Bin men! Ridiculous

[SassyCrab]

Has anyone else got this problem with there local council! The bin men take the rubbish every 2 weeks, so our rubbish mounts up to the point we have to put it on top of the bin, bare in mind we have baby and a dog so we have quite a lot of rubbish in the two weeks when they bother to collect. They’ve come yesterday and emptied our bin but just left the rubbish on the top!!!!! So now our bin is full again and still got 2 weeks to go. So annoyed with it, I just don’t understand why they can’t come every week.

It does make me roll my eyes when people assume that council tax is paid purely for bin collections.

Council tax pays for leisure and recreation projects, such as maintaining parks and sports centres, libraries and education services, rubbish and waste collection and disposal, and transport and highway services, including street lighting and cleaning, and road maintenance. Also, open spaces, and galleries, and swimming pools and recreation centres. And also, social care for older people, and children and other vulnerable members of the community.

Council tax just not just cover the collection of the bins! 🙄

Can you apply for a bigger bin saying you have 2 children in nappies? I don't know if they actually check it or not. We did qualify for one genuinely but they replied back saying we qualified the next day so not sure if they actually check or not (or how they would so quickly if they do given children aren't on the electoral register)

What’s the recycle bin situation?
my first thought was how are you managing it. Then I remembered my sister in law has no recycle bins where they live.
can you get a bigger bin? Or a second bin? Some have them near me. I think you have to pay extra, it’s surely worth it.

I don’t know how you’re filling a whole bin with just a baby and two adults. We are a household of six and we manage just fine. We do have two recycling bins though and that helps massively. Maybe find a friendly single person in your street and ask if you can use their bin capacity for a week as a one off.

Think yourself lucky they emptied the bin. Ours won't if you put extra bags on top. Health & Safety. There could be broken glass or needles or anything in bags. It's not the refuse collection workers that are the problem.

Recycle more, stop using so much non recyclable packaging or start going to the tip.
Plenty of people with multiple children, including babies, and pets manage fortnightly collections and have done for years.

Not everyone has room in a freezer for waste food, some of which will be there for several days. Where are you putting dirty nappies if you have a baby or toddler? In the freezer as well?
I do not mind rinsing out the odd tin to put in my recycling bag, because I keep it in my utility room. Also, many do not have a food waste dedicated bin, so the general bin is going to be wet inside if you put in a bag of frozen food waste. Everything put in good quality bin bags straight from the kitchen dustbin will work, of course, but not in summer.
The point - the main reason - for waste collection is the prevention of vermin and disease. Full bins in summer left for two (sometimes 3) weeks do not fulfil this purpose.
I also think having three or four separate (usually bulky) bins in gardens, or yards is an inconvenience. Where are they going? Are we not allowed to have nice gardens anymore.
Also, some multi-occupied houses will have these bins in the front garden or on the street - not something a country interested in how it looks should be encouraging. Nothing says 'grotty country' more than bins, sometimes very full bins, on the street or in front yards.

Are you packing down your rubbish well ? (Ie. Leave out any tins/boxes/non wet packaging & fill them with other trash before squashing/throwing them out)

As for the over flow though you need to look into doing tip runs ect.

Some places to recycle stuff that might help, OP, because not everything can just be put in the magical wishcycling bin:

Contact lenses and cases: opticians should have a bin for these. We keep a bag on the back of the bathroom door to collect them.

Soft plastic eg carrier bags, post bags, some film from fruit punnets, cereal bags, etc: supermarket soft plastic collection bin. Another bag hangs on the kitchen door for these. (Life now is just bags hanging in various places.) We’ve stopped buying anything where the film isn’t recyclable.

Paracetamol and medicine packets: Superdrug pharmacy will take these. Quite grumpily, but they’ll do it! Another bag hanging off another door!

