could you cope if there was a bin collection strike in your area?

[Goldyyup]

I have been following the bin strike in Birmingham and the huge fly tipping as a result of the lack of collections.

How would you manage if that happened in your area? I don't have the space to store all the rubbish.

It has made me realise what an important job they do.

I live in Birmingham. They have literally missed one week in my road so no drama. I am lucky that I am able to take my recycling to my parents house in another area every week. Not sure why some roads have been missed for weeks on end.

Booking slots as the tips in Birmingham is not always easy because the bin men and their supporters are booking them as soon as they become available and then, obviously, not using the slots. It is very difficult to stop these ghost bookings.

We'd be OK. We really don't produce much waste. We recycle soft plastics at the local supermarket which we could keep doing. We compost food waste. Cardboard I also keep (after stripping labels and tape) for use in the garden. Recycling would build up a bit but wouldn't be smelly or attract vermin so we could store that somewhere in the shed or the garden and gradually get rid of it once service resumed.

Until yesterday we hadn't had a collection for 6 weeks. Haven't been able to book a slot at a tip so I took the recycling to my mums last weekend (100 miles away) and piled up the black bags in the front garden. They only emptied the bin and didn't take the black bags 😡

We only have black bin collections once every three weeks. Could manage once a month at a push but that's with weekly recycling and food waste collections. I'm not saintly enough to go longer than that. Our tip has just introduced a booking system and no doubt the LA would love to charge.

If there was a strike I think I'd take it to my dad's for a bonfire, but that's easy to say if you don't live in a city.

Wouldn’t be great, the nearest tip is 30mins away with not the best opening hours.

We'd cope.

DS and I generate so little rubbish that I only need to put the rubbish and recycling bins out once every 7 or 8 weeks.

I have a logburner so cardboard and paper can be used as kindling.

The garden waste bin is a different matter. Even with three compost heaps, it is full every collection day. But at least it doesn't smell or attract rats.

We had one for 8 weeks. Actually nothing much was noted as people helped each other out - I took a few loads to the tip, so did all the neighbours. People looked out for the elderly etc. I am more concerned about the lack of any of this in Birmingham than the men who want to be paid to leave work at 1pm and get paid for a full day. Must be a sad place to live and now a public health risk.

Ours needs a car registration. Would be an easy way to prosecute anyone who is faking a booking.

We had one a couple of years back. Would have struggled as disabled and no car, don't have access to a tip, but some pop up recycling centres were set up for normal household food and recycling waste. My carer drove me there, as by the time they were set up I had several black sacks worth of food and household waste and recycling.

We did see an increase in fly tipping as well and in some towns in our area there were huge rat issues. So not everybody coped. It was the middle of summer. What a stupid time to hold a bin strike. 1978/9 winter of discontent was bad enough (so I've heard, wasn't born until 1982) but at least it was in winter! I support better wages for bin men i(t's a nasty job) but I did think middle of July was stupid timing. All those flies and rats. Urgh.

Our tip does too, but- according to a local councillor- strike supporters are able to get round the system with ghost accounts which they are working to stop but it is proving difficult. I also don’t think you can prosecute for a no show at the tip, but you could potentially ban people if it happened multiple times, I suppose.

I'd manage for a while because I've got two large bins and I live alone. I don't always put the recycling one out because it's nowhere near full.

I could not take stuff to the tip because I'm disabled. I can drive, but I couldn't load or unload it from the car.

It must be very frustrating for everyone, even if you support them. I suspect the roads that haven't been cleared are where they live - it was the only place "affected" when ours wanted more than nurses.

We had a bin strike for a couple of months at the end of summer 22 ish, I think. Our bins are only collected fortnightly anyway so we have adapted . Our recycling bin is always full first. Our black bin would last at least a month before it’s full. We compost veg, potato skins etc already. We took rubbish to the local dump when the strike was on. Mostly glass, tins etc. We burned cardboard, paper waste if I recall correctly.
I think in some areas of Birmingham it must be laziness. Some areas are ok and some are overrun with rats ? I wouldn’t be surprised if some people are collecting rubbish and dumping it I the poorer areas.

I live in Birmingham. The area I live in has a bad fly tipping problem anyway so the strikes have made that worse.
it’s all terraced houses with large families so bins have been overflowing.

last week there were 3 lorries out at the same time collecting rubbish and some people were cheering!

We had one for 11 weeks and both my children were still in nappies. It was hot weather when it started, which didn’t help matters. We did some tip runs but the queues were ridiculous. The day the binmen came back it was like welcoming long lost heroes!

That's funny because ours lost a lot of the goodwill they had from COVID times as a result. It pits them against the public rather than with them.

Do these large families have cars? I would expect so.

Shame they can’t make a few tip runs if so.

we live in Birmingham and it’s been a pain in the arse. We do support their reasons for striking though and I’ve yet to see the towers of bin bags etc shown on the news near us. Everyone is doing what they can in our grove/area to keep things tidy, lots of people offering to help out homes who are unable to drive/access tips etc and longest we’ve gone so far is 4 weeks for normal rubbish.

what’s really annoying is they haven’t collected recycling this year! So a lot is ending up in general waste that should be being recycled.

our grass/garden is well overdue some tlc and I normally pay for green bins but no point atm but they will soon be an issue too.

Nope. We recycle and don’t generate much trash but all my neighbors overflowing bins already set me on edge… smelly/unsightly/ animal lures/and that’s with weekly pick ups

The reality is that it has only impacted on certain parts of the city. I had my bin taken for the first time in 7 weeks yesterday but it’s all just stored in the wheelie bin at the end of the drive. The photos of overflowing bin bags everywhere aren’t reflective of most streets in the city but then that wouldn’t make for an interesting news story.

And where did you hear this rumour because that sounds like complete bollocks to me.

All waste centres have had their opening hours extended so it is easier to get a slot now.

We’d be fine as live in a brilliant community, drive and would be able to help others

We’d be ok in terms of our own waste, don’t produce much, we compost and could store and do tip runs if we needed to. I’m terrified of rats though so couldn’t cope with that element well at all.

It wouldn’t bother us at all for ages.
Our bins are only collected once every 6 weeks anyway where we live. Our black regular bin is usually only 1/4-1/2 full after 6 weeks.

We compost 99% food waste at home in garden. Only things like meat carcass go in bin. I would just wrap and freeze these in bin strike.

Glass and metal we already rinse and have to take to communal bins in town. If they were being collected I would just leave at home in bag or box. In shed or something. Plastic is also only collected fully clean in sacks, so I would just store in shed. We only have 1 sack per 6 weeks usually

cardboard I would just add more to compost. But that wouldn’t be too bad. It’s clean in bin and anything too big I would just flat pack until either taken away or added to compost bin gradually

If I knew no collections and the recycling centre also closed, we could easily reduce most also with more careful shopping

we used washable nappies and wipes with Ds due to the bins already only every 6 weeks. So that would be covered