AIBU for people not breaking down cardboard boxes into recycling bins

[Aerom]

Why people don’t bother to flatten down cardboard boxes - cereal boxes to boxes that had stuff delivered in before putting into their recycling bin. Boxes that not flattened take up much space. You are binning air if don’t flatten boxes.

Walking past a lady binning a box which was about a size of two shoe boxes side by side into her recycling bin. She couldn’t put the lid down. I asked if I could help. I flattened the box and placed in bin and could put the lid down.

On recycling bin days - often see boxes intact over hanging the bin. Not just where I live but in the town where I work

I live on the South Coast, we also have seagulls but they tend to make a beeline for public bins rather than recycling.

I will if i need space but most of the time i dont need to. I dont share bins with anyone and the bins have lids. I dont see the issue

Ours are in a shit bag with a flappy lid

In the very hot weather we had maggots in our food waste bin. I put out one 7ltr bag of food waste that week. I always wash and bleach spray my bin and I always keep the handle locked. To be fair, it was only one maggot but it still sent me right back to composting our own food waste using the bokashi system. And thus ended my foray into the world of municipal composting.

Because I don't have the grip strength. I break down weaker boxes, but stronger ones defeat me.

Our council won’t take wet cardboard.

Our council ASKS you NOT to squash/flatten cans, plastic milk bottles etc because it causes problems with the scanning machines & then have to manually sort it, or it goes into the landfill chute.

its a hard habit to break!!

it's annoying as it fills up the inside & outside recycling bins much more quickly.

but if it gets more recycled it's worth it!

This is nuts 😆

How about people who don't squash their boxes because of arthritis in hands and other joints, do you think you could get past that?

same. but apparently I'm a lazy bellend!

I can see why people get annoyed if it means stuff spilled over goes into the street, but if it's just people not being able to close their own bins or get as much as they could in it seems like a bit of an odd thing to get so worked up about...

Me too & we share with a hair dresser/vets/dentist too who are all too fucking lazy or stupid to break down the huge boxes they get deliveries in. I usually break them down, but I lost my temper the other day and stacked them all behind their back doors.

The worst offenders though are the residents of four out of five of the other houses who seem to think the recycling bins are for absolutely anything you fancy putting in them clothes shoes toys household objects.

God knows we have enough notices through the door to say what can & can't go in them.

My immediate neighbour and I are somewhat obsessive with our recycling & we take soft plastics batteries foil tablet packaging to offsite recycling places. We wash all our recycling before putting it in the bins etc. But it's probably all a wasted effort as I'm pretty sure the general recycling bins are deemed not fit for recycling due to thecrap the others put in them 🤬🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♀️

I use a strong knife (to ease the edges apart) or a box cutter.

My recycling bin is never more than half full. I don't flatten every box (washing powder) I probably wouldn't flatten a shoe box either. Large ones I do. All the kitchen cardboard (cereal, tea bag, fruit and veg boxes etc) gets flattened and bundled together and thrown out in one neat parcel. But I'm a bit anal like that.

I can’t say I’ve ever really noticed anyone else’s recycling techniques! Now paranoid that people are going to be inspecting my recycling and finding me wanting.

We don’t have a food waste bin. Legally councils are supposed to have provided them to every household by now, but ours hasn’t.

I’m too lazy to flatten boxes. I don’t even like opening packaging. I put them in the bin fully formed. At some point, my husband then retrieves them to flatten them.

My sister in law broke a hip trying to stomp a cardboard box flat. She's not ancient, only in her 50s, but has osteoporosis (as she now knows after that event).

I do still squish the recycling but with more caution!

my dm used to squash tin cans to stop the foxes getting stuck.
does anyone do this?
i dont flatten boxes, have very few boxes, plenty of room in my bin.
i try and wash out milk bottles and remove lids but now you are saying dont squash?

as a result of this thread i have checked my council website,
please flatten boxes
please squash plastic bottles and put the lid back on

its a minefield of information

We share a bin with neighbours and it is very annoying that they don't flatten their cardboard The bin gets full and then we have to flatten their cardboard to use it ourselves. Thoughtless and selfish.

The knowledge people have of their neighbours recycling habits is astounding to me. I’ve lived here for 15 years, and I don’t even know most of my neighbours names, let alone what they do with their cornflakes boxes and cans of cider. 😂

Because I have enough space to not bother I don’t normally - just me in the household! However if space was tight then absolutely yes that just makes sense to make them smaller so can fit in!

Our council ASKS you NOT to squash/flatten cans, plastic milk bottles etc because it causes problems with the scanning machines & then have to manually sort it, or it goes into the landfill chute.

Our council goes the other way and does ask you to squash bottles, cans etc. so that you can get more in your bin. But the recycling companies ask that you don't squash them because they use optical recognition technology to sort it.

I flatten my boxes, or usually, ask DH to do it. We have to really, as the cardboard bin only gets collected every few weeks.

But the biggest issue for me is all the blasted sellotape and other plastic sticky stuff that they insist on using, it takes aaaaages to peel off.