Stupid Councils

[Arthurgray50@blu]

At the end of each month, we get a bill for coucil tax, which we are made to pay, and each year this goes up, but at the moment we have a problem over a major health hazard - Rubbish, some local councils won't collect each week, like they should. they state that if residents, bag this up properly, then there will be no problem, totally wrong, residents buy crap bags, you cannot buy decent ones, and council's won't give them too you now.

Some major towns, have too many pests, that love rubbish and will tear these bags open, ie, rats, foxes, cats and dogs, and each one of these animals brings one thing - disease, what do other members think.

The council should collect non-recyclable rubbish every week, imho, but residents also have a responsibility to bag things up, to minimise the possiblility of vermin getting binned foodstuffs - the excuse of "you cannot buy decent ones" does not wash, imo.

For example Link1 or Link2 , which I have seen for sale in local supermarkets; if we throw out excess food waste, we should bag it securely.

Just because the councils are acting inappropriately, doesn't mean we should.

[Ramrod]

Bagging it doesn't seem to work if you have foxes in the area. They will rip the bags open and make a big mess....wheely bins are the answer...

[v0id]

err, yeah. Are there still local councils that don't provide wheely bins?

Not a problem for me though, we still get a weekly collection, along with the fortnightly recycling

[Xaccers]

In MK there used to be (under Labour) fortnightly collections, vermine had a field day, people were not happy.
Change of council and re-introduction of weekly collections. The residents got to vote on wheelie bins, and unfortunately decided against it (I like them becuse of their size).
We recycle something like 37% of our waste in MK, so above the 30% target which Labour want, and which they suggest fortnightly collections to reach.
We get free pink recyle bags and the blue tub for glass. When we run out of pink bags, we just pop to the local cornershop and get a new roll.
We've bought our own wheelie bin for non-recylable rubbish to be stored out in the front garden, and just leave the full pink bags in the front garden as there's no food in them so they don't get tampered with.
Doing it this way has made it so easy for us to recycle, the only thing that's a hassle is envelopes with windows in them as the window has to be torn out to recycle the paper.
Oh and they can't handle drinks cartons or bottle screw caps.

MK has shown that if you want people to recyle you don't do it by dropping to fortnightly collections, you do it by making recycling easy and free.

[AndyCambs]

We get fortnightly collections - alternating between landfill refuse one week, and recyclable/garden waste the other week. There are three bins in total.
Our landfill bin is usually less than half full, whereas the recycle bin is nearly full after two weeks - contains tins, glass, plastic bottles, paper and cardboard.
A fortnightly alternating collection is quite adequate.

[Angua]

Weekly for both here, but still under the 30% as because collections are weekly a lot of people still don't recycle, and we have a huge range that can be taken.

[Stuart]

Bromley was one of the first councils to offer recycling (apparently). It shows. While they still do weekly refuse collections, they will not provide wheely bins, and while they will apparently allow people to use their own, they don't like it. They did (unofficially, we weren't notified) switch to fortnightly collections briefly last year. Unfortunately, they chose the hottest time of last year, and as none of the residents were told, they left the rubbish out as usual. You can imagine the smell.

Also, in their recyling, they don't allow any organic waste (so garden stuff is out unless you trick the bin men despite the fact the council could use/sell the waste as compost). They also don't allow any light plastic packaging (so yoghurt pots, ready meal containers and certain plastic jars are out as well as clingfilm). They will accept plastic bottles, as long as you remove the lid (understandable as it lowers the risk of explosion).

Oh, and they provide two recycling bins per household (one for metal/plastics/jars and one for paper). I live in a house of two (two adults and three small pets), and the bins are too small for us (we could easily fill them even with weekly collections). They are far too small for the average family.

These bins are rectangular,and approx half the size of a conventional (ie non wheelie) dustbin.

In Leeds we have 3 good-sized wheelie bins per house (well, we do in our area of North West Leeds)- one for normal waste collected weekly, one for recyclable collected monthly (always full to brim, and I recycle glass separately), and one for garden waste, collected fortnightly (I think).

Three (occasionally four) of us probably fill 1/4 to 1/3 of the normal bin weekly, but by four weeks, the recyclable (paper/cardboard/tins/plastic) bin has to be compressed down (by a lardy lad - moi) by standing on top of everything to squash it down - I would be happy for the normal and recyclable bins to be alternate weeks, but understand that others may fill their normal bins within a week.

[chickendippers]

Here on The Wirral they provide 3 wheelie bins; Landfill, Recyclables and Garden Waste.
Landfill and Recyclables are collected on alternate Fridays and Garden Waste is collected fortnightly on Wednesdays.

As a family of 4 we have no problems with overflowing bins or vermin, most things can be recycled, although strangely enough not tin foil.


In Newcastle where I am a student we have a Landfill wheelie bin and a recycling box. Landfill is collected weekly and recycling fortnightly.

The box isn't really big enough for the 5 of us, so we have bought a second, but they are replacing them with wheelie bins over the summer. No problems with vermin or smells, but strangely enough cardboard can't be recycled.

[TheNorm]

One black wheelie bin emptied fortnightly (household waste).

One green wheelie bin emptied fortnightly (recyclable waste).

One green box emptied fortnightly (glass, foil, newspapers, tin cans)

We must be doing something right, as an award has been won:

South Cambridgeshire is the second best district in the UK for composting, and third best for overall recycling.

http://www.scambs.gov.uk/Environment...eaconaward.htm

[Arthurgray50@blu]

I would like to make an extra comment, on the ' its the responsibilty of the resident, to make sure that rubbish bags are secured' here in Hounslow, we don't have wheelie bins, we rely on very cheap bags, that we have to buy, and l personally, don't think it is our job, to buy strong bags, we pay enough in council tax, for the council to supply us with proper bins, like l have seen in other boroughs, l have to put the bags out at night, as the binmen call at 6-00/6-30 each morning, so therefore vermin will have a field day on the rubbish bags, as for recycled stuff, this is collected on a weekly basis, but they won't take plastic, this has to be taken to Tesco's, we have to have a proper system ie wheelie bins, but Hounslow council won't supply these. and this can prevent virmin.

Whilst I sympathise with your plight, Arthur, I have to say that I (personally) would rather buy strong bags than take the risk of encouraging vermin.

[Shaun]

One small wheely bin, two recycling boxes (one just wasn't enough)

They take plastic bottles, paper (no envelopes, shredies or the like) and glass and that's your lot.

Not light plastic, no cardboard.

Both weekly. Would be happy to swap the boxes for a bin an have it every other week as it's all clean stuff.

Here in south leicestershire we have two wheelie bins one for landfill and one for recyleable's and also two little box things purely for recycling one ofr tins and glass and the other for paper. We have nothing for plastic recycling and the company that is contracted to empty the bins will take every oppurtunity to slap a sticker on your bin for minor infractions and refuse to empty it. That has caused some problems as rubbish that is not emptied ends up being dumped which i don't agree with but understand why it happens.

I am in a rural town and we have a large problem with foxes and trust me no matter how sturdy the bag it will not stop a fox let alone half a dozen of them that routinely wander our streets after dark. I agree that is the responsibility of us to recycle as much as we can but i am getting a little tired of the lectures from this government about it when they do sod all to get onto the creators of the problem the manufacturors of our foodstuffs.

Easter has highlighted this to me as my wife had a little (and i mean little) easter egg but the packaging was way out of proportion for the contents and this is the case with most of what we buy from the shops. I think it was dispatches on channel four that showed how much packaging waste there was from a weekly shop if we cut that down 30% will be a doddle.