tell me about your council and it's non collection of open lid/ extra bags please

[grumpypants]

Council have just introduced fortnightly alternate recycling/ black bag waste collection plus weekly food bin collection. Today, extra black sacks not collected. Anyone else have this? Now I have to drive to the local waste site (v ecofriendly ) and I am obviously not alone - on the walk to school several bins had open lids/ extra bags.

Was going to say that they might issue you with a larger bin Grumpypants - larger families do sometimes need larger bins. You'd normally get a visit from your friendly neighbourhood recycling officer who gets the fabulous job of going through people's bins to see if they really do need one (nice!)

It may seem daft that one elderly person and a family of five next door all have the same standard bin - but it's just cheaper to order and issue the same sizes, and wait for any outliers to put their hands up.

On the crocodile lids issue, it can be dangerous to load them onto the lifting equipment as stuff can fall out before they're tipped into the truck. That's why they won't take them

Recycling is confusing because it varies so widely. But wheelies can help with vermin problems as they can't get to the waste. We've had fornightly collections for eight years now and no problems.

actually I remember where we used to live we could only have one recycling bin and that was it but as we were a family of 6 we got another one

have you looked at your council website to see if there is anything that might help you?

well, I'm going to type up what goes in the black bin and the green bin and stick it up over the indoor bins, and I'm waiting for the council to deliver a larger one. Thanks for tips!

I have put out the odd extra bag occasionally and they have always taken it. Last time was at the end of January when our suitcase had broken. It would have filled the black wheelie bin up on its own so I put it in a black bag next to the bin and they took it.

Do you tip your bin men at Christmas dexter?

I would have if they had turned up!(Snow meant they couldn't get to us.

DH has threatened not to tip them this year! He is outraged that he did, bless him.

We don't have strict limits yet.

One thing we do us pass yoghurt puts, marg tubs, cereal boxes etc onto nursery/playgroup for modelling.

I'm waiting for a reply from last night- came home to find they'd come back, emoptied the existing bin (not full, obv), and left two small bags next to it. So, two trips in two days by them, two 'Sorry' notes, I still have rubbish left. And no replacement bin.

This thread makes me so happy to be living in my block of flats! We have a couple of massive communal bins downstairs and there's no monitoring of the amount that individual flats throw out. They get emptied twice a week. It makes life much easier at times like Christmas and clearing up after parties, and doing big clearouts.

We have big recycling bins too for residents who want to recycle but there's no compulsion to do so. Any large items like old furniture get collected for free by the council, we just have to call them.

I am quite jealous tin - i am sick of washing yoghurt pots and delabelling tin cans and still being left with rubbish uncollected. Still waiting for a new bin.

Apologies, haven't read the whole thread.

The bin men come here every week. One week they take the black bin (normal waste), the other they take the brown bin (garden waste) and blue bin (most recyclables)

Our blue bin is bulging every fortnight, but pretty much all that goes into our black bin is nappies, so with just one DD it never even gets half full.

Any items which we can't put into the blue bin, but are recyclable (e.g. glass & tetra pacs) we collect & take to the recycling centre ourselves every month. We don't have food scraps collected, but I do have a wormery, makes lovely compost for my indoor plants

AFAIK the reason they won't take overfilled bins is because it is dangerous for them to go onto the lorry which seems fair enough to me.

If you regularly need extra bags, & can't reduce your waste in other ways, couldn't you ask your council for a bigger bin?

Ours won't collect extra bags and won't empty your bin if the lid isn't closed properly. However they supply us with a full-size wheely-bin for paper recycling and another for glass/ cans/ plastic bottles; these get much fuller for us than the waste bin does. We do our own composting and the chickens and cats take care of most of the food waste ...