General Chat

......or black dustbin bags??

(Some people on ) A local social media site are up in arms. Their Borough Council are swapping weekly black bag/household waste collections for a fortnightly wheelie bin collection.
They already have a food waste caddy and a recycling bin.

Homes where there is no place to put a wheelie bin in the front, or where its impossible to bring one from the back, have been told they can keep the current bag system.

What's your opinion? Would/could/can you cope or adapt your current habbits?

Wheelie bins are big and make a racket when you move them.
On the plus side if closed correctly they stop things blowing down the street and birds etc getting into the rubbish.

Hi Det :-)

Currently we have bag collection every week, alternating blue one week and black the next.

Blue Bag recycling waste is unlimited, but black bag waste is limited to 4 per fortnight. I find it no problem, but larger famlies sometimes do.
On top of that we have weekly food waste collection along side the bag collection from a green box that was supplied.

There are numerous drop off points locally for glass recycling.

I don't mind this system at all, but they are talking of reducing the collection from weekly. I won't like that! :-D

Don't fancy wheelie bins. :-(

I have 2 Wheelie bins and a food caddy. Much better in the countryside due to Magpies and foxes

Obviously the people posting are the ones who are looking for problems.

When we were given ours years ago, it was a blessed relief. Gone was the problem of having to lift a (bought) bin bag out of our (bought) dustbin and struggle with it to the boundary.
As Caroline says, it stops foxes and other 'wild life' ripping the bags open.

One objection is that it would be smelly and leave the bin dirty. Wrap 'dirty waste' in paper or a smaller pedal bin liner and job done. Remember, as they already have a food waste caddy, rotting food shouldn't be in there.

I can genuinely appreciate that larger families might not be able to fit everything in, but rather than discuss it with the council, they are moaning on the site.

As long as you're allowed unlimited recycling then the general idea from councils is to reduce waste......and no doubt save them money.

We have a bin for ordinary rubbish, and various recycling bins. Recycling bin ( for grass etc) one for cans and bottles, plus a bag for card and paper collected fortnightly, alternating.

It's fine, though it does mean that the front of the house has less kerb appeal, but then black bags torn apart by cats and foxes don't have kerb appeal either :-) you can ask for a smaller bin if you have little waste, or get a second one if you have a big family.

I have a compost bin in the garden also.

What annoys me is that the council offer a very reasonably priced bulky item collection, but people would rather dump the items, usually sofas it seems, on green space by the kids play park or opposite houses etc and then the council has to come and collect them when someone ( often me lol) reports it.

We have to supply our own black bags for non recyclable rubbish , and waste food caddy ones

We do have a brown bin for garden waste and the food caddy ones go in it too

We do get white recycle bags for tins bottle etc and blue reusable reinforced plastic carriers for paper and cardboard
They make a weekly collection for all of them .

I do have to watch the brown bin as I don't have much garden rubbish or waste food but as the caddy ones break down quickly it's easy to get maggots in the bin very quickly especially as the weather warms up .

It often goes out with just a small amount in it just to get rid

We have three wheelie bins and one green box.

Brown-lidded wheelie bin for garden rubbish - collected once a month between March and October at a cost of £20 per annum. Worth it if you have a large garden with lots of foliage.

Blue-lidded wheelie bin for recyclable plastic, cardboard and paper - collected once a fortnight.

Green box for recyclable glass - collected fortnightly.

Black-lidded wheelie bin for all other household rubbish - collected fortnightly.

The system works well and OH has created an area for them to fit into a climber-covered area next to the shed at the bottom of our garden.

Now he's well-retired his woodworking skills are improving greatly. We have a wisteria-covered pergola, a clematis and honeysuckle covered archway along the path to the shed along one side of the garden, a couple of nesting boxes (blue tits in again), a roosting box, a hedgehog house and a bug house.

He has always been a nature-lover and at last (I think) he's beginning to enjoy his retirement. I, on the other hand, took to retirement like a duck to water and I could sit for England - and frequently do so, watching OH keep himself occupied.

I wholeheartedly recommend retirement and we're into double figures now. :-D

Our council changed from a weekly bin collection to a fortnightly one In March. Not a problem for us as this week it was only a third full even though it was six weeks since I last put it out. Mind you we do have six other collections for recyclables (food waste, tins & glass, plastics, cardboard, paper and garden waste).

