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!

i wash it all, but I’m more likely to wash a meat packet than a jar - who wants meat juice festering at the bottom of their bin 🤢

Such a hardship having to wash a jar or plastic tray out. Surely your bins stink! You would love North Somerset as it sounds like you have it easy. Box for cardboard and paper another for glass, a useless weighted bag for plastics, cans, aerosols. Soft plastics (first county in the country to recycle soft plastics) go in a bag squashed down and put in the glass box. Wheelie bin for general waste that’s only collected every three weeks. Food waste bin and a green bin for garden rubbish that’s only is a paid extra service. We can also put out batteries, clothes and small electricals. The only thing that goes in my general waste bin is cat litter waste and things like tissues, black plastic which I rarely have. We could easily go six weeks between general waste collections as a family of four. Recycling is really not that difficult.

I agree on garden waste - several neighbours have paved their backyards. Feel the council should be encouraging people to have real grass and bushes etc rather than pave them over

But we are advised not to wash chicken before cooking as it spreads bacteria and surely washing meat packets will do the same?

Who exactly decided that this was necessary ? Our council has never suggested rinsing jars because I'm sure they'd get laughed at.

That's possibly the most disgusting thing I've read on Mumsnet, ever.

@QuietComet It’s hardly earth shattering. @MrsApplepants sounds a great idea!

The competitive recycling is what's astonishing to me 😅

4 weekly here. It's fine.

This thread is so depressing. I thought that ignorance of the state of the planet, and the need to take action, was few and far between.

It's so sad to find out what proportion of people just don't care about preventing further damage to the environment, especially by doing things that take such little effort.

It's sad that you think people exerting a tiny bit of effort to recycle properly as "competitive".

We’re not filling the sink from the kettle and doing a full wash up here, just 100mls or so swished round the packet and then poured away to get rid of the juice and kill the bacteria. No one boils the kettle so close to an exact cup size that they don’t have 100mls left.
Alternatively, putting the packet in the sink and draining the veg over it works just as well too. Or is it privileged to have veg with your dinner now too? 🤣

It’s really not a big (or privileged, or expensive) deal.

And yet our council tax is going up so much year on year.

Don't underestimate your effort 1 jar might not seem much but if we all do our bit collectively I agree with people paying for garden waste as some dont need one so if you need ot it should be an additional charge.

We ALL need to wash jars and packets out to recycle them. It's not gross, it's common sense. Man up and do what's asked of you!!!

Totally wrong, just think about what you said, if true absolutely nothing would get recycled, ever.

I've worked where the bin lorries deposit the recycling before it goes off to the centres, I had to weigh the lorries. We used to have an auditor come there, I've not quite understood it all as I was only there for two days.

It really does smell and most of the stuff was outside, it's vile that people can't be bothered to rinse

Mayonnaise jars are dead easy just fill with water half way and put lid on and shake - done. Meat packet just rinse out. Not rocket science and means black bin has hardly anything going into it

Maybe the non recyclers should be left to fester among piles of their own rubbish.

Who exactly decided that this was necessary ? Our council has never suggested rinsing jars because I'm sure they'd get laughed at.

The request to rinse, not clean, tins and jars is on our council website.

I couldn’t give a fuck about recycling. Sorry if this offends anyone. I don’t have time to comply with the councils endless rules

Even the most time poor people can spare a few seconds to rinse out a jar. That is not a valid excuse. It is just self important arrogance and laziness.

All these lazy posters sound as bad as Trump with their denials.