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.

We have the same here.

they only empty one bin, that’s all they’re contracted to do. Excess waste has to be dealt with yourself.

are you recycling fully, crushing everything etc?

I am always surprised at how much rubbish some people must generate. There are just two of us, but one small waste bin collected every two weeks and it's normally only a quarter full. We have a food waste collection, but that's usually no more than one small bag. I agree with others that aiming to reduce the waste you produce is the first step!

My general waste bin isn’t usually full unless I’ve been having a clear out so I’ve told my NDN family that they can put their excess in if necessary. They only put bagged rubbish in so it doesn’t affect me at all. Maybe ask some of your neighbours if they mind you popping in a bag or two

That is annoying but can you get another bin the same type as the one you have? If you put two out they'll just empty them.

You must have a lot of rubbish. I recycle everything that I can, some paper/cardboard and the other is plastic, tins, glass, cartons, etc. Everything is collected.

It's not their fault. It's the council's.
If someone fly tipped a load of stuff on top of someone's full bin then they can't take it. So anything above and beyond one bin's worth is too much, or classed as 'invalid'. It does seem shite though.
If you're allowed a second bin then fair enough. But I bet You're not.
Every two weeks is awful.
As we don't have wheelie bins in our area they come every night! And the recycling once a week.
It is dreadful you should have to wait for such a long time. What do they do with all the money we give them?
No matter what colour, all councils are both tight and monumentally wasteful simultaneously. Pretty astonishing really. Imagine if they were profit seeking businesses?

I really don't know why so many of you think the Op can recycle more - you can't recycle disposable nappies nor can you recycle dog poo bags !!!

You could buy a 2nd bin ?

Our bin men take everything left out for them, provided it is either bagged and or in the bin, if the bags are split and leaking rubbish they will not pick any rubbish off the ground and may refuse the bag.

If they took the bags on top of the bin then more people would be lazy like you and not recycle properly. You have to recycle everything you can - paper/card, plastics, glass etc. Does your council not do a weekly food waste collection? Food shouldn't go in the general waste bin, it should be in the smaller food waste bin. Stop blaming the council and get better with separating your waste.

Firstly, don’t blame the refuse collectors.

Secondly, I have two small kids in nappies and don’t come close to filling a wheelie bin every two weeks. But then I don’t let much food go to waste, and the scraps and stuff go into the food waste caddy, and I recycle all I can. Maybe try some of that?

I’ve just read your updates.

a lot of Essex authorities have separate bins for food waste. Do you follow this?

you’ve said you’re not recycling as much as you should be. This is an issue, obviously.

also have you actually read your council tax letter? Most of it goes to highways maintenance, fire, police etc.

I used to work for an LA and the amount of people who used to complain about how much they paid for their ‘bin collection’ was hilarious. Actually the council received approximately £35 for collecting your bins from your CT payments. FOR THE ENTIRE YEAR. I can assure you the contracts run into the millions. You do not cover the cost of the waste collection I promise you.

She says she doesn’t bother with recycling as much as she could.

They give us bags but don't get collected. They're meant to, but resources are so limited.
Occasionally our small litter picking crew have to put them in the bins in the park but that gets too much as well.
We have a plague of Uber drivers - v useful if you need a taxi, not entirely useful for the "dumping takeaway shite on the verge". Gah!!

Ok, so you admit that you don't recycle much, have lots of food waste (that goes in the black bin?), don't use reusable nappies, and have a dog that you allow to use one use pee pads in the house. So yes, you are likely to struggle with many councils' rules! Which is why they're there as much as anything, to try to get people like you to think a little more and try harder.

Your husband sounds like a charmer.

Completely inaccurate. They will empty one only as that’s all they’re contracted to do.

Luckily our bin men take extra bags that are placed on top or beside the bin, however once you start recycling properly that should solve your issue, I lived in an area they wouldn't take extra and we used to regularly have to go for a walk with a carrier bag full of rubbish to find a local bin (we don't drive)

The OP has said they produce a lot of food waste and don’t recycle as much as they should. No one is saying you can recycle nappies but rather they should be recycling to allow more room in the landfill bin.

OP should look at reducing waste really. Our non recyclable waste is collected fortnightly but I usually only put the bin out once a month when it is about half full. We produce very little non recyclable waste but our council does collect food waste every week - we usually have one carrier bag sized bag of food waste per weeks, mainly peelings, teabags, egg shells and bones. Our council is very strict on not taking “side waste” and won’t touch the bin if the lid isn’t fully closed.

Councils are under a lot of pressure to be more environmentally friendly and we should all be doing our bit to reduce, reuse, recycle.

You’ll be getting 3 weekly collections before long with a food waste bin. All councils have to bring in food waste collections, these are generally going to mean 3 weekly bin collections.

We had two in nappies with three weekly collections and generally found it fine but you have to consciously recycle and use the food waste. Occasionally we will do a tip run if we have extra, like after Christmas or a birthday.

Thirty odd years ago before we had recycling bins, our neighbours used to let us put our extra rubbish bags in their bin. There was just the two of them and they were away a lot. Now that our kids are all grown up and left home, we let a young family put their extra bags in our bin. So my advice is, get well in with your older neighbours 😉

Can you really not fathom that weekly collections would mean twice as many staff and lorries? They don't work one day a fortnight, they are out collecting around the area every working day where I live.

If you are putting your rubbish in black bin bags. Stop this. You need to place the rubbish in kitchen bin liners. That way they can fall down into the gaps. Large black bins are unable to compress as much.

My council has reverted from weekly to fortnightly in the autumn. We have the narrow 120l bins. People could swap for a bigger bin - the standard sized one for a one off charge of £35. Still people are using black bin bags and wonder why their bins are full in a week.

Good idea to check if your council will provide litter bags - ours are purple. You can fill them and leave them tied up next to a public litter bin and they get collected. They will collect black bags of litter left by the bins too. It's worth getting in touch with the council as they are usually very enthusiastic about people wanting to litter pick and will do everything they can to help you out - litterpicker sticks, bag hoops, tabards, rolls of bags.

Lots of deliveries, a dog that's not toilet trained, food waste; it's easy to see the problems here.
Stop online shopping; buy a new freezer, organise your food shop better, toilet train the dog.
Do you have separate recycling bins/boxes?

I've got one of those gadgets, he's sitting next to me on the sofa. He literally climbs into the bin and stomps the rubbish down.

Don’t your council do food waste collections?

The council area is split into 10 areas. Monday recycling Monday general and so forth.

So bin men work full time just work in different areas each day.