Fortnightly Bin Collection

[tubismybub]

Just curious on peoples thoughts and opinions on this. Personally I don't have a problem with it as I think it encourages people to recylcle more and think more about there waste.

Before DS came along we recylced everything and had a composter we use to put out 2 bin bags evry fortnight. Since we stopped composting and have had ds this has gone up enormously so I'm trying to get back on track and have just ordered a composter and will continue to recycle and hopefully get back down to a couple of bags of rubbish.

So if you strongly object to fortnightly collections what are your reasons?

yes but i'd make too much compost and then what do i do with it? the waste takes up about half of the bin

We have weekly collections and monthly collections for the recycling and the worst problem is trying to cram all the recyling in. I also compost.

I think (being a fully potty trained household) that the worst problem we would have is from chicken bones etc smellwise. And I would be tempted (should we ever go to fortnightly collections) to freeze these until it was time for the bin to go out.

bozza! Boil up the bones, make stock and then chuck them out- what a waste!

oh tissy I do that. But even at the end of stock making you are left with bones. Or are they OK and non-smelly at this point?

tissy - you are right, but i have no room for a composter! I am green and trying to get greener but at £140 per month council tax i want my bins emptied weekly ... maybe i should post this in AIBU?!

We have fortnightly bin collections, but weekly recycling, including kitchen waste, and I really think this is the way to do it. It really encourages people to use the recycling bins, and, as the kitchen waste bins even take meat/cooked scraps etc, there's nothing much to smell in the bins. Can't see why everywhere doesn't do it this way, to be honest.

bozza - the bones are much less smelly after boiling, honest!

We've had fortnightly collections for ages and never had a problem til dd2 arrived, the nappies have proved too much for the black bin so I'm moving to washables in the near future. Mind you we're a veggie household so no meat bones to consider. Kitchen waste is a problem though, we've no room for a composter and I once had a wormery but I managed to kill the worms ended up with a big plastic tub of rotting veg.

Taylormamma- I pay about that much council tax, but we don't have mains water or sewage, so ner !

(We have a "private" water supply and a septic tank, so they let us off the charges for those!)

We don't have seperate collections of kitchen or garden waste. So non veg/fruit kitchen waste and weeds get put in with the ordinary rubbish. All grass cuttings, fruit/veg peelings etc, paper (shredded), egg shells, dead headings etc go in the compost bin.

LOL Tissy!! so AIBU!??

we have fortnightly collections - no real problem. However - we don't throw away food to any great extent - waste either goes in the compost of the dog . I might think differently if my twins were using dispoable nappies though (thankfully past that stage and used washables mostly).

or the dog - not of

Our council has two weekly collections and a monthly paper collection. Even the paper recycling is a joke - no envelopes, no cards, no wrapping paper, no glossy paper.

We have no glass, can, garden or plastic collections and it's the last that's a problem as the local recycling centre only takes bottles, it won't take any other kind. We were given a recycling box to go take the centre but it's too big to go in my car and has holes in the bottom so it leaks.

Food waste composting just doesn't work in Scotland. A friend had meat scraps sitting in hers for 18mths, looking no more composted than the day she put them in. Garden waste is difficult, too, esp prunings of prickly plants and weeds that seed themselves.

I've been recycling since the first bottle banks were brought into use but I think it's gone too far too fast - and we pay over £240 a month in CT.

suedonim- I'm in Scotland and our compost is lovely! My dh tells me that you can "accelerate" the process by adding urine. I don't want to know if he actually does that!

Our paper recycling will take any sort of paper (except, bizarrely yellow pages!)as long as it is clean.

and, suedonim, the sainted Bob Flowerdew says you shouldn't put meat into the compost as it is more likely to attract vermin, as slow to decompose.I pick out the meat that dh tries to sneak into the compost (although there isn't much as we tend to eat it all!)

We have a fortnightly collection of a wheely bin. I think the wheely bin is an essential factor (with a lid that stays shut). Our bin is rarely full. Unlike seemingly all our neighbours who have managed to blag extra bins and still overflow. We don't even use cloth nappies any more and so have the Nature Babies to add to the waste, so what is everyone else putting in their bins?? We don't compost either. We have a green bin for grass cuttings etc. We do recycle glass and paper and tins in a kerbside collection and take plastic milk bottles and cardboard to the tip. We are lucky we have a garage to store the rubbish before going to the tip but even so I find it amazing how much people throw away. I am afraid I find it quite irresponsible actually.
I agree in flats and areas of high volume housing it is not so easy and if you don't have access to a car it is harder too, but for your average street and average family (whatever that is?) I think it should be fine.

I do make compost, Tissy, though it takes forever. How long does it take for you to make a binful? I don't think peeing in it is really an option as we live on a hilly site and have loads of steps down to the garden. Of course, I could always potty train dh....... Also, we don't have much in the way of flower beds so where do I put the compost I make?

The food composters that don't work are called digesters. You have to sink them 18inches into the ground which is itself a problem as you just can't dig down that far before hitting granite. They don't even make compost, the stuff is supposed to just integrate itself into the soil.

I think most of our rubbish is packaging. I use my own bags for shopping but still seem to have loads of garbage after I've been to the shops.

Our compost is taking forever. I have one of those black bins and it is about 1/3 full since last April. And I have put tons of stuff in it during that time. I thought I might have some compost by now because I am having to buy it. But it is still getting rid of a lot of our rubbish in an environmentally friendly way.

i wish our council would do fortnightly bin collection and weekly recycling not other way round,it would encourage more people to think about what they buy and how they discard it.

i dont like it, storing it for 2 weeks is a pain, and even tho they collect glass, plastic, paper and tin, i have to recycle cardboard by taking it to a centre myself, luckily i have a car to do so. Also the rubbish even tho i bag it all up, smells rotten waiting about for 2 weeks to be collected, we had maggots last year , and i am phobic of maggots

wehave fortnightly bins and weekly recyling round 'ere

they alternate weeks here, it gets me confused

also when there has been a bank holiday they change the removal date

so i dont know when mine is now, monday i guess as it was friday before

Recycling is fortnightly here - wish it was weekly. Also wish they'd take glass as kitchen surfaces dissappearing under wine/beer bottles and passata/pesto jars.
Bins are weekly. Would compost if we had a garden, but it is mainly yards here. Could try a wormery I suppose...

BUT I fear it would only encourage the well-intentioned yet lazy to recycle more. The 'can't be arsed/give a monkeys' people woul djust have more bags around for longer