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.

Our council let you have a bigger bin if you have children in nappies.

green bins get emptied every two weeks where I am and they don't take side waste. We have an appalling fly tipping problem and people just leave black bags out on the street which then get ripped open by rats/cats/foxes and rotting food and other waste spills out onto the pavement, We have loads of unofficial HMOs so the amount of waste being produced is huge. People just don't seem to care about their local environment anymore, they just chuck stuff out in the street.

OMG @SassyCrab just seen havering still aren’t recycling food waste which is nuts. Yuck having to put food in black bins. No help to you now but they need to be providing a food caddy and larger food bin … that must take up lots of room in your black bin as well as attracting flies in summer!

Not having a go but if you get into the habit of recycling other stuff it soon becomes a habit (so I now have loads of room in the black bin)

OP don’t you have a food waste collection? We have our black rubbish bags collected every 3 weeks, but only what will fit in the wheelie bin. They used to collect side waste eg extra bags but this stopped a few months ago. Recycling is every 2 weeks and they will take recycling that doesn’t fit in the box. Food waste is collected every week. This means the actual bin doesn’t smell. We have 2 children, one in nappies and until recently two dogs and one wheelie bin was usually sufficient. Alternatively could you ask for an extra bin?

It isn’t that the bin men ‘can’t be bothered’, the local authority doesn’t collect weekly. It’s not the fault of the bin men. You need to squash your bin bags down or have less waste! Can you separate more to recycle? Can you put some food waste in the compost bin? It’s not going to get any better, our LA is going over to every three weeks collections

Well I asked the chap at the service station and he didn't have a problem with it.

I’m Essex (Braintree district council) and they used to have a policy that if you were using nappies you were entitled to bigger bin. My daughter hasn’t been in nappies for 13 years, but I still have the bin . Not sure if policy still in place but might be worth a look in your area.

Ours is every 2 weeks a slim bin we recycle really well and just about manage when we had 5 of us here it was a struggle especially as Ds1 has a lot of waste due to his medical conditions

If everybody did this they wouldn't have capacity in their bin wagon and therefore it's only fair there's a blanket ban on additional waste being collected.

Washable nappies solves a lot of "bin issues"
Ditto washable/reusable sanitary protection.
And recycling as much as is possible.

Our wheelie bin gets emptied once a fortnight but tbh I think we'd be fine if it was only every month or sometimes we'd cope if it was only every 6 weeks. We are also veggie so no meat/fish is going in ours that would attract rats/cats. If yours really is that full every week I think you need to be trying harder to throw away a lot less. All that stuff you are chucking away doesnt end up disappearing somewhere magical, it will be in landfill for 500 years and more.

The amount of money available to councils has steadily reduced over the past 15 years. About 90% of council budgets is spent on statutory responsibilities, mostly child and adult social care.

Councils provide parks, libraries, roads and pavements, environmental health services, planning, housing, trading standards, cultural services, support for children and adults with special needs...

Providing refuse collection is a key responsibility but it costs money and so limits need to be set.
If you want more rubbish collected than is provided, then you need to make other arrangements.

OP, have you tried asking your neighbours if they have any spare space in their bins? I live on my own and only put my rubbish bin out once a month as it takes that long to fill it, so you may find someone similar nearby or via a local FB group who can help you out?

Also, some councils offer different bin sizes, so you might be able to get a larger one.

Or if it's only a small bag on top of the bin, it might fit in a general litter bin if you have any near you.

The point of fortnightly bin collections is to encourage you to recycle more. Just recycle more and create less single use waste.

I did washable nappies with my kids, not saying this to be a hero but the amount of waste it saved was massive. Even just using washable nappies at home and disposable liners to catch and dispose of poo.

Seriously, you are producing that much rubbish from a family of two adults and a babe, that you are strewing your waste along the street on collection day and then complaining your council won't lift it??

Ever hear of the advice - get your own house in order?

I think you need to look at what you are buying and throwing away

I have a feeling all of your problems will be solved if you pop your postcode in to your local council’s website and actually read what the rules are and what extra help you can get. I’m sure there will be options if you have nappies, food waste and they will tell you certain rules about the lid being closed and not taking extra bags (unless they are of course like your old council and make you take the rubbish OUT of the bin to leave out for the bin man).

Our bins are 4 weekly and you can only get a larger one if the household is 6 or over or there are specific medical needs. You can get extra recycling wheelie bins on request but general waste you don't.

Honestly it sounds hard but if you properly recycle it's okay. The only difficulty comes if you are trying to have a clear out of non-recyclable stuff (damaged clothes etc), unless you can go to the tip, you just need to do things slowly over a few months.

I didn’t know they would be so many Karen’s on here, maybe be more helpful instead of criticising and judging!

You’ve just lost any sympathy people might have had! I’ve seen helpful comments along with the judging. Do you have food waste recycling?

If you are Medway, that is why there is so much rubbish everywhere. The foxes get in the rubbish sacks. Wheelie bins are much better.

You can also get washable continence pads/puppy pads.

We use them for our elderly dog. I think they're marketed as continence pads for beds for the infirm, but we still have a disabled 6yo in nappies, in a house with 3 adults and still manage fortnightly bin collections.

Cut down on your rubbish then. Neither my dog or baby over loaded the rubbish. Do more recycling, replace pop plastic bottles with a soda stream and water with a filter. There’s loads of ways you can reduce your waste.

@SassyCrab if you think your council tax is purely to facilitate your bin collection, you've got a lot of growing up to do.

And in your title, you have blamed the bin men, not the council.

The strategy is to make YOU more responsible. Create less waste. Recycle more.

Stop expecting life to pander to you. Please.

Wow. Turns out you’re not just massively wasteful, you’re a misogynist and downright rude.

Sort yourself out. Stop piling your bin full of stuff which you shouldn’t have bought in the first place. And stop whining that you can’t get your own way because you can’t manage your house.

I'm surprised this had 9 pages of replies already.
2 adults, 1 baby and a dog shouldn't fill a bin like that.

As PP said you guys need to look at your lifestyle. You are producing too much waste and even worse, wasting food!