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!

@Alwaysoneoddsock can’t find your original comment on this, but you mention something about not knowing that you could recycle things like mince packets (so you checked your council’s site), and I think another pp said afterwards that you can recycle all plastics. In our case, what our council will allow us to recycle - specifically plastics - is really restrictive! We can’t recycle any plastic such as plastic trays (whether that be meat, fruit, whatever), nor any plastic “wrap” type covering - again including meat packaging, bags from fruit, the plastic from trays of fruit and veg, yogurt pots, pouches, cartons, cling film etc…I could go on. But basically for plastics we are allowed to recycle plastic bottles only. It actually says “plastic bottle without caps”, which I now believe must’ve changed because of the new attatched plastic lids. We do have bottle collections (rinsed and dry, as per plastic bottles, but no lids). The only improvement my council has made in recent years is introducing the food waste bins this year. And changing the garden waste bins from free to subscription (as have many other councils, which I do get, because before when they were free not everyone used them anyway, and those that do just bought the bins and do the yearly subscription, so they’re not now having to waste time and money going everywhere and checking all the garden bins now). I think our council is so behind, tbh. It’s not just the plastic recycling that’s abysmal, so is the metals etc - eg can’t even recycle foil ffs. I’ll try and add a photo of our recycling rules (potentially outing if anyone has the same small council as ours) , it’s positively last century! We can recycle so little!
(had to do two photos for some reason, but they’re next to each other so the bit along the bottom about being clean etc is one line)
I wish our council were better. Much better.

Mountain/molehill?? All i said was its a fairly privileged position to be able to suggest using boiled water for something heading for the bin, which it is! (although i made an assumption most people nowadays do only boil the amount of water they need thanks to Martin Lewis i think it was who said it costs 7p every time a kettle is boiled, or something like that)

Tbh though if I had any left it would be put in the sink for the washing up)

I'm really surprised (shocked even!) that people can't be bothered to rinse out jars and tins. It's so quick and easy.

I bet you’d be on here complaining if your council tax went up £20 a month to pay for a team of people to wash your crap up for you!
That’s why we all do our bit at home.

I thought of this thread while I spent a few seconds rinsing out an empty mayonnaise jar using a small amount of water, as requested by the council.

There is no need to wash any recycling as it is all washed at a billion degrees as part of the recycling process.

“We do have bottle collections” should read “we now also have glass bottle and jars collection since the last few years”
Sorry couldn’t edit but just wanted to clarify that sentence, so that and also the other parts shows that the council has made some changes over the years, yet they’ve still remained ludicrously behind on all recycling.

There is when the council requests it, as ours does. Why would you ignore a request like this?

I moved London to Scotland and wondered how I'd cope with 4 week landfill bin collection but we rarely even fill it! We've got thr garden waste we don't use as costs extra, blue bin mixed recycling, glass crate, and burgundy bin cardboard etc as well as food caddy, never had an issue with running out of space. We had weekly collections in London as lived on a highs street with no space for big bins so was surprised but it does work.

I think ours makes less sense. We have 3 bins food/garden waste, recycle bin and everything else. The food waste gets emptied every week, a large brown bin with 5 or so food caddy bags in the bottom. Recycled is every 2 weeks, ours is usually rammed after 5 days so we end up overflowing into the everything else bin anyway. Ridiculous East Riding CC strikes again.

I'd ignore it because it sounds like a PITA.

I cannot believe how many of you don’t recycle properly. I rinse everything before I recycle. Your bins must stink. You should all be doing your bit!

We have a small black rubbish bin and as a family of 5 in takes more than a month to fill it. I really don’t see it as too big a price to pay, to rinse the odd jar out? Can’t we even be bothered to do that to somehow slow down the damage done. Also, filthy jars attract vermin and are disgusting for the refuse workers to handle. A couple of generations ago people were generating a tiny fraction of the waste we generate now, saving and recycling everything as a way of life.

Our local authority has done this for years. Cleaning out jars, cans etc is just a way of life now. Have to say, general rubbish bin doesn’t smell, even if it’s not emptied for 3/4 weeks (when on holiday) as the smelly food waste is on a small sealed bin which is emptied weekly. I refuse to pay extra for garden waste, but luckily DH happy to take it to tip.

You don’t need to wash things till they shine, just make sure any visible chunks of food are gone. Like a PP said, I chuck most things through the dishwasher as I’m running it anyway.

I also separate soft plastic for separate recycling and addition to the council service. This means the landfill bin is rarely even half full when it goes out every 2 weeks. We could easily manage every 3 or even 4 weeks. I can imagine if you have a baby in nappies 3-4 weeks might be a bit grim.

It becomes habit and you get used to it in the end and it does save a lot of bin space in the long run.

Just do them at the last of the washing up…….sorted!

Ours are emptied fortnightly and stink muchly. Fortunately ours are away from doors and windows.

We used to manage 4weekly as a couple but since DC its full before bin day.

To those not washing containers - you're not recycling! Who do you think does your washing for you? How disgusting and hazardous do you think the recycling facilities are with rotting and moulding food in the containers dumped there? No wonder the councils are wasting millions and having to dictate what should be blindingly obvious to anyone with half a brain!!

If only the UK would take a leaf out of other countries- which have a common approach - everyone gets the same colour for non-recyclable, food, paper etc. They don’t then need council logos on each, different instructions, different collections gaps etc., confusing people who move house, go to a rental property for a holiday etc

Aww I’m sure they'll live, keeps them in a job at least

Until my dishwasher died a little while ago I used to wash (in the dishwasher) only the bottles and jars I keep/reuse so that they were basically sterilised. Very rarely dishwasher-ed jars and bottles that were going to be recycled. Like you, and many others on here I’d usually just give them a rinse, and if needed (like mayo/anything sticky sometimes) maybe a bit of water and washing up liquid, lid on and then give a little shake, empty and then rinse. Now that my dishwasher is dead the only jars I find annoying to wash are the ones that I reuse because they need a proper wash and still probably aren’t as properly sterile as when put in dishwasher. (These are the ones I reuse for things that are going to have food/liquids in for slightly longer term in the fridge so need to be as sterile as possible due to mold growth)

We've had this system for 3 years now, except we don't get glass collected or a garden bin.
It literally takes seconds to rinse out packets / jars and it's no more gross than dirty plates, etc.

Our bins are collected every 3 weeks, they don't smell because the recycling stuff is all clean, and the unrecyclable bin is never more than half full.

We have spent thousands of years f&&king our planet. The very least we can do is wash our recyclable waste.

Just to add, I've audited a waste recycling plant, and there is a manual process where people separate the waste. If you don't want to wash your containers to aid recycling, then do it out of respect for the poor buggers who otherwise have to handle weeks-old, unwashed, mouldy containers.

You are really unreasonable. How bloody hard is it to rinse an empty jar of 'gross' food out? You're happy to consume the gross contents but not rinse them out?

Youd have to go to a county where they dont collect your glass as they get rid of bottle banks once they do collect it. I never wash jars or tins, I assume they get properly washed when they get recycled!