Just been talking to
a man who was so fed up with fortnightly rubbish collections he started a business to collect his neighbourhood rubbish weekly. It's been wildly successful. Just about to talk to Labour deputy leadership hopeful Harriet Harman.
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Sounds like a rich mix, Eddie. Almost compostable.
Hope Harriet's not going to talk rubbish, too. That wasn't your implication, of course. Was it.
What is all this stuff about fortnightly rubbish collections? We've had them for ages - yes, a few teething problems for some households with large families (most of them have extra large wheely bins now) - but other than that, they're fine. Sometimes, you have to manage your waste a bit more carefully - esp. if you generate extra for some reason, but in return, the nice bin man comes and takes away all your bottles, tins and paper. Oh, and anything from the garden that you don't compost yourself. And the point about "managing your rubbish" is that if you do generate extra - like you buy loads of stuff in boxes, you're motivated to take the cardboard to the local recycling centre rather than just pop it in the bin.
Now, my question is this. Is all the uproar over fortnightly collections genuine reaction from people whose lives have become unbearable following their introduction? Or is it people thinking that it doesn't sound like a Good Idea and so thinking up all sorts of plausible reasons why it mightn't be?
Talking to HH could prove a bit of a waste too....
I'll get me coat.
Fifi ;o)
Re: John H
Well if we have a really hot summer, the smell of 14 day scraps of smoked haddock leaking out of the bin bags is going to be awful.
Still I dare say the local rats will get fatter - with all the open lids - due to people being forced to overfill the wheelies :-(
A friend/colleague of mine did that. It was for business waste though. Does this man live in northumberland?
Ah, yes, the Labour Party deputy leader contest. I caught part of the debate on Newsnight last night. I appreciate that this makes me an utterly shallow human being, but all I could really think was Hazel Blears - "Pocket Politician".
jonnie - is that "reaction" or "prediction"? I'd have thought that you personally would be covered by a business agreement of some kind and would have a different rubbish collection routine from that enjoyed by us proles.
Anyway, yes, you might expect odour problems - but last summer was pretty hot and we didn't really experience any that I was aware of. Yes, this does assume that rubbish is bagged - but most people would want to do that even with weekly collections. Also, and I don't wish to be too graphic, but we have 2 dogs and a cat - all result in, er, waste, which you might expect to cause problems. Our experience is that it doesn't.
As for the rats chowing down on rubbish that won't fit into the wheelies - hmm. They are meant to be of a reasonable capacity but it is a potential problem - but our experience is that we use a lot fewer black sacks than we used to.
One complaint I have heard is not easily dismissed - and that is that the move from normal bin to wheelie bin is impossible for those people who must transport their rubbish through the house to get it to the collection point. I have no answer for that, but surely it's not insurmountable?
Well, whats this? A newletter? How delightful and perfectly timed - whetting ones appetite but not so soon as to make one over hungry (giving rise to the 'I can't be a***d lets have another glass of wine' scenario).
Waffling? Moi? :)
As long as you have a little bit of garden you can compost everything * including food waste * using a thing called a Green Cone or a Green Johanna 'Hot' composter (other systems are I am sure available). Having been invented in Sweden it's more effective in northern latitudes than some other devices offered which originate in hotter climes.
A number of local authorities as far apart as Orkney and East Susses have discount schemes.
Perhaps if more offered them there would be less outcry about fortnightly collections.
Send my best wishes to HH. Or have I missed my chance? She was great on Newsnight last night and I hope she wins the deputy job.
You would think they would have got a box out for Hazel Blears, wouldn't you. (No comments about the box having better policies...)
Eddie, thanks for a newsletter at all. We are grateful for scraps.
But you you do realise that the time for white rabbits is the first of the month, don't you? Save your pocket watch and waistcoat for tomorrow.
Frances O - or Friday even? ;-)
Frances - if you make tomorrow the first of the month I'll miss my birthday :-(
(Actually, come to think of it that may not be a bad idea..)
this chap sounds a sensible man, roll on, bring it on to Norfolk. We have had fortnightly collections for ages . but why dont they collect the black bin which has all the paper and cardboard etc in every three weeks and collect the green bin weekly? that would be more sensible.
thanks
What is the website of the man who has started his own rubbish collection?
Crikey. I feel a bit over-privileged. in that my council does twice-weekly collections for green (short for recyclable) and for other waste.
But they don't recycle a lot of things which could be recycled, nor do they (as far as I know) provide facilities for these other things.
btw, I fill up about as much green as non-green bag space. Much of the non-green is compostable (compostible??), like peelings. Being a flat-dweller, I'd gladly compost, but it's not currently an option.
Bristol has a rubbish-collection system that goes like this:
Every week they collect the food waste (fruit, veg, meat, fish, bones, bread, pasta, cereal, rice, tea-bags, coffee grounds, dairy products and eggshells, but no plastic under any circumstances) in little brown bins about fifteen inches high by one foot square. Every week they collect cardboard, which must be put out tied together neatly next to the brown bin. Every week they collect glass bottles and jars, tins and metal jar-lids, paper, aerosol cans, aluminium foil, yellow pages, household and car batteries, pairs of shoes tied together, cloth, and old spectacles -- all the things they've been collecting as 'recycleable rubbish' every fortnight for several years -- in a black box about one foot six by two foot and ten inches or so deep. Every week, if extra money has been paid by the householder, they collect garden rubbish in a big green bin.
