Help!! I missed the general waste bin day. What do I do??

[CarolingCarol]

As title suggests!

I have no idea how I’ll survive 1.5 weeks without a wheelie bin since ours is totally full.

what do people do in this scenario? Our neighbours all have young families and have very full bins come collection day, with lids struggling to close. The nearest tip is 30 mins away. 🙈

We don’t have a food bin, so as a family of 5 straight away we have more waste in the black bin than you do. I also have a disabled older child in nappies. Our black bin is out all the time.

I’m amazed that that you have no glass collection, but surely there are general glass recycling bins around that could use?

Cat food pouches and other soft plastic food packaging is collected in all supermarkets now. Since I started taking mine there, my non-recyclable waste has halved.

It absolutely isnt collected in ‘all supermarkets’. It isn’t collected in my nearest supermarket. The next nearest one is 15 miles away and I haven’t been for years but I’ve just looked on their website and no mention of soft plastic recycling there. I may call them and ask.

Idiotic as well as nasty, wasn't he?

I'm guessing that he was so fixated on his little hobby-horse of everybody bloody-mindedly determined to send recyclables to landfill that he talked himself into assuming that it must be a load of empty plastic or glass bottles, food or drink cans or similar. Then, when it was somebody who was actually trying to throw a bag of (naturally unpleasant) landfill waste into the landfill skip, his tiny mind just couldn't compute.

Definitely not in all supermarkets -of my 4 nearest (3 different brands), only 1 takes any recycling and that's batteries and bread/ plastic bags - no other soft plastic.

Yes absolutely...serves him bloody right! (Excuse the pun ha)

Couldn't agree more. It takes a very special kind of arrogant stupidity to cut open a rubbish bag and to be surprised to find that the contents are smelly and unpleasant!

Where I live (SE) we can’t recycle any plastic unless it’s bottle shaped, or any food waste. There are only 2 of us and we fill a large refuse bin every fortnight. I feel very guilty but there’s very little we can do - we used to live somewhere we could recycle food waste, all plastics, tetrapaks etc, and had barely any non-recyclable waste. The issue is the discrepancy in provision by local authorities.

I have a relative who was fined for putting a small bag of rubbish in a public bin - he did it regularly and was caught. He had to go to the magistrates court I think. It has made me extra cautious.

Total misuse of our overcrowded courts. Pick on the low-hanging fruit who is at least making an effort to dispose of rubbish in an ethical way, but little or nothing is done about catching those who drop litter in the street, or out of car windows. If they're going to prosecute for that kind of thing, I've never understood why they don't just set up a camera at motorway junctions (where there are always piles of litter), and film those dropping litter out of car windows. £200 a pop. If they can get private contractors to issue parking tickets at vast profit, why not this?

In about 2005, my borough did not recycle plastic, but the neighbouring one did. So I regularly put my plastic recycling in their public recycling bins. This was probably technically fly-tipping, but I have no regrets about doing it at all.

From March 2026, it's a legal requirement for councils to collect food waste.

Interesting. We haven’t heard anything about being given an extra bin. Despite my council tax going up to over £3k this year.
I guess technically they do collect it. In our general waste.

I should have spelled it out, collect & recycle food waste.

It's usually a small caddy for indoors, a bigger animal-proof bin for outside.

Yes, I’m aware of what people in other areas have. We just don’t have it. We haven’t had any communication about new bins being provided. Will keep my eyes peeled to see if some new bins appear in the next 3 weeks 🤷🏻‍♀️

If OP does decide to take it to the tip herself I hope she checks first whether she needs to book a time slot. Where we live you cannot just roll up to the tip on a weekend or BH without a prearranged slot.

During the week you can but sometimes there is a massive queue stretching right back in to the road.

Didn't use to be like that but our local council decided to shut most of the tips in the area so now everyone has to use the remaining few. Not too bad for us because the one remaining open is our local one. But you can understand how infuriating it must be for people who have driven a considerable distance with a car full of rubbish only to be told they can't come in because they haven't made a booking. I don't condone fly tipping for one moment, I think it is disgusting, but the councils I think should take some responsibility when they have made it harder for people to dispose of waste legally.

Hardly a know it all. I was asking a question.

I am serious. I worked in Waste Management for ten years. General waste goes to landfill. That’s costly to the local authority and the environment.

Depends on the local authority. Ours is burned, the little leaflet we get each April tells us so. It also tells us the % recycled, the amount of energy produced from the burning etc.

What? Really? Can't believe that's not allowed!!

I see a chap on my morning walk to work who pops out if his house and across the road to put rubbish in the public roadside bin. As a result (and because its on the side of a road near a dog walking area and a small leisure centre) the bin is always full and overflowing. He has a perfectly functional black bin outside his house and our council recycles virtually everything. It makes me irrationally angry.

Can you not recycle some of these at the supermarket?

Soft plastics from crisps, cereal bars, chocolate bars, carrots, broccoli, kale, lettuce, bagged salad, lids from packets of ham, yogurts, cheese wrappers. Wrapper that teabags came in, nappies, baby wipes, food waste as no food waste bin or compost bin, bagged dog poop, bag that had frozen peas in, bag that had edamame beans in and frozen onions bag, label from milk bottle, packet that baby wipes came in, bag that nappies came in.
The list is endless and if you open your narrow mind you'd realise that everyone has different lifestyles, numbers of people in their homes, ability or lack of, to recycle, ability or lack of, to purchase items not in easily recyclable/domestically recycled plastic.

This is flytipping and could get you fined. I used to work in Brighton and we'd see residents do this and eventually one got reported. Businesses shouldn't have to sort out your incompetence go to the tip.

I'm in Brum where the bin strike has been going on since January 2025 and we've had no recycling collections since then and sporadic weekly general waste collections. Luckily I have a car and the tip is only a 15 minute drive away so when needs must, I take it to the tip. I also take small bags of rubbish out with me and use bins at supermarkets etc as suggested upthread when going out.

What an odd chap...