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?

I have 12 children in nappies (I just use reusables though. So easy) and 18 incontinent dogs. We only fill half a bag for life every 3 weeks. How much rubbish do other people have??

"Not all Councils offer this service. Ours is telling people to put sanitary and soiled medical items, dog and cat poo, dirty nappies etc into general waste then only collecting it every 3 weeks."

My son's is every 2 weeks. Because he is classed as living alone they won't give him an extra bin despite being fully incontinent and having 3 carers night and day who also produce rubbish.

Yes, really. I live in a detached house. The Council has just gone to 3 weekly collections for general waste. They stated that they “discussed” a separate service for sanitary and medical waste, nappies etc but decided not to provide this because those who needed it were “a minority”. Therefore, they insist that all of this must go in general waste bins and that bins full of rotting excrement and blood will be left cooking in summer for 3 weeks in residential areas. It is disgusting and a health hazard.

Every three weeks? We only have half a carrier bag of rubbish PER YEAR and I run a zoo and have a polygamous family with 27 children. I just forbid any of them from pooing. None of the women in our family have periods, either: all births are virgin births. We move from prepubescent to post-menopausal instantaneously at precisely 50 years old. I don’t know why everyone doesn’t do the same.

It’s like the “Four Yorkshiremen” of waste collection on this thread.

It sounds bad but we have had this for years and in practice it hasn’t proved a problem. People seal the waste in plastic bags before putting it in the bin.

How disgraceful.

As usual the needs of women, children and the disabled have been completely ignored when designing these “policies”.

Sorry, if by “Really?” you were referring to daily waste collections as a minimum in most European countries, then yes, really.

Instead of having individual bins at each house there are generally large enclosed skips at the end of each road where all residents deposit waste as it is produced, and these are emptied daily or, in some cases, twice daily. Specific provisions are usually made to collect directly from those with severe mobility issues.

It’s not rocket science. Most countries learned over a century ago that leaving rotting waste around for weeks, attracting flies, maggots and rats etc, was not conducive to public health or an acceptable residential environment.

Okay. And how does this mean that no plant edible by humans should go in a garden waste bin.

There are plenty of plant diseases for plants which are not for human consumption, as well.

And do you really think SERCO have either the capability or time to go through every green bin, identify the plants and whether they happen to be poisonous to humans or not?

It’s clearly totally arbitrary. Clearly no kitchen waste was going in the garden waste, but why should all garden waste which happens to be non-poisonous be forbidden from being classified as garden waste and being composted? Particularly when there were no food waste collections in place at the time so all edible plants would then have been going to landfill.

Which most European countries?

Those communal bins sound like a good idea, until you have one outside your house.

Family of 5, one being a toddler still in nappies.

We tend to struggle more with recycling tbh even though it is bigger than the rubbish bin but I just make sure to break things down as best I can and they just started taking glass thankfully because the bottle banks are constantly full near us.

We have two compost bins so that takes care of most of our food waste.

Soft plastics, films and crisp packets go in a shopping bag and once full taken to Tesco and dropped off before we head in.

Tbh, there’s not a lot that goes in our rubbish bin. We may fill a bag a week. Most of it is really nappies and the stuff that can’t be recycled in some way. There’s becoming less that can’t be recycled.

Calm down! I wasn’t suggesting anybody do anything. Merely suggesting one possible reason for restrictions on edible plant waste in compost.

There was a big fuss when ours went from weekly to every 2 weeks. To be honest there's only 2 of us, we recycle a lot - which is collected from the driveway. And we have a car to take stuff to the tip if needs be. So we've not really noticed.

Our next door neighbours struggle - even though they have a double sized wheely bin - as they don't recycle at all.

There are exemptions for people with nappies or incontinence pads.

Black bins are going to 3 weeks at some point this year. We are lucky in a way that where DH works they have a skip which the workers are allowed to put their rubbish from home in. Otherwise we'd be at the sort it centre every week with rubbish.
We are a family of 5, one of whom is in nappies and while we recycle as much as possible our bin is always full after 2 weeks.
Recycling is staying at weekly but I do feel for people who don't have access to a car.
Then the council moan about fly tipping.

