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?

Mine fits 4/5 bin bags. It’s normal wheelie bin sized.

Im also in glasgow and our general waste is every 8 days…I didn’t realise it was different across the city.

We have 3 bins - general waste, paper & card and plastics plus a box for glass.
They're all collected every 3 weeks with no issues.
People moaned at first and said it wouldn't work.

I mean… nobody should be digging around in the bins to touch period products so people are safe.

I am just one person and my general waste bin is pretty much full when it’s collected every other week! I don’t know how families cope with it.

Mine has been every 3 weeks for 10 years. My mum is in the same council area but still every 2 weeks. Apparently they made the decision based on recycling levels. The areas where they recycled better went to 3 weeks!

I do end up going to the local recycling centre some times with general waste but now I tend to occasionally go for a local bin company that empties a bin for £12

I wouldn’t say we’re that careful but as a family of 4 we’d manage every 3 weeks. Not a large bin either. We often fill our recycling bins though

We are a 5-person household - our general waste is collected fortnightly but only ever has one full bin bag (30L bag). We would be fine with one collection per month, I reckon.

It is disgusting. At one point I had 3 in nappies and was changing around 15 nappies a day. That's over 300 nappies every 3 weeks and the council still made us fill out a silly little diary tracking everything we put in our bins for several weeks to see if we could justify getting a bigger bin. Which we had to pay for anyway. Paying for it wasn't an issue but the ridiculous process was. And bins sitting for 3 weeks are absolutely stinking.

We sere going to struggle due to elderly parents with incontinece and medical issues - so pay for Biffa instead, costs approx £45 a month for two collections, the advantage being its one of those massive commercial bins and its a service where they sort it out, so it just all goes in.

It’s been 3 weekly where I live for a couple of years. no wheelie bins, we can put out 3 normal black bags. As a family if 3 it’s rare we put out more than one.

We’ve had this for a few years now and it’s fine. Family of 4. Even with one in nappies. You can get an extra bin for 2+ in nappies I think. In fact, our bin didn’t get collected last week due to weather so we’ve gone four weeks and it’s only just full now. Our last collection was before Christmas!

We do have an extra cardboard recycling bin as we generate a lot of that. It does take extra time but you do get complacent when you have a lot of bin space I think.

Yes, we throw out so much cardboard!

It’s disgraceful!

Ours at the moment is every fortnight recycle and food waste and garden waste is weekly.
our useless council are now looking to role out the every 3 weeks.
we struggle already with general being fortnightly it’s always full despite recycling.
when they sent out questionnaires for it I voted against it reasons being it would increase risks of diseases , rats and encourage fly tipping even more so.
That really this all needs to be pushed back onto big corporate businesses the amount on excess packaging or non recyclable packaging used is what makes it harder.
It’s a nightmare and I often wonder who’s it benefiting it’s not the environment sake it’s so the gutsy twats can fill their own pockets more with extra pay by the amount of cut backs they keep doing.

We are a family of 4 and have been on 3 weekly collections for a couple of years. Never had an overflowing bin. General waste is a normal sized wheelie bin.
Recycling and food waste is collected weekly

The bins have been collected every 3 weeks where we are for ages. We can’t manage at all. We have bought an overspill bin for outside where we have to store extra waste and there is a company who do private bin collections (with a bin provided) that we are going to start paying for. Our recycling bins are always at maximum capacity too so it’s not that we are lazy about recycling, it is just the council waste bin is too small to be collected every 3 weeks. They gave us all smaller bins the week they started the 3 weekly collection.

If your council doesn’t recycle much it can be hard to cut down.

where I am we have one wheelie bin for all recycling and they won’t take any more. That’s two weekly.

general waste is everything else and often people put recyclables in there because the recyclables bin is full.

What’s council tax for then? I’m beginning to despair of the shit show of services that we pay for.

We have a 2 black bag limit every 3 weeks.

paper, cardboard, plastics/cans, glass and food waste are collected weekly

it’s fine. If anything it makes us think about what we’re buying and how it’s packaged.

@DeftWasp that sounds ideal watch now Biffa will be getting more custom before long when people get fed up of councils ripping everyone off.

Ours has been 3 weekly for years - our council was one of pioneers, apparently. We managed even when we had kids in nappies, and two cats using a litter tray. It's easier now, not just because I don't have anyone in nappies, but the council now takes plastics which it didn't before. I would also really recommend saving your soft plastic waste and taking it to Tesco/Aldi. I think I fill the equivalent of a regular bin bag each cycle with soft plastics.

Ours is ridiculous. We have to pay for a permit for food/garden waste, but you cannot put out your food waste caddy at the same time as the big green bin which is meant for garden waste. Our general rubbish is every 2 weeks which is ok. Plastics and glass seems to be every 4-5 weeks. But our paper ones recently changed and are now only every 5-6 which is just not frequent enough as it’s such a tiny narrow bin. I can foresee that eventually all bins will require a permit.

We've just done 3 wks due to the weather - the black bin was delayed by a week.

The bin was so heavy after 3 wks.

Surely in summer they must absolutely stink.

They're bad enough after 2 wks.

It's every 3 weeks here. I find it ok as there are bins for all plastic, glass, paper and aluminium. In fact there is enough room for me to sneak in my grass cuttings in black bags as I refuse to pay £100 for the garden waste bin on top of the crazily high council tax 🤐

I have noticed more flies at the end of summer the last couple of years. I don't know if that is a result of climate change, bins left for longer or something else altogether.