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!

We barely produce any general waste (collected every 2 weeks).

I’ve been reducing, reusing and recycling for decades. We wash everything we recycle before putting in bin. No dishwasher. You get used to it. It’s just part of washing up. I haven’t eaten meat my entire adult life (for environmental reasons), so can’t empathise with the chicken issue.

We have a compost bin for garden and organic waste.

However, I agree with you about big corporations. A friend of mine takes all his waste packaging back to the supermarket chain and tells them to dispose of it, arguing why should the council have to recycle the waste their company generate! As for the shocking environmental damaged caused by mining for smartphones and huge energy usage of AI, plus corporate air/water pollution, don’t get me started…

I honestly think if most people looked around landfill sites they’d be heartbroken and consume a lot less and reuse/recycle a lot more. This book talks about the stratas of waste after festivals like Halloween/Xmas: www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/63251764-wasteland. Same if most people looked around a factory farm or abattoir. They’d never eat meat again.

We have a beautiful planet, yet we’re covering it with shit we shouldn’t even be manufacturing 😭

I just put things in whatever bin they will fit, why do people feel they must do as they are told?
I don’t want to wash up litter so it goes in the black bag in the normal bin.

We store stuff in our garage or trailer until we’ve got enough for a tip run. I guess not everyone has the space.

The labels can block the filter if you don;t remove them first . They;ll come off during the DW cycle .
Some are a pain to remove .

whos asking you to wash litter?

Chicken packaging goes straight in bagged rubbish here. I'm too concerned about poisoning everyone to be rinsing it out in the kitchen sink, that doesn't seem sensible to me.

Exactly. People can’t be bothered to make a minuscule effort, or are too disgusted somehow, yet are happy to let some other poorly paid person do it for them 🙄

Thats what this thread is about.

‘Why do people feel they must do as they are told?’

Because people don’t want to contribute to landfill any more than they have to. So we are following our council’s instructions re recycling.

Poorly paid people go through the litter and wash out jars?
Don't be ridiculous.

Gawd, all this competitive super-clean recycling and ‘care’ for the planet. No-one’s making any difference at all by washing Hellman’s jars. It’s all bullshit.

No wonder people get fucked off and go fly tipping.

I paid for a garden bin today and the council stated that they are obliged to provide recycling and rubbish collection but not garden waste. Therefore they charge for it so that they can offer garden waste collection. I think that’s fair enough.

We have our recycling collected every 2 weeks, food waste every week and black bins every 3 weeks. There’s no need to properly wash up the plastic recycling just rinse it out straight after using it. If you leave it then it takes a proper wash. Same with jars just hot water in, lid on and shake.

YANBU OP - it’s often an excuse for money grubbing councils to save spending on the people who actually pay the eye-watering council tax. It really boils my piss.

Everything for the recycling bin that isn’t paper or card goes in the dishwasher (at 70 degrees). Can you afford to buy one? Luckily we still get a 2-weekly general waste collection where we are, and even then, I have to pay someone to sanitise them every month. I’m currently staying in a bit of Wales where it’s 3-weekly and the bins are absolutely fucking grim. Was chatting to the cottage owner about the food waste bin being missing and apparently it’s been scrapped because of the rat problems it caused. We’ll colour me fucking surprised…. 🙄

I don’t have children - should I be paying for other people’s children to be educated?

What the heck is a chicken packet and why on earth is washing an empty jar of mayo any more gross than washing anything else?

What would be in your waste management manifesto @DenizenOfAisleOfShame ? What should we be doing?

It must be. As the link you posted doesn’t contain the info you quoted.

It is though, they go through the whole load in the bin and then find your unscraped mayonnaise jar contaminated it.
Then all the kittens 😸 died, or something.

I wonder if there are costings to 1 bin for everything, emptied weekly, sorted at a sorting facility versus numerous plastic bins/additional bin wagons/sorting centres? It feels like it will never end with additional bins and not every house has the space.

A packet that had chicken breasts/wings/fillets/thighs in it !

It's just staggering to read the entitlement and laziness of people on here. It's so sad to see that people won't suffer even the slightest inconvenience to try and reduce landfill.

The planet doesn't stand a chance. Our kids are well and truly fucked.

I don’t rinse my recycling. I have a large busy family and dog and I simply don’t have time to rinse it. They still take it. I don’t know anyone round here who rinses it. My neighbours certainly don’t as I see it in their boxes. Our black bins are only collected once every 3 weeks so I generally fill little freezer bags and put it in the bin in a petrol station or whatever. Rubbish disposal has got ridiculous anyway - the recyclers smash the boxes, chuck stuff all over the street (including batteries they are supposed to take) and the council closed the mini recycling facility in the corner of a nearby carpark and they want booking for the tip and charge for some items - as well as having it closed for 2 week days every week. It’s no wonder people are fly tipping.

If everyone did recycled properly then of course it would make a difference.

Washing out containers isn't a huge ask and it's just lazy if you don't.

People need to start giving a shit about this shithole of a planet we are creating!!

I watched our bin men empty several large commercial sized bins of recycling than the public had recycled into the back of the same truck. The system is broken

I recycle as much as I can but I do avoid rinsing out mayonnaise jars. I think mayonnaise is something like 75% fat and if you just make an emulsion with water and pour it down the drain, I am pretty sure that fat is going to settle somewhere. Depending on your plumbing and the temperature that's either your u bend under sink or somewhere in the lines to your nearest manhole or at your local fatberg further down the line. So I treat it the same way as waste oil - in jar and bin.

Our black bags basically consist of a load of nappies and meat packets so glad they get taken away weekly as they really stink