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?

I think the WHO backs weekly collections because of the risk of vermin etc. etc. Rubbish collections were introduced as a public health measure. So it seems bizarre to go fortnightly - yes, encourage people to recycle, but to put everyone in a situation where rubbish is likely to build up (and degrade - eww to a fortnight's disposable nappies) is barking.

AND if they are cutting our rubbish collections, I want a corresponding cut in council tax, thanks very much.

Actually woudl be far more bloody effective if they just made the recycling collections weekly - we have fortnightly alternate ones here and I can never remember what goes out when (and get fed up with piles of tins/jars/cartons all over the place. Give up and stuff them in the general rubbish).

we went from weekly recycling and rubbish collection to alternate collection of them

Our fortnightly wheelie bin stinks. (Dog poo has to be disposed of in normal bin - cannot be put into the 'compostable bin' May have to start flushing it down the loo, bleurgh)
And there is too much plastic and no facilities for recycling locally. Have tried cutting back on plastic packaging - fruit and veg in paper bags from local shop, but even the local butcher wraps meat in plastic bags. I think supermarkets should be doing much more to eliminate or reduce this- most of the stuff in the non-recyclable bin is plastic wrapping from food.

I don't have a problem with the way it's done where I live. As far as I can see, the main problem hygeine-wise is food waste. We can put this either in our green bin or our black bin, which are collected on alternate weeks. So we can just put the food waste in the next bin to be collected and don't have to keep it for the fortnight. And we have recycling facilities for plastics (although not a doorstep collection).

When the new system ws introduced we didn't have the plastic recycling or the food waste in green bin facility, and it was much more difficult.

I agree with the principle, but there needs to be the facilities in place to make it work. Lobby your councils!

I moved to Yorkshire 3 and half years ago to find that I would also have fortnightly bin collections and no recyling (In that I had to do it all myself no collections) I was horrified. But very surprised to find that we adapted to it very quickly, recycling became part of our lives and every time we went into the local town we loaded up with one of the bins (glass, plastic or paper). I had a 6 month old baby and used disposable nappies but rarely did we have a problem.

I have since moved to somewhere where we have a twice weekly collection but I have really tried to maintain our recycling habit!!

Yes, cardboard is a problem for us too. The only card the recycling takes is stuff that's white both sides, you can't even put cereal boxes in.

I read recently that in some places abroad, with two-weekly collections, people have begun buying a second freezer to put the filled bags into until bin day. So much for eco-friendly.

Hi McDreamy.
When we first moved to where you are we couldn't recycle anything apart from returning empty beer bottles to the shop. I was horrified. It was so alien to put everything in the bin, but they collected it twice a week and so I soon lost any feelings of guilt as I didn't have it hanging around to remind me how much we were throwing away. We also used cloth nappies then which helped any guilt about landfill. When we moved here I was please to find we only had collections every two weeks as I knew that would soon get me back in the recycling frame of mind.

Recycling has improved then but it quite oftens gets full and so you end up with loads of recycling at home that you can't get rid of coz the bloody bins are full!!

Now why does that not surprise me .
It is that wonderful pace of life.

We've been on fortnightly collections for ages. The wheelies do get a bit smelly in summer, esp. if you go away and miss a collection. Also we find we have a continuously full cardboard bin and the others almost never get put out because they never get full (we compost and don't buy stuff you have to throw away). We had maggots last year in the non recyclable bin (which for some ironic reason round here is green in colour).

They don't collect glass though which means you have to drive to the bottle bank which is stupid IMHO

I hate it, I wish they would go back to collecting both every week. The bin reeks and has flies around it, especially with the nappies in it. We have alternative collections, rubbish one week, recyleables the next.

My recycling bin is overflowing, and that is jsut bottles, cans, tins, etc. The cardboard has to be kept seperately in boxes, and that keeps flying off down the road. The rubbish bin doesn't ever really overflow, but I am dreading summer when it really smells.
The only thing I don't do is compost, I don't want one in the garden.

Family of 5 (2 in nappies) + 2 cats.
We recycle paper, bottles & cans via a fortnightly collection. Plastic bottles and all cardboard goes to a recycling depot (we take it) when we pass by. All raw veg/fruit peelings go to the allotment for composting.
Nappies are all washable, just moved to washable wipes.
We are getting a Bokashi which will take cooked food scraps and turns it all into a liquid feed for our house plants. (people without a garden could get one of these as it sits on the kitchen bench, not big at all.
Basically I think there is no excuse for the amount of rubbish people are throwing away. The simple answer is you're buying too much!
If I can put out one bag a week, if that, then others must be able to manage it, if not better it.

"A friend had meat scraps sitting in hers for 18mths"

you;re not meant to compost meat, though. Has someone said this?

ooh, bokoshi looks interesting!

Digesters are designed to take meat waste, Pointydog. The idea is that the base, which is like a colander, is sunken into the ground and then a top like a compost bin fits over it. But it just doesn't work round our way. One person was told to site it in a sunny area but as her garden gets no sun from October to March that's pretty difficult!

That's a bit depressing, sober. An argument against democracy.