Fabric, such as outgrown kids’ pants: the tip. Make a regular tip run part of your life! If you’ve got nice neighbours, take some of their stuff sometimes and they’ll quid pro quo. Especially if the bin men won’t take extra kerbside recycling as ours won’t, as if it’s not in the green bin it can be contaminated/wet and fuck up the whole lorry load. General waste doesn’t go to landfill anymore, it’s burned for energy production.

General recycling: primary schools and playgroups round here are forever asking for stuff to do junk modelling. There is also a thriving eBay market for old Bonne Maman jars and, weirdly, bulk lots of cardboard loo roll tubes. You do need the space to store till you have loads, though. We use yoghurt pots and plastic punnets everywhere as drawer organisers for stuff like calpol sticks; don’t think I’ve recycled one in years, there’s always something to put in one in a cupboard.

Bit of cash upfront but switching to reusable silicon mats and lining papers instead of greaseproof paper if you bake, beeswax fabric wrappers instead of foil or clingfilm, reusable covers for leftovers (also cuts down food waste). So no wods of clingfilm in the bin or the tube/box in the recycling.

It is much harder if your council doesn’t collect food waste – and I don’t think all of the posters here are acknowledging that – and you don’t have space/scope for a compost bin – our road is very foxy, ratty and seagully so composting requires lots of upfront investment to ensure the food scraps don’t get dragged up and down the twitten. We’ve managed but not all our neighbours can; most of the black bin stuff is food. A wormery can be a good alternative!

What else? Tissues can’t be recycled but if you accidentally run them through the washing machine every single time then put the wet wodge on the radiator, it’s much smaller! Lead the way in not doing party bags when you reach that era, less tiny non-recyclable crap to go around. Give up kitchen roll. Use bar soap in a paper wrapper instead of liquid soap in a plastic bottle, much less space in the recycling.

I agree in general re the amount of waste, but most recycling is exported. Less than 10% of plastic is recycled in the UK:

^the amount the UK sends abroad is the equivalent of three and a half Olympic swimming pools every single day https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/news/plastic-recycling-export-incineration/^

It then becomes someone else's problem, often sent to countries that don't have the facilities to handle it responsibly

https://www.circularonline.co.uk/news/enormous-increase-in-uk-plastic-waste-exports-to-turkey-and-malaysia-greenpeace/#:~:text=The%20top%20three%20countries%20for,being%20dumped%20or%20burned%20illegally.

• In 2020 the UK exported 537,000 tonnes of plastic waste – roughly the same amount as in 2019 (539,000 tonnes).

• The top three countries for UK waste exports are Turkey (39%), Malaysia (12%) and Poland (7%). All three countries have very low recycling rates and a serious problem with plastic waste being dumped or burned illegally.

It pollutes the environment and a huge amount ends up in the sea. Malaysia and Turkey are some of the biggest "offenders" for ocean plastic emissions (I put offenders in quotes because obviously there are main intermediary offenders in the chain).

https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution

When all is said and done, I feel it might as well just go in the bin. A landfill is preferable to toxic fumes and lung diseases, microplastic contamination and fucking up oceans and killing wildlife IMHO.

All these people talking blithely about tip runs..

Out nearest tip is 6 miles away. You aren’t allowed to queue for it beyond 6 cars. So everyone waits on the side roads to hijack the next space when one goes in. It’s hideous and stressful. During lockdown the council put parking tickets in anyone queuing.

They still do that now if it goes over 6

We are a family of four plus dog. Our bin is only ever half full each fortnight. If you’re recycling then how are you making so much waste? Even with nappies we never used to fill it. Not sure what a dog adds either, save a few poo bags.

Shouldn't the baked bean tin go in the recycling?😛

We found that when we started composting food waste our actual refuse shrank to nothing. We often don't need to put out bins out for four or even six weeks. So highly recommend doing that.

@Grammarnut There's no waste with reusable nappies 🙂
Minimal food waste, as I said (we compost and have a dog..), which is why any bones are frozen till bin day and only partially fill the space the uncooked food took in the freezer.