It varies in some countries by region however daily collections take place in most cities and densely populated areas in Italy, Spain, France and many parts of Hungary, Czech Republic, Croatia, Greece. Collections in other places such as Poland and Norway it’s usually twice per week. In Germany, Belgium and Finland it’s weekly. Switzerland varies by municipality and you pay per bag. In Denmark, surprisingly, it’s every 1-2 weeks depending on location.

In some areas of a few countries such as very rural parts of Germany, Ireland, France, Spain and Italy, there are less frequent collections but ONLY with it mandated that there must be separate, more frequent collections for medical and sanitary waste, excrement, used nappies, etc. I’m not aware of any European country that doesn’t collect general waste for any period exceeding 2 weeks without also mandating separate and more frequent collections for medical or sanitary waste or excrement, and obviously the more frequent collections of food waste as well, for the very obvious reasons around public health. I’m happy to be corrected though, if you do have an example of such practice in any European country other than the UK.

I am perfectly calm, thank you.

Are you David Cameron?

I understood what you said however, it did not address the point I had raised which was any justification for banning all garden waste from being placed in a garden waste bin if it happened to originate from any plant that was non-poisonous to humans.

we started collecting soft plastics and recycling them at the supermarket, most big ones take it. gamechanger. our black bin is never full on collection day now.

Most countries plan their towns and cities properly to ensure that there are local medical services, schools, shops, public spaces and also to ensure there is adequate infrastructure such as space for communcal bins that isn’t located directly outside someone’s house, rather than allowing developers to build huge estates with no amenities and no space for appropriate infrastructure to be located.

I wish supermarkets would make even half an effort to reduce packaging -everything should be in two options -sealed in packaging or loose. It is pathetic -the problem is plastic is cheap as chips so rather than thinking of the planet they think of the easy option and profits for shareholders - bastards (sorry but the plastic waste really upsets me)

edit - we can recycle stuff as mentioned above but sometimes it’s soiled and once a bag or container is manufactured it is on the planet for the next 10??+ Years whether you put it for recycling or not - the pile of plastic just continues to grow

And, a large part of the reason for this is that the EU mandated under Article 22 of the Waste Framework Directive (WFD), specifically as amended by Directive (EU) 2018/851 (which had to be implemented into national laws by July 2020) that all member states must offer separate and frequent collections for biological waste.

So this disgusting public health hazard being deliberately inflicted on UK residents by Councils trying to save money and pretending that it is about encouraging recycling, caring nothing whatsoever for the disgusting smells, maggots, flies and rats it will inflict on residential neighbourhoods, is yet another “Brexit Benefit” that we all get to enjoy.

Thanks so much Nigel Farage, and all of your insane acolytes. Slow hand clap to all who voted to leave the EU and lose these kinds of protections of a decent standard of living.

Somehow Mr Farage failed to mention that the Brexit unicorns would be composed of rotting excrement.

I think it very much depends on how much you can recycle in your area.Ive moved from an area which has some of the highest recycling rates in the country.
Food ,garden waste ,tins cardboard plastic stuff ,glass,tetra containers pretty much everything had a box or bag to go into and was collected weekly. Also had very busy recycling centre with a shed for charity donations on my door step .
I thought this was the norm ,now have fortnightly collection of cardboard and tins in a mixed bin .
Everything else requires driving 30 mins to a recycling centre which is only open x3 weekly .
I still do my best ,compost everything I can for allotment but I understand why people struggle with 3 weekly bin collection cos my authority makes it very difficult to recycle .

Again, most countries. Name them.

You only have to travel around Europe to see that this is nonsense. Like in the UK, the majority of European towns and cities have evolved over centuries. Those communal bins are everywhere.

I have had a communal bin in front of my house, and it was emptied once a week even in 30+ degree temperatures.

I already have named them in detailed posts above, if you care to read them…

And you think that things would have been improved by it being emptied every 3 weeks?

Exactly. So confused.

Posted while I was writing my last post.

I have now read it and it is a considerable backtrack on..,

Sorry, if by “Really?” you were referring to daily waste collections as a minimum in most European countries, then yes, really.