Bin Collections, Recycling & Landfill

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Psamathe

Active Member
Prompted by a report today
Monthly bin collections and library closures: furious Bristol residents turn on Greens over council cuts
Guerrilla protest against low-traffic neighbourhood is latest backlash against newly-elected council
from https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/feb/01/bristol-protests-green-led-council-cuts
made me think about bin collections, thougfh the article and actions in Bristol seem maybve it's more about unhappyness with a Green Council and bin collections is only part of the issue.

But I'd be all in favour of 4 weekly bin collections. We're in effect already on two week intervals rthough one week it's the recycling bin, next week the landfill bin. I find I end up with nothing in the landfill bin most of the collections, my single kitchen landfill bin needing emptying with a single small binliner maybe every 4 weeks. Recycling maybe ends-up with trivial amount in the wheely bin every 2 weeks. And I in effect share a wheely bin with my neighbours.

So my reaction is where are people getting all this rubbish from? I'm probably an exception but it's a question of degree and I do think our politicians should be doing more to penalise production companies for unnecessary single use plastics eg why when across Europe do they manage to survive withy "naked" cucumbers whilst we in the UK seem to need to cover them in single use plastic?

Ian
 
Like @Psamathe we have fortnightly collections alternating between a landfill bin one week and both mixed recycling and garden waste in two bins in week two. Food waste caddies are collected weekly.

Other than volume of recycling and occasionally garden waste doubling the intervals would be no problem at all.

Some stuff, like immediate wrappers from meat or fish, mean the landfill bin smells a bit but as long as the kitchen bin liners are intact and knotted at the deck it's not a problem. At the end of a fortnight the landfill bin has two or three kitchen bin bags, knotted bags from the bathroom loo with contents sanitary towels etc but again, as long as they're knotted, they're fine.

Only issue I think is that larger households and those less fastidious than we are about what we buy/throw might need larger bins.
 

All uphill

Well-Known Member
I go for a walk most evenings, and find the walk before bin day most interesting.

The houses with almost nothing in their bins, and the houses with a mountain of cardboard and plastic.

My highly scientific observations suggest that household size has little to do with the volume recycled; there's a correlation with the number of vehicles, though.

I guess some people live to consume and others not.
 

BoldonLad

Old man on a bike. Not a member of a clique.
Location
South Tyneside
Prompted by a report today
Monthly bin collections and library closures: furious Bristol residents turn on Greens over council cuts
Guerrilla protest against low-traffic neighbourhood is latest backlash against newly-elected council
from https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/feb/01/bristol-protests-green-led-council-cuts
made me think about bin collections, thougfh the article and actions in Bristol seem maybve it's more about unhappyness with a Green Council and bin collections is only part of the issue.

But I'd be all in favour of 4 weekly bin collections. We're in effect already on two week intervals rthough one week it's the recycling bin, next week the landfill bin. I find I end up with nothing in the landfill bin most of the collections, my single kitchen landfill bin needing emptying with a single small binliner maybe every 4 weeks. Recycling maybe ends-up with trivial amount in the wheely bin every 2 weeks. And I in effect share a wheely bin with my neighbours.

So my reaction is where are people getting all this rubbish from? I'm probably an exception but it's a question of degree and I do think our politicians should be doing more to penalise production companies for unnecessary single use plastics eg why when across Europe do they manage to survive withy "naked" cucumbers whilst we in the UK seem to need to cover them in single use plastic?

Ian

We are also on fortnightly bin collection, alternation recycle / landfill.

Like you, we could easily go to 4 weekly. However, I doubt any of our neighbours could. The other 10 houses in the street generally have wheelie bins stuffed to overflowing.

In two instances, they are families with children, but, the other 8, I wonder where they accrue their rubbish from. Judging from what regularly falls out of their bins onto the road, it is mostly fast food packaging.
 

Bazzer

Well-Known Member
I am surprised when I see wheely bins stuffed to overflowing. We could go longer than two weeks for both our recyclable and non recyclable waste as I suspect our neighbours could probably too. We had a bin collection strike around 15 months or so ago and there were no collections for a couple of months. That was challenging, particularly for the recyclables.
We have a separate (subscription) garden waste collection, which would be a struggle if that was longer than fortnightly.
 

winjim

Welcome yourself into the new modern crisis
I've been recycling all my life and the planet still seems to be on fire. Go figure.

Main issue here is that paper and mixed recycling are the wrong way round. Small paper bin is always full, large bottle and can bin never is.
 

