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!

My DH does but then he does most of the washing up.

I have a diswasher, but more often than not I just rinse jars and the trays that meat comes in under the hot tap. It gets perfectly clean enough to put in the recycling, and only takes a few seconds.

If you don't want to pay for garden waste collection, you can take your garden stuff to the tip. Plenty of people do.

The council charge for garden waste because they're short of money and charging is permitted because collecting it isn't a statutory duty.

Jars, tins and plastic packs go in dishwasher, the plastic goes a funny shape sometimes, but it's fine for recycling.

Not washed out things here either.

Though our bin Lorry’s keep catching fire anyway 😅

We did get a new leaflet about not putting old electrical items in the bin sent out. I’m sure nobody is listening to that however. Who is driving to the tip because they got a ne kettle or toaster. Bonkers.

I put meat packets in the dishwasher with the top plastic sheet removed and do the same with glass jars, just wash out the excess under the hot tap, makes the paper label easier to get off and it's done. Takes 30 seconds if that.

How much mayo are you consuming if the 5 seconds it takes to rinse out the empty jar is a bind!

We have 3-week collections with no real problems. Recycling that need cleaning fills odd gaps in the dishwasher. Takes zero time.

YABU.

Wow I feel very lucky our bin collection is every week. Saying that we have no wheelie bins!
We get food bins and recycling bags from the council. We have to buy black bags.

That’s a bug bear charging for my garden waste then selling the compost. Sure we could compromise and at least get a bag or two of compost free.

£65 and then they sell it as well though.

I was going to say this-always put jars in the dishwasher

I wash jars, tins, bottles, yoghurt pots etc, doesn't bother me, takes very little time. This morning I was very glad everything in my recycling bin was clean as I had to tip it all out and root through it looking for some missing jewellery. Would have been a grim job if it had been full of dirty stuff.

That’s a very privileged position to be in and the focus on individualism is what I object to most. Many people can’t afford butchers meat, or don’t have time to go to a refillery. We do not all have the same 24 hours.

As I said in my OP, I wouldn’t mind if it was making a difference but while there are droughts in Silicon Valley from all the water cooling the computers for AI, and big companies are pouring toxic waste into the ocean, my tiny jar of mayonnaise won’t make a jot of difference and it is distraction techniques by those in power to pretend that it is.

We need to invest in infrastructure - why can’t rubbish be sorted and washed centrally? It could, if people wanted to invest in it properly but instead it’s easier to just keep chastising people for leaving a bit of baked bean juice in their tin can

I’ll scrape out mayo jars but not rinse. Waste of water and I don’t want to put unnecessary fat/oil/grease down the drain.

Rubbish can't be sorted centrally because people have to do it - and not surprisingly because you're too precious to sort and wash one household worth, people don't actually want to do it as a job.
Unless you're volunteering?

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. I pay a private waste company £14 a week and they provide me with a nice big wheely bin which they empty every week, and I put whatever I want in it. Job done.

Appreciate it's hard work but wherever possible we have to reuse materials. If a plastic youve washed over is resued thats so good rather than it sitting in landfill for centuries or washing up on a beach.
maybe slot in the dishwasher? X

If something has gone off at the back of the fridge, I just pop the whole thing in the landfill bin rather than opening it to wash potentially releasing smells, spores and bacteria all over the kitchen. Certainly not washing out raw meat packaging - it goes straight in the bin for the same reason.

Like others, I dont put jars in the dishwasher anymore due to the labels coming off and clogging things up, cant peel em off prior, too much effort to stand there scrubbing away and ruining my scourer or getting it off with stucky stuff remover. It just goes in the recycling bin as is.

see that’s just silly isn’t it - there is obviously a better option than that but again, infrastructure

I could have written this post 😂

Meat trays aren’t recyclable everyone knows that. I wash all my recycling that has food residue on why wouldn’t you? It takes a couple of minutes after doing the washing up.

I have never had a label cause any issue at all in 20 years of putting labelled jars in the dishwasher.

@ChristmasBaby2026 Don’t blame
your council, it is the government who will levy fines on councils who don’t comply. I think only a minority of councils have left it this long to fall in line.

we have to pay for our green bin too. I can see the logic that not ever has a garden but I don’t have a dog either and the council has had to increase the number of dog poop bins and increase the number of collections. Facebook is always full of people bemoaning that they are full with no thought to the cost nor that everyone has to pay for their lifestyle choice. We all have our bug-bears!! 😁

How many planets do you think we've got, OP? How much room in this country for landfill?

And it's people like you who create huge landfill sites, but of course you don't give a fuck.