AIBU to think councils should do extra waste collections at Xmas, not fewer?

[Pyew]

Because regardless of what people "should" be doing, there's always extra to pick up at this time, and going into denial about it creates problems that last for weeks rather than days.

Eg I live in a block of flats, with a communal bin store for three blocks. It was last emptied 3.5 weeks ago and now it's so disgusting with both overflowing recycling and regular bins that the bin lorry came and went today just leaving it in that state. We are all now going to have to pay the management company an extra fee to clear it, and I'll be storing trash and doing tip runs with my own waste until that happens.

Obviously the immediate problem has been caused by people just dumping stuff in there once the bins got full, but it probably wouldn't have happened if we'd had an extra pickup over Xmas - the rest of the year it's fine, but every Xmas it backs up. It's not even solely caused by my immediate neighbours - I've certainly witnessed people driving into the estate and offloading their trash into our stores, presumably because their own collection schedule isn't adequate at this time of year.

AIBU to think that although yes it would be lovely if we lived in a waste-free world where everyone merrily composted their tiny output, simply pretending there isn't a problem actually creates a much bigger problem that could be easily resolved by just one extra waste collection, once a year?

They don't do fewer collections do they? Certainly not where I am from anyway.

We had a message on our local market town Facebook page from the council saying the recycleable/green waste wouldn't be collected from some parts of the town today, because they were so far behind because of the snow. Within 5 minutes some numpty comes on and says 'do we get a refund on our £56 we paid for the green waste for the year then?'

Some wannabe comedian thinking they were being funny and clever.

They weren't being either.

For a start, the subscription is for the whole year.

Secondly, the fee is not for the bottles, cardboard, tins, and jars, it's for the green bin (twigs, grass cuttings, leaves, dead flowers, hedge trimmings, dead plants etc,) and NO-ONE is putting those in the green bin in January. 🙄 And even if you were, you'd not have more than a couple of pound refund, as it's only one collection (that you've paid for) not done.

I think you and this man would get on @Pyew

Perhaps if all residents had been a little more mindful re waste generated and left the bin store in a more acceptable state, then the rubbish would have been picked up today?

I don't think it's very practical to buy extra bin lorries and take on extra bin collectors just for a short period over Christmas.

It would be depriving them of their breaks though. So it is a bit about that.

We don't have a reduced collection though. We have a rescheduled collection. So we wait longer for the first couple of post Christmas collections, then it goes back to the normal day.

This is unnecessary hyperbole. Why do you think it would require entirely separate vehicles and crews rather than just paying a bit of overtime for your existing staff to do an extra circuit in the vehicles councils already have?

This thread reminds me of that episode of The Simpsons where Homer is annoyed with the bin men after "Love Day" and becomes sanitation commissioner...

It is a pita, obv binmen are entitled to a xmas holiday like everyone else but I wish they would offer an overtime shift to those who want it at weekend to collect the extra rubbish.
Our binmen usually collect cardboard left to side of bin /overflow but they left it all last week ,just took bin.
We are lucky have space to store it but it takes weeks to get back to normal

I didn't. Only bought food that I needed so no additional food waste. No additional household waste. Recycling bin is full, but i could have squished the cardboard down more if needed.

I appreciate it's hard in a flat where you don't have control over bins as they are shared. But reducing waste is the answer, not more collections. Why is more waste created this week? Because we're buying too much.

A whole extra collection from every house wouldn't be "a bit of overtime" though, surely?

@WhatsitWiggle

I didn't. Only bought food that I needed so no additional food waste. No additional household waste. Recycling bin is full, but i could have squished the cardboard down more if needed.

🙄

It would be literally twice their workload over the week.

And then spunks the entire annual budget in a month. Which is what would happen in real life too 😆

Yes for one week. And why would that require an entire new fleet of vehicles?

Well no, I'm not sure making your workforce do double their usual hours for a week is reasonable, or even manageable. But it wouldn't require new lorries.

Well yeah.

In other news, if humanity were a bit more mindful there wouldn't be any wars. Imagine the excess waste we'd save from that. Similarly, those homeless people, they should just buy houses and stop being homeless. Footballers need to stop fucking about midfield and just boot the ball into the net. Also it's not hard to write a novel, all you need do is write one word then another and keep going.

Or, maybe it's not quite so simple.

Glad you agree. Not sure why you felt the need to blunder in to me responding to a previous poster who claimed we couldn't because we'd need new vehicles to manage additional Christmas collections but Godspeed to you.

Ours does the same amount, just a slight alteration, using Saturday. Written into the contract.

Everyone generates additional waste over Xmas.

'Everyone' doesn't. I spent Christmas at home. The only extra waste I generated is the twenty or so Christmas cards which I received and some wrapping paper, which will go out in my paper collection at some point. Oh, and the cardboard box from some chocolates I was given.

I last emptied my kitchen bin the week before Christmas; it's still only half full.

I don't think I generated extra waste over Christmas, but in my area they completely skipped a collection, not just rescheduled. So recycling has now not been collected for 3 weeks and is overflowing. I wanted to take it to the tip but here you have to book a tip visit, and it's booked up for the next two weeks!
So I don't think there should be an extra collection, but there also shouldn't be reduced collections.

I was commenting on "a bit of overtime".

If capacity is an issue then surely an easy solution would be to replace garden waste collection with general waste collection for a week or two. Demand for garden waste must be low in January so it's not much of an issue and no binman needs to work extra hours.

To those who say they don't generate extra rubbish at Christmas - do you host? I had family stay over for a week and also hosted additional 15 people on boxing day. That, plus the packaging from presents for all those people meant I had lots of extra waste. Meanwhile, the family that was staying with me had an empty bin at their home.

We only get a pick up every 3 weeks anyway but our council did collect over the weekend between Christmas and New Year if you were due on Christmas Day or Boxing Day. The big bins for flats have different arrangements usually, the one at the end of our road is collected by a commercial company

The easy solution here would be to ask them to take some recycling etc home with them...

@WhatsitWiggle neither did we, we let our neighbours use our extra bin capacity too. We get unlimited recycling so that’s never an issue