Ian H

Legendary Member
I go for a walk most evenings, and find the walk before bin day most interesting.

The houses with almost nothing in their bins, and the houses with a mountain of cardboard and plastic.

My highly scientific observations suggest that household size has little to do with the volume recycled; there's a correlation with the number of vehicles, though.

I guess some people live to consume and others not.

You check everyone's bin??
 

Beebo

Guru
We have general rubbish collected every 2weeks.

With a family of 4 we would struggle with every 4 weeks, as the bin is 3/4 full by day 14.

We also have paper, recyclables, and garden waste collected every 2 weeks.
Food waste is collected every week.

At busy times like Christmas or if we have a party then 2 weeks wouldn’t be enough.
 
The number of collections, 23 types of bins all don't matter if our government does not provide honest information. i don't know what the situation is now but before Brexit the Netherlands was the largest importer of British garbage.
Not because it's all dumped in to huge piles but because before privatizing all the waste management companies in the nineties the government at the time invested in modernizing their facilities and crucial step(especially those who sold of Thames water and the likes) the government kept a small stake and set conditions for sale which include a mandate to keep on modernizing.
So the garbage that was(or still is idk) exported from the UK as mentioned earlier actually got processed and recycled as much as possible instead off dumped into a big pile so you can have someone going to the media every so much years to retrieve his claimed binned harddrive with millions off bitcoin(spoiler there is no harddrive nor bitcoin)

Then the type of bins, modern waste processing facilities don't need separate glass, plastics etc., it would be better if everything except for compostable(which would be better stored underground so when it needs to be emptied nature already has done most of the recycling) Computers are much better in scanning the current type of glass plastics etc. for each type of recycling. So we actually need two bins underground compostable and all the rest.
If the goverment would actually invest, in useful things, but hey why would you if you can keep on fighting the symptoms not the disease.
 
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Psamathe

Active Member
Then the type of bins, modern waste processing facilities don't need separate glass, plastics etc., it would be better if everything except for compostable(which would be better stored underground so when it needs to be emptied nature already has done most of the recycling) Computers are much better in scanning the current type of glass plastics etc. for each type of recycling. So we actually need two bins underground compostable and all the rest.
Just like my area has. Two wheely bins, one black for landfill, other green for everything recyclable. Black landfill collected one week, green recyclables following week. Unsure about brown one as I do my own recycling/garden waste.

If you want compost and garden waste you pay and get a brown bin.

Ian
 

ebikeerwidnes

Senior Member
Many years ago I lived in a flat for a year or two - there were about 25-30 flats in the block

we all had several bins - some of which were bags - for recycling and a general waste bin

On recycling bins day I put mine out and there were generally about 2 other flats's bin out there

On general bin day I often went to put mine out - carrying the last bag of stuff to go init
at this point I would know that my bin had about 2 small carrier bags of waste in the bottom - no more - so I was adding a thrird

but when I got to it I would often find it crammed full of rubbish from other people
and every other bin from the block was also crammed full

There was a lady who lived nextdoor to me who had the only bit of enclosed garden with acces to the car park where the bins were collected from
she said that she generated about the same amount of rubbish - but as she could keep her bin in her garden she could put it out still almost empty
but when she went to work the next morning it would always be crammed full


basically - when I looked - it was nearly all take-away boxed and containers from food that you can heat in a microwave

a lot of it could actually go in the recycling bins and bags ( take away boxes were allowed) but the people just could not be bothered


as usual - it jusy comes down to people
 
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winjim

Welcome yourself into the new modern crisis
Reject, reduce, reuse, repair, recycle.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Recycling is literally the last thing we should be thinking about. And it's a way to shift responsibility to consumers from those those higher up the supply chain.

Someone having a takeaway and stuffing the container into someone else's bin is having a negligible effect on the environment. And you're not gonna stop it so there's no point getting upset about it.
 

ebikeerwidnes

Senior Member
Someone I used to know was reading about all this recycling stuff
and an article in the paper from a woman with 2 kids who "had not got time to recycle" so just filled up all her bons one at a time with general rubbish until they were all full
and she had been fined by the counsel for putting out recycling bines full of general rubbish - for about the 10th time

anyway - this friend couldn;t work and had a husband and 2 teenage kids and decided to see how low she could get her rubbish with minimal effort and expense

she changed a few things from versions in plastic containers to glass or metal and generally paid attention

she got down to 1 standard supermarket carrier bag a week by recycling everything she could and composting stuff she could
with a family of 4 including 2 teenagers (and 1 a boy and you know how much teenage boys eat!!!)
 
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