There’s no need whatsoever for the tin in the first place. People need to start taking responsibility and growing their own baked beans. No doubt someone will be along shortly to say they don’t have a garden, but they do perfectly well in a heap of soil on the kitchen floor.

We just take our bin bags out of the bin cupboard and leave them at the edge of the drive as instructed. They’re always taken, no matter how many there are.

You mean terry nappies. There will still be nappy liners (must not be flushed) and terry nappies must be bleached and then washed and then dried. They tend to go hard if dried outside, so need to go in the drier. Disposable nappies are a huge liberation from those chores (and I remember my mother boiling nappies in a metal bucket on the stove), which almost always fall to women. So you have a smelly nappy bucket somewhere - bathroom - and smelly water to dispose of and nappies to be dried all the time. And I have not even gone into the gallons of water needed to wash such nappies (no joke if you are unlucky enough to have a water meter) - unless you wash by hand, which (see above) requires boiling. Not a plus.
And there are also sanitary towels - yes, there are re-usable ones and period pants etc (but not all women use these and should not be forced to). The washing problem appears again and it doesn't cover tampons, which will smell if left in a bin for any length of time, as will panty liners and incontinence products (which many women need as a result of childbirth).
I am frequently amazed by the women who espouse e.g. terry nappies over disposables and even low use of washing machines and other conveniences. They appear not to realise that the loss of these conveniences mean women are locked into back-breaking housework; if they also go out to work the burden women are asked to bear from these 'green' ideas is much greater than that borne by men. 'Green' is a feminist issue in many ways.
NB Your dog may eat leftovers. Mine gets diarrhoea. I agree with composting but not everyone has a garden or a garden large enough for a compost system.

You can make your own baked beans! Get a pressure cooker! Brill. No tins involved.

They can’t take additional bags as there is not enough space! Imagine if everyone on the route had an extra two bags collected, the last street on the route would have to be missed. I expect you’d be even more cross if this happened to be you. Go to the tip like everyone else does.

NB Your dog may eat leftovers. Mine gets diarrhoea. I agree with composting but not everyone has a garden or a garden large enough for a compost system.

Sorry, are you saying you feed you dog shit?

@Grammarnut
You don't need to use liners every time, only if expecting a poo, so barely any waste, you should flush poos down the loo anyway regardless of which nappy (used to be printed on disposable packets back in the day).
You don't need to bleach them or soak them, and if in a soft water area or you have a water softener, or if you use modern fabric nappies (bamboo, or some are lined with synthetics they're actually really soft ). You don't have to tumble dry, that's optional and I'm of the less is more environmentally favourable/keep the energy bill down so don't, unless the sun is shining (we have solar) and then all the small stuff goes in the dryer, big stuff on the line as it's less to peg out individually. Water consumption is less in the washing over a lifecycle than in manufacture of the equivalent of disposables - and if you're lazy like me you don't ever run out or have to go shopping for more. Frankly, living rurally, I preferred to wash nappies than keep popping out for more, and I found the containment of nappy plus separate wrap = no leaks. Meaning less clothes washing, and not having to lug spare clothing about when you take the baby out.
Washable pads, washable period pants, or a cup for absolute minimal waste and effort.
Men do change nappies, do the washing etc or haven't you ever experienced that? (I do feel sorry for you if feel obliged to pick up the burden of domestic chores), but I don't 'get' what's difficult about lobbing stuff in a machine, shutting the door and pressing a button, when it means less trips to the outside bin, no bin to put out most weeks, and definitely NO SHOPPING!
Of course it's a choice, but if you're not bothered about the environment then you won't be taking those options.

And then you compost the dog, I think.

Speak to your local councillor who can arrange an extra collection for you or perhaps get another bin.

I don't have a car. Many people in cities don't.

We are a family of four and probably fill one bin bag over 2 weeks! We recycle pretty much everything we can, have a food waste collection and I drop all soft plastics off at Tesco to be recycled. If you make an effort, you should have hardly any household waste. I never understand how people have overflowing bins these days.

Please recycle.