The best change for bin collection was when they abolished Monday collections so most bank holidays don't affect collection day for anyone.

We have four wheelie bins.

Two Brown for garden waste, (up to 50kilo in each) for which we have to pay an annual subscription. Optional, but if you are an avid garner than it is cheaper than endless trips to the tip.

Green for re-cyclables, tins, bottled packaging etc and Black one for general waste, the latter we bag up before it goes in so the bin stays relatively clean.

In addition we have a smaller caddy for food waste which is bagged first in bio-degradable bags provided by the council. However because we have compost bins of our own all our veg. waste goes there so the caddy is normally no more than a quarter full.

Collection is fortnightly, with food caddy weekly. Black one week, green and brown the alternate.

You do have to manage things, especially the Green re-cycle bin, otherwise it gets full. Squash tins and and flatten boxes and cartons etc. With only two of us it is rare our black and green bins are more than two-thirds full, unless we are having a special clean out, even on a fortnightly collection.

We changed several years ago to wheelie bins and like many I had concerns - more about the recycling one with the threat of sanctions if you put the wrong stuff in :-0

Now I would hate to change back, but I do use a wheelie bin liner in the general rubbish one. Saves me having to wash it out every two weeks - twice a year more like ;-)
I also use bin powder in the summer.

There are smaller wheelie bins available in our area as well :-)

Seeing you mention washing the bins, Lyndi, I forgot to mention that some enterprising person goes round washing the bins for a small fee - OH does ours.

Islington make you pay for the bins and are bureaucratic to the nth degree.
I got fined for putting a dead fox in the bin.
It is an out of control industry which has made fly tipping a lucrative business.

In that, I'd agree with you Rollo. We have had several prosecutions for fly-tipping in the area since the LA charged a fee for vehicles to use the local waste tip.

We already have different bins and have had for a few years.

Grey bin for general waste emptied fortnightly
Larger Green bin for recycling emptied fortnightly
2 brown bins for garden waste emptied weekly in summer but once a month March to October.
A smaller black food caddy emptied weekly
Blue box for glass and batteries emptied monthly.

There are big differences in bins and collections from area to area. We have black for general rubbish and green for recycling (paper, card, glass, tins) and an optional brown bin for gardening. I had to buy the brown bin and then pay an annual fee. No food waste collected (but we can put peelings in the garden bin;-)) I asked if I could put shrivelled carrots in and the reply was 'we accept raw peelings' :-S

Edited to add: Larger families can get an extra general waste bin (6+ or 5 with a baby in nappies)

Over 30 years ago we lived in a house fronting straight off the street. Changing to a wheelie bin was a nightmare. Heavily pregnant and with a husband on late turn the night prior to collection I was expected to drag it down the back of other houses and leave it in the narrow passage between some of the houses. Luckily the council agreed to carry on collecting from my back gate, but once baby arrived I had to remember to go in/out via the front door for a couple of days.
Now we have a back garden and shed to house 2 wheelie bins, two large boxes for paper and glass, and a big sack for plastics & tin. The bag from the kitchen caddy goes in the fortnightly green wheelie and the general bin on the other week. I,m not doing as suggested - keeping the caddy bag in the freezer until green recycling week come around.

I wouldn't do that either, Names.

I'd question how hygienic it was. :-0

Surprising how many different combinations of bins there are. We have had wheelie bins for years. We have a brown one for garden waste, annual fee around £38, well worth it to save those numerous trips to the tip. We also have a green general waste bin which goes to landfill and a blue recycling bin which takes cardboard, tins, glass, card, paper (like computer paper), newspaper, yoghurt pots, plastic meat and veg trays plastic bottles, small amounts of shredding wrapped in newspaper. We also have a small food caddy for the kitchen the bags of which are transferred to the larger food caddy for collection. Our veg peelings etc go into amother caddy for our own compost bin in the garden. Green bin collected one week plus the brown bin, blue bin collected alternate weeks and food caddy collected every week. Food caddy can have food in any plastic bag now as all food waste is chooped up and used for producing energy. (they say).
Reading all the different types of bin collection in this county alone I think Tewkesbury BC have got it about right.
Only one moan at the moment, we have just had all new refuse lorries and now the food waste is collected separately and this week was not collected until late afternoon. Not sure how that will work in the hot sun if people neglect to lock their bins and animals get a whiff of food.