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.

Around 50% of UK households have a dishwasher and yes we do, it's a fairly common labour and water saving device, hardly unattainably aspirational for most people. The circles I mix in are what most of MN would consider 'a bit rough' and 'people we'd rather not live near or mix with'.

Only about 6% of households have an insinkerator so you'd only have to know a very limited type/amount of people to think everyone had one, probably only in larger houses in rural areas with septic tanks as that's the only circumstances where I'd imagine anyone would have one.

I'm very impressed you know what percentage of people in UK have an insinkerator. I suppose I live in a fairly affluent area and obviously a kind of bubble. Now I know!

We are on 2 weeks. Won't everyone need bigger bins then?

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.

This is where british supermarkets are an issue, not british consumers. Loose produce is increasingly less available or much poorer quality than packaged. Yoghurt and milk aren't widely avaliable in glass packaging and glass return money isn't a thing. Im guessing you might be in france.

Our climate & typically tiny gardens mean most people can't grow that much at home.

We are on weekly for recycling and black bags, I think food and garden is less often and not all year round. I now put fruit/veg in a bag for my friends compost heap, and any garden waste I just shove in a black bag. We can't have wheelie bins so can put out as many black bags as we want.

Four-weekly landfill here. I'm on my own and it doesn't even come to a fifth of the bin.

I do try to avoid as much packaging as possible.

Personally I'd prefer the Dutch approach, where one can drop rubbish off at leisure, with no need to remember collection dates and no need to have wheelie bins or kerbside bags cluttering the place up.

That's a cool video! Does look like a great idea for city garbage collection. Don't think it would work so well where I live, too hilly with narrow streets. But perhaps would cut down on some of the issues especially in densely-populated areas, although you'd need some way for disabled people to get their rubbish to the bins.

Best bit was the musical garbage collectors in Taiwan, though, like ice cream vans! 😂

Whenever I visit London I'm struck by the piles of clear plastic bags cluttering up the pavement awaiting collection. That's the sort of place I had in mind, if at the expense of a few parking spaces.