to think reducing general waste collections to every 3 weeks is unrealistic?

[HazelMember]

The council has reduced general waste collections to once every 3 weeks instead of twice a month. The general waste wheelie bin is already half the size of a normal bin.

I already recycle as much as possible. Cardboard plastics food waste glass tins everything. I am genuinely trying to do the right thing environmentally. But even with all that the general waste still builds up especially with a family.

Three weeks feels like a long time to store rubbish. I keep seeing just recycle more as the answer but I am already doing that. There is not much left to recycle.

How are people actually managing this? Are you just producing less waste somehow or are your bins overflowing too?

AIBU to think this change does not reflect how households actually live?

Just to counter all the “we are a family of 30 and our general waste is collected in a thimble once every 6 months” posts

😆😆

Ours is monthly. It works fine. Rather than looking at what you are not putting in your waste bin, try looking at what you are putting in it. If I was militant about recycling, there would be hardly anything in it. The one thing that fills it most is thin plastics I.e multi pack wrappers, lids from meat trays, sweetie wrappers etc. I could take that separately to somewhere which recycles it but it never occurs to me to do that. What we have done is reduce the number of multipacks we buy in plastic wrapping. Other than that, all that goes in the waste bin is used paper towels, hankies etc, vacuum dust, food that won’t go down the waste disposal.

Although we generate very little as there are only two of us and I can pretty much work out how much we are going to eat, and we compost our peelings and uncooked vegetable waste.

I appreciate that people without gardens will generate more food waste, so no judgement from me.

I've just looked at Article 22 (WFD) - it quite clearly refers to bio-waste (food and garden waste - not general waste/nappies) defined as;

4.‘bio-waste’ means biodegradable garden and park waste, food and kitchen waste from households, offices, restaurants, wholesale, canteens, caterers and retail premises and comparable waste from food processing plants

pretending that it is about encouraging recycling

The directive amending Article 22 is all about encouraging recycling/composting/ environment protection.

Yep! This is me with mine and DH's entire collection of general waste for 2025.

Gonna drop it off at the tip tomorrow.

I'm wrapped up in plenty of layers too, so I can keep the heating off. 😆

The target date for separate collection of bio-waste was 31 December 2023.

Family of 5. We've been on every 3 weeks for a couple of years. Our black bin is never full. Our recycling bins are often bursting before collection.

We recycle paper, plastics, cans, bottles, soft plastics, food waste (and compost) and I use large, plain brown cardboard boxes in the garden to repress weeds.

It is absolutely doable.

Sounds a lot more normal than 'we are a family of 4 people who have a 4 weekly collection, and the general waste bin is only every one eighth full!' 😆

As I said, this is the same ones who claim they never have the heating on at night - EVER, even when it's minus 10C to minus 15C! Batshit. Parallel Universe of Mumsnet strikes again! 😂

Yes let everyone copy @Badbadbunny no matter what size of family, medical, SEN issues. As long as we all do what that poster does there will be no problem.

Great advice @FamilyHomeForChristmas 🙄

We’ve been 3 weekly for all bins for years!

biological waste
babies who have the audacity to poo and women who have the audacity to bleed.

The directive deals with bio-waste - i.e. food and garden waste.

Yep this is me, have been to the tip many times the past few weeks, moved house begining of December my green bin is still full of the previous owners stuff.

I've worked out the reason they hardly have any waste is because they're making one roast chicken feed their entire family 3 meals a day for a week. Makes sense now.

Can't imagine what kind of a state my neighbourhood would look with collections every three weeks.
It's weekly here and bags only. When you live in an area where it's all terraces opening directly onto the street bins just aren't really possible.

