to put rubbish in public bins because it won't fit in the wheelie bin?

[rubbwubb]

I have a lot of rubbish despite recycling as much as possible. I have a DC with SEN and an eating disorder so have to buy a lot of packet food that comes with all the wrappings.

I am not entitled to a bigger bin. The wheelie bin used to be bigger which worked well but they have changed it to half the size and it is only collected every two weeks.

The bin fills up very quickly so the only way I can manage is to put the rubbish in public bins. I can't get to the tip as it is too far away and I have no one to look after DC who can't be left alone.

I'm shocked that your recycling is only once a month. I've never heard of that. Round here recycling is taken every week so easy to get rid of most of our waste that way as most if not all packaging is recyclable here.

I’m not really understanding why you can’t go to the tip.
In our tip, you can drive right up alongside the skips, get out the car and put your rubbish in. If there isn’t space directly next to the skips, you can park a little bit further away and walk or you can just wait for a space to free up next to one. You’d be out the car for a couple of minutes and able to see your DC the whole time. Unless your tip is a different set up.
I wouldn’t worry too much about using public bins though, so long as you aren’t overfilling them. But surely that is still requiring to you to fill up the car, drive to suitable bin and get out the car to dump it? In that case you’re as well using the tip. How far away are we talking?

Whilst I am all for saving the environment I do think some of the limitations put on rubbish have become unreasonable for many people.
We don’t have wheelie bins as yet in my area but I dread them coming because I know I will have too much black bag rubbish to fit in a bin only collected every two weeks.
Plus I am housebound by disability and have limited kitchen space so I can’t keep taking recycling outside or having multiple bins indoors. I am also diagnosed with chronic ocd and there is no way I can keep food waste in a caddy indoors for days.
I am hoping I will be able to get some flexibility from my local council but who knows.
I think in terms of doing my bit for the planet I already save quite a bit of damage by never flying, don’t have a car, always buy second hand clothes except for undies and shoes, have been veggie all my adult life and haven’t had children.
About my only climate “vice” is gas central heating but I can’t afford to change that.
This all being so I feel that I have off set a bit of extra rubbish.
You have my sympathy OP.

"GreenFields07 · Today 19:49

We are a family of 5, our paper bin is also only collected once a month (like the rest of the country)."

Just to point out that where I live, all recycling, except for soft plastic, is collected weekly. So that's tins, cans, bottles, jars, hard plastics, paper, card and plastics, all properly sorted and collected in the appropriate box/weighted bag. We also have food waste caddies that are collected weekly and used batteries are bagged in a food bag and tied to the handle of the food caddy. General waste is only collected every 3 weeks and garden waste (which we buy a permit for) is collected every 8 weeks.

There have been moans and complaints, but generally the system works well. Our bin emptiers are not permitted to empty general waste bins if there is a significant quantity of recyclable material in it. They will leave a note explaining why.

We are allowed two large recycling bins per household is it worth asking if they do an extra option like this?

With regard to food waste, we are issued with 2 caddies and biodegradable bags. A small caddy for the kitchen and a larger outside caddy to put filled bags in. It's only the large caddy that is emptied weekly.

It makes me so cross that councils are reducing collections like this and then when there are issues (which residents all alert them to will happen) it at then the fault of the individuals, not that collections have been reduced. Bloody typical. I hope that everyone who feels that their bin collections are not frequent enough are constantly complaining to the council/their councillors.

I would talk to your neighbours. They might be in the same boat- they might offer to take you to recycling centre/tip when they go- they presumably will be in same position- you probably don't have more rubbish than everyone else in the street. Or, if you do have more rubbish than everyone else, they might let you put a few bits in their bin, if they have space.

I've done this. I hated doing it, but we only have a certain amount of trips to the dump/recycling centre a year, and I'd used all mine up. We had rats in the garden so I was super paranoid about leaving bin bags out. I wish we had more local recycling facilities.

I always empty my car rubbish in public bins. There are lots where I live, many I can pull right up to which I can’t do at home. Our wheelie bin is usually ok for us but I’d have no problem chucking a small bag of rubbish in my car every time I did the school run to put it in a public bins.

Id draw the line at big bin bags though.

