Oh good someone has noticed the correlation between the rise of the rat population and fortnightly rubbish collections

[Caligula]

Dur.

It isn't really that hard to predict, is it?

news story here

Yuk

We don't have a purple bag scheme, what's that?

We have a normal rubbish collection once a week, with a re-cycling collection once a fortnight - it needs to be once a week, paper is a marvellous bedding for rats.

It makes me really angry that these fuckwits are encouraging the rat population in the name of environmental-friendliness. When all the time, it's about saving money.

There's a myth here in Auld Reekie that you're never more than 10 feet from a rat.

In this old building, it's actually true!

Rats need to eat, too.

fortnightly?????

ours are collected weekly and we have a wheelie bin for fortnightly garden waste and a paper recycling box

I dread to think how much shit would accumulate in 2 weeks

We have a big square bucket without a lid, for papers, and a flimsy bag for plastic bottles and cans.

At Christmas, there is at least double the recycling as in normal times, and councils pretend that that's not happening. My garden is overflowing with cardboard boxes at the moment.

It pisses me off that they take no responsibility for dealing with a long-established festival involving lots of paper and cardboard boxes.

Wankers.

We have mice at the moment and I am convinced it is the recycling bin which all peelings etc go in prior to going out to the wormery which has attracted them.

At this time of year you have to be really on the ball with collection dates too as they all change due to the holidays. Loads of people on my road obviously missed the last recycling collection - it's a complete mess at the moment.

I'd be willing to wager money that all these council are also posting big increases in taxes come April.

We have fortnightly for normal household waste and fortnightly for recycled papers etc.
Our normal bin collection is a Monday and they didn't come this week until yesterday due to New Year. That meant we had had the household waste one for 2.5 weeks. Everyone had thought they would be there on wednesday so had put their bins out. It was so windy the whole estate looks like a rubbish tip

I promise not to do my usual rant about the F*kin Fife binmen!

We still have a weekly collection here, but the council have recently upped the amount of stuff we can recycle. Previously it was just glass / paper / tins / plastic containers.

Now we can recycle yogurt pots and cardboard food packaging and a load of other stuff we weren't allowed to before. Also they collect the recycling weekly now.

So it can only be a matter of time before we have a fortnightly collection too.

We were given two large-ish boxes for recycling but with no lids. We had to buy a big box thing with a lid to go in the back garden to be able to put the stuff somewhere sensible until the day they collect. Obviously not everyone can afford to do that.

Also in my street - 11 houses - only 4 of us recycle reguarly - 2 occasionally. And the rest don't bother at all. Makes me really angry!

And we had the same problem over Christmas / New Year - stuff flying round everywhere in the wind as they came a few days later than usual.

It's supposed to start here in March - i know i said i wouldn't, sorry - the fortnightly collection. They haven't advertised it very well. i only know about it because of a conversation i had with someone in Glenrothes about it. However, we only have paper recycling once a month at the minute. It will be interesting to see how they get round the bottle and tin collection, as, according to them , there are laws which say that bottle and tin collection boxes/bins/banks cannot be less than 50ft away from houses!
Reading other peoples posts though, this law only seems to apply in Fife!

Thats insane!

Well Cotswold DC are about to bring in weekly paper, cardboard, cans, glass & plastic recycling and fortnightly rubbish collection. Sounds good to me as my total landfill rubbish is dwindling as I recycle more and more. I can see that someone who can't recycle veg waste might have problems though. TBH anyone who doesn't recycle what they can deserves to be fined massively. And what about leaving unnecessary packaging at the supermarket? (my particular hate is the plastic wrap on cucumbers - why, why, why?).

As far as rats go, excess rubbish does encourage them, but they always come closer to the human population when the weather gets colder. Call the ratcatcher, get a terrier, set traps?

We're not complaining about the need to recycle, Callisto, we're complaining about the frequencey of the collections and the health hazards posed by rats. The rat population of this country has risen by more than a third in the last decade. It is now the same as the human population. In ten years time there will be more rats in this country than humans, and it will be far more common to see them in the streets, with the consequent health and quality of life implications that that has. And you can bet your life that the streets the rats will be seen in, will be the ones where poor people live. I can't see how anyone can possibly be in favour of this.

I don't want a terrier, btw. And councils now charge for ratcatchers, so lower income families are less likely to call them out. If my neighbours don't call out the ratcatcher, that affects me. This isn't just about personal behaviour, it's also about having a public policy. The need to reduce the rat population should be a priority imo.

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Fair enough that they'll check your recycling to advise what else can be recycled tbh, I have no problem with that.

As long as they don't tell you that you're not allowed to have a bigger bin when you need one, because they want to pretend to be meeting green targets.

We have a really good recycling scheme here and I totally support it but agree it's madness to reduce collections over the festive period. There are only 3 of us in our house (until I give birth anyway) and we were away over Xmas but our bins are still overflowing. I quite often have 'dry' waste like packaging stored in the garage and take it to the tip periodically.

Oh and don't get me started on the tip, we live in a county boundary and we're not 'allowed' to use the nearest tip, supposed to drive about 15 miles to the one in the correct county

Very environmentally friendly.

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'As long as they don't tell you that you're not allowed to have a bigger bin when you need one, because they want to pretend to be meeting green targets. '

That's really the crux of the matter. New Labour at its best: tax and fine people instead of going for the root of the problem.

We have no garden to compost anything, so we have to throw out all kitchen waste.

They brought out recycling in the tenements - finally, especially considering that over 70% of Edinburgh's housing stock is in the form of tenement flats - but only offer paper and plastic packaging.

No aluminium, no glass.

Rats love tenements, too.

They're more fun than houses.