Yes of course it’s about environmental protection! But that includes providing a decent standard of living for citizens in towns and cities that isn’t polluted with rotting waste. You perhaps haven’t looked at the full text including the 2018 amendments. Biological waste has to be collected regularly under the Directive in all EU countries. They cannot lump in sanitary products, nappies etc with general waste and then decide to collect it every three weeks by which time it will stink and be infested with maggots/ flies and attract rats, particularly in Council areas which don’t provide wheelie bins. Again, if you have an example of an EU country which doesn’t EITHER provide separate collection of sanitary and medical waste frequently OR collect general waste more frequently than every three weeks if it lumps this biological waste in with general waste (as many Councils in the UK are doing alongside only 3-weekly collections) then please specify which country this is.

If i didn't have cats and had a food waste bin I could cope three weekly as long as I kept my big bin but my area hardly recycle anything

It makes you wonder how those of us with three weekly collections have survived all these years.

While I don't doubt that many Councils have been put on a reduced diet by Central Government I think they do have a tendency to make cuts in areas that the majority will actually notice in order to get more funding.

No doubt several people have already responded to this, but I thought I would offer another view. Some of us live in countries where central heating is not the norm and most of us don't heat our houses overnight, no matter how cold it is. During the day we generally heat the room we are in the most, and the rest of the house is like a fridge. Somehow we survive.

However, we do have weekly rubbish collections!

You perhaps haven’t looked at the full text including the 2018 amendments

No, I haven't read it all - but you specifically quoted 'Article 22' which I have looked at - 2008 and the 2018 amendment you quoted. I can't see a definition of 'biological waste' either, which you keep referring to - only a definition of 'bio-waste' (definitions are listed in Article 3);

bio-waste’ means biodegradable garden and park waste, food and kitchen waste from households, offices, restaurants, wholesale, canteens, caterers and retail premises and comparable waste from food processing plants.

2008 Directive
Article 22
Bio-waste
Member States shall take measures, as appropriate, and in accordance with Articles 4 and 13, to encourage:
(a)
the separate collection of bio-waste with a view to the composting and digestion of bio-waste;
(b)
the treatment of bio-waste in a way that fulfils a high level of environmental protection;
(c)
the use of environmentally safe materials produced from bio-waste.
The Commission shall carry out an assessment on the management of bio-waste with a view to submitting a proposal if appropriate. The assessment shall examine the opportunity of setting minimum requirements for bio-waste management and quality criteria for compost and digestate from bio-waste, in order to guarantee a high level of protection for human health and the environment.

2018 AMENDMENT

(19)
Article 22 is replaced by the following:
‘Article 22
Bio-waste
1. Member States shall ensure that, by 31 December 2023 and subject to Article 10(2) and (3), bio-waste is either separated and recycled at source, or is collected separately and is not mixed with other types of waste.
Member States may allow waste with similar biodegradability and compostability properties which complies with relevant European standards or any equivalent national standards for packaging recoverable through composting and biodegradation, to be collected together with bio-waste.
2. Member States shall take measures in accordance with Articles 4 and 13, to:
(a)
encourage the recycling, including composting and digestion, of bio-waste in a way that fulfils a high level of environment protection and results in output which meets relevant high-quality standards;
(b)
encourage home composting; and
(c)
promote the use of materials produced from bio-waste.
3. By 31 December 2018, the Commission shall request the European standardisation organisations to develop European standards for bio-waste entering organic recycling processes, for compost and for digestate, based on best available practices.

Can you quote from the section you were looking at (which is clearly not Article 22)?

😆

In Wales we can put out 3 black bags of general waste every 3 weeks . Recycling is collected weekly. We rarely manage to fill more than 2 black bags. You need to be committed to recycling to reduce general waste . Once it becomes a habit it is easy.

Well obviously initiatives like this are a triumph for the environment because driving cars full of trash to the tip is a sure-fire way of saving the planet. Also there's the added benefit that it encourages people to spend their time and attention on curtain twitching dog in the manger conversations about individual actions, which ultimately are miniscule in impact compared to corporate acts, re environmental harm.

Lots of people are already committed to recycling and it is still a struggle. My paper bin is only collected once a month and it is overflowing nearly everytime.