Bollocks will you! Nobody is going to prosecute you for putting rubbish in a bin! FFS!
Only on Mumsnet!

Plastics can be put in the sink and boiling water from the kettle poured very slowly over them and this will reduce their size. Also, assuming you regularly have the same items you could keep them and stack them before putting in the bin?

It's happened a number of times. I just picked one to show you.

Yes, it is crazy, but that's this country for you.

https://salisburyandavon.co.uk/warning-over-rubbish-after-1000-for-using-wrong-bin/

Have you checked that your council won't give additional recycling bins/boxes? Do all your neighbours use theirs (you might get agreement to put stuff in their bins if they're not full)? I used to swap recycling with a colleague who lived in the next county because we were able to recycle different things.

@LastTrainsEast READ the article. The rubbish was left on a pathway NOT in a bin! Nobody is going to pay the slightest bit of notice to someone putting a carrier bag of rubbish in a public bin regularly. Absolutely nobody.

It was in the FIRST LINE.

We have a half size wheelie bin for a family of 3 or 4 people living at home and mainly wfh too. We never fill it, it's often only half full on collection day (fortnightly). How many people in your household op? I'm not fully understanding how you generate so much rubbish?

Our black bin is full, our recycling is full. I get ds2 to jump on our recycling. I can understand why op struggles. Having read all the replies I can't see that anything is going to help her much, other than applying for a bigger bin.

I don't understand why this the harder plastic that won't scrunch up isn't going in the recycling?

But in answer to the original question, yabu to use a public waste bin for domestic waste.

I've occasionally put small bags of rubbish in the public bin. I tend to keep s carrier bag in the car for any rubbish that I gather such as crisp packaging etc then stop when I'm out and about and put it in a bin. If you need to do it take a small bag, recycle what you can and make sure there is nothing with your address on. My argument is that I'm paying my council tax for a public bin to be emptied as a member of the public I'll put rubbish in it.

Not all areas collect it!

Our council only collect glass bottles/jars, cans, plastic bottles, paper/card, and food waste at the kerbside. No plastic packaging, no yoghurt pots or other plastic food containers. No batteries. No small electricals (they claim to take them, but if you actually try and put one out on top of the glass container as instructed the binmen refuse to empty the entire container which then causes a glass overflow the following week that's a pain to get rid of 🙄).

We are a family of 5, have a standard size bin collected fortnightly with no issues.

Do you have a local recycling centre? Ours has a non recyclable bin.

It's probably one of those well-publicised "making an example of somebody" cases to make councils and the police look more powerful than they really are, and to get the keyboard warriors frothing on both sides: how dare they prosecute, and how dare anybody use the wrong bins. On the rare occasion that they get a prosecution, they tell the local press, and the council briefly looks big, strong, powerful, and authoritarian. It was like the prosecuting the grannies who hugged their grandchildren when we were not in the same bubble: there were one or two well-publicised prosecutions, to make the authorities look powerful. We didn't hear about the thousands who ignored the nonsense and got away with it.

As we all know, the reality is that the police and courts have been cut to the bone, and barely have time for really serious crimes, never mind things like this. For a "number of times" this has happened, there are tens of thousands of times it hasn't happened, if the amount of fly-tipping is anything to go by. I myself don't need to put household rubbish in public bins, but I wouldn't hesitate to do so if necessary.

Lots of things in the news are not as they seem. If you have to put household rubbish in a public bin, just do it. If you feel conscience about filling them up, look for emptier ones. It's true that bins in high streets often have small apertures to deter this, but there are often other places. Most places with a car park have a bin: motorway services, leisure centres, etc. And for the replies of "just take it to the tip": that very much depends on where you live. I happen to live within a mile of one, in a small town, so not a very busy one. Many of these supposedly ubiquitous "tips" can be nightmarish: needing to book in advance, long queues (even with booking), limited number of visits, etc. And they wonder why there is so much fly-tipping.

Just be careful as you are committing an offence by putting household waste from home into litter bins. If you are happy to take that risk then carry on.

But I'd check that you can just do more recycling first... Are you sure you are recycling everything you can?

It's true I'm afraid. Litter bins are specifically for litter so the council or the environment agency enforcement officers can fine you for using the bin for household waste.