is emptied daily into outside bin.

We have fortnightly collections so are moving to a private contractor which is beyond annoying considering the council tax we pay. They got rid of the paper bin "due to covid" so papers have to go into brown bin.

What I don't understand is why people collect food waste.. can that not go into a waste disposal in the sink!

Are you at least allowed extra recycling bins? Our saving grace is that we can have unlimited recycling.

@ohthejoys21 - uk water pipes aren’t designed for food to be thrown down. It will probably block up somewhere along the way. Food waste, probably 90% of our is compostable, mainly peelings/ tea leafs/ egg shells. It makes way more sense to compost at home as they we don’t have to buy compost either, so far cheaper, and can be discarded daily if needed.

That may be but I may be living in a different universe as I don't know anyone who doesn't use a waste disposal for soft food. I have never heard this before.