I don’t want to wash up chicken packets and jars of mayonnaise!!

[ChristmasBaby2026]

My council like many have recently changed our recycling. We now have:

• a bin for paper and card
• a bin for “mixed recycling”
• the food bin
• the black bin
• the garden bin (which I have to pay extra for 😡)

The only substantial change other than the number of bins to put things in is they will now collect glass whereas we previously had to go to the bottle bank.

But it now means they are now only collecting our black bin once every THREE weeks (and currently not for 4 because the new system has stupidly started on a recycling week).

How are families supposed to only have rubbish collected once every three weeks? There is simply no way.

I do recycle but I have always drawn the line at washing up gross things like packets of mince and jars of mayonnaise. But apparently the council have decided people have nothing better to do. I wouldn’t resent it so much if I thought it was actually making a difference but my landfill mayonnaise jar is not the main problem here!

YABU - you surely eat the mince and cook it so why can't you rinse out the container??
We've been on 3 week collection for years, black, blue and recycling. Our black bin is the least full out of the 3. There isn't that much that doesn't go either blue or orange for recycling.

No more so than yours. That point miss you by?

Face it, you're just lazy.

We’ve been every three weeks for a few years now and honestly it’s been fine. The only time we struggle is maybe over Christmas with extra non-recyclable packaging, but otherwise it’s okay. Before they brought it in I also thought it was a disaster but actually once we stopped being lazy about recycling it worked out fine.

Almost all non-recycled waste is burnt in my country, and the heat from burning it is used as energy e.g. heating water in district heating systems.

You literally just need to rinse/clean off any food residue so it doesn't block and break the machines (not to mention reduce risk of fly infestation). They aren't asking for a sparkling container. My family have been doing it for years. It takes a grand total of 30 seconds less time than it took to right this post.

Bloody hell, how much of a waste of space is a person who whines and refuses to spend SECONDS a day rinsing out stuff for recycling??? 🙄

No it's not even comparable 😂 I pay my bills and taxes for those things.

Call me lazy, I don't care. That point miss you by?

No, it obviously didn't pass me by.

But at least stop making shit excuses and just own being an irresponsible lazy arse.

It’s annoying. We have a ridiculous number of bins too , but I do wash out all jars , rinse out all plastics , cartons etc or else the recycling ♻️ bins would be absolutely stinking .
Youngest “ helps “ by flinging unwashed things into the recycling ♻️ bin that I keep in the house so I retrieve and wash them out .
i guess I’m fortunate to have a utility room sink where I can put things till I have a few minutes to wash them .
occasionally I’ve thrown a container that had raw chicken into the main rubbish as I could not face washing that out 🤢
that does mean I shop at the butcher more as they wrap things in butcher paper

I rinse anything I recycle. It takes seconds.

I'm not making up shit excuses. Everything I've said is valid. I am not wasting my time doing it due to all of the reasons I've stated. Quite frankly, considering half the population is so burnt out already, I think it's absurd to add this shit to the list. I won't do it to myself, but like I said to pp, you crack on 👍

Those saying that it helps recycling to clean recyclables are probably wrong in the first place. But even if they’re not, they’re putting fat and oil into the sewage system and doing more harm than good.

If ‘contamination’ of recycling is really a thing, we’re all wasting our time anyway because nothing recycled will ever be fully clean, unless the cleaning is all done with detergent, which is then creating more waste and being flushed down the drains too.

I'll raise you with peanut butter jars.

Good point, surely washing oily/fatty containers is contributing to fat bergs?

The contamination thing is definitely a myth, theres no way an entire load of glass, cans etc is getting landfilled because some are mucky when they all get washed at temperatures hotter than the sun and blasted with chemicals to clean them anyway. (I also know this isnt a thing from a past job where I visited a lot of waste plants across the UK. Very glamorous 🤣)

You wipe it out first - it’s not difficult! It’s no difficult to dealing with a pan where you have cooked something oily.

Where do you live that you recycle chicken packets? We don't recycle those where I live.

I don't waste my expensive water on washing rubbish; jars, packets etc go straight in the relevant bin.

I dunno, wiping out a very large diameter shallow pan is way less difficult than a jar with a small opening. My hands are fairly slim but would definitely get stuck in a jar.

What about empty mayo bottles, oil bottles etc? How do you wipe those out?

And wasting kitchen roll which is ridiculously expensive now for some readon on wiping out containers would be a no for me.

(Ive got no skin in this btw as we dont have to wash our recycling, just thought that point a pp made was a good one!)

You are supposed to rinse them to make recycling easier, cleaner and in the long run probably less expensive for everyone.
Filling a jar with water, shaking it and pouring it out is unlikely to make much difference to your water bill.

Glass is recycled not put in landfill.
That's the whole point of recycling it!

Fat bergs are caused by people putting a litre of cooking fat down their sinks.
Not soapy water that has been used to wash a greasy jar or pan.

Yes I know.

Edited after you edited your post - yes I know glass is recycled.

And i said it contributes to fat bergs. People swilling out fatty food containers will be contributing towards fat bergs. Even if only a little bit.

But you said glass was put in landfills and fat bergs were caused by washing greasy pans etc

Fat bergs are caused mainly by solid fat that melts at a higher temp and solidifies when cold. .

The misinformation, complacency and ‘can’t be bothered’ attitudes on this thread are quite eye opening…

I think that’s the point the pp is making. Glass etc is recycled whether it’s got tomato ketchup on it or not. It doesn’t go to landfill because Mrs Trubshaw at no 97 didn’t clean the bottle.

And all that supposes that all recycling schemes do recycle and not ever divert to landfill or incinerators. I have my doubts about that.

ONLINE INFO FOR LONDON

While recycling facilities do eventually clean materials, rinsing your containers at home is essential to prevent the whole batch from being ruined.

North London Waste Authority +2
Top reasons to rinse first:
Preventing Contamination: Food residue and grease degrade the quality of materials like glass, metal, and plastic. If a truckload of recycling gets too messy, it is rejected and sent directly to a landfill or incinerated.