Once a fortnight they collect the large black wheelie-bin, the size we all know and love, into which anything else should be put. That includes plastic, which they say they canât cope with for recycling.
The problems have been with two parts of this system, the brown bins and the black ones.
The brown bins: well, the nastiest, ooziest, pongiest rubbish may not be put into a plastic bag, which has upset a lot of people who don't have anywhere to keep that rubbish without it ponging them out. Whatâs more, the urban foxes have worked out that they can open the brown bins, whose lids have a theoretical lock operated by a large handle that a fox can shift -- I've watched whilst it was done! Then the nastiest etc rubbish gets spread all over the pavement.
The black bins: they will *not* collect any extra rubbish put beside the black bin in a black plastic sack, and that stays in the street and is a great nuisance, particularly since it often contains what ought to have gone into the small brown bin, which may simply not be big enough for its purpose. That *is* an instant-rat recipe.
In theory this is a terrific system. In practice, it would work better if they didnât sometimes leave the brown bins half-full (and open) when they collect the rubbish. Of course, when the food waste has rotted a bit, it tends to stick to the bottom of the bin. This is particularly true of orange-peel. Iâm not sure what the householder is meant to do with it at that point.
It would also make more sense if they provided the biggest bin for the stuff they want to have most of, the recycleable, instead of a small black crate that overflows in all directions...
Full marks for trying, though.
(now whatever on earth was malicious about *that*?)
In Staffordshire, our black bins have been emptied fortnightly for the past four and a half years. We are given wheelie bins, and we make sure that our rubbish is in tied bags before we put it in the wheelie bin. We also make sure that the bin is rinsed out regularly. We are a family of five, and we have never had any problems.
Our black bins hold everything except garden rubbish, cans,glass, paper, most plastics, cardboard and textiles. These are all collected seperately for recycling.
we do actually have a green cone, but it stopped working. I think they can't cope with the amount of food waste a family of three makes which is a bit of a shame. We have ignored it now for several months except for going and checking every so ofen to see if it has started to work again. Which it hasn't, not even when topped up with the appropriate enzymes. Ir was great while it worked, I loved it. But it just couldn't stay the distance.
Re John H # 7
Who said:
jonnie - is that "reaction" or "prediction"? I'd have thought that you personally would be covered by a business agreement of some kind and would have a different rubbish collection routine from that enjoyed by us proles.
---------------------------------
John - Proles indeed, I'm more Proletarian than most of you out there!
Not reaction - which is my normal tendency - as possibly metered out on Wednesdays Glassbox.
Yes we do have a large commercial bin which we can fill with largely anything. It costs ĂĆ5.20 a week which is very reasonable. I believe it's 75 litres but would have to check.
We also have our two council tax bins for our own rubbish.
We have just recently had recycling introduced down here in Bournemouth - so will still have to see how things work out in the hot weather.
In essence it's very similar to Chris Ghoti's system (above) in Bristol.
I'll copy and paste some of Chris's text here as it voices my concerns word for word:-
- - - - - - - - Chris said :-
In theory this is a terrific system. In practice, it would work better if they didnÄĆŒËt sometimes leave the brown bins half-full (and open) when they collect the rubbish. Of course, when the food waste has rotted a bit, it tends to stick to the bottom of the bin. This is particularly true of orange-peel. Im not sure what the householder is meant to do with it at that point.
---------- --------
So I'll see how things pan out across the hot summer Months.
Jonnie I'm more Proletarian than most of you out there
How can you possibly know that?
You a chav/charver then? ;-)
Sorry jonnie, "proles" was intended in an entirely jocular sense - I guess it missed its mark. And also sorry if it seems like I'm picking on you. I'm really not, and everything you've contributed to this subject so far appears very sensible to me. It's just that our experience hasn't supported many of the scare stories.
A couple of other points, though. Your quote of Chris F's point is a good one. Clearly an element of any system is how it's implemented and I think we're quite lucky. I just cram our blue boxes with (sorted) items and our guys take it away. I've heard some nightmare stories about "sticklers" complaining about things being in the wrong bins. And I'm somebody on here (sorry, can't remember who) was explaining how such problems can lead to criminal offences, or something.
Also, if the grey (non-recycling) bin does get whiffy, or just dirty, it does benefit from a wash out. Something I'd never had to do with the old plastic dustbin. To be fair, I've only done this once - in a couple of years - and that was more guilt induced by seeing our neighbours do it!
Finally, whilst the whole scheme was introduced to increase recycling, it had no such effect on us. I used to take all the glass, paper and metal when I went to do the weekly shop - it just saves me the effort. I still make the recycling stop fairly regularly, but now to take plastic which isn't picked up as part of the "kerb-side" recycling scheme.
It may just be the case that our experience is exceptional when compared with others in our area and others in other areas. But in the face of an item on a national current affairs programme that takes as it's starting point, the implicit/explicit assumption that fortnightly collections are Bad, I thought it was worth putting an alternative point of view.
I've been keeping out of this debate 'til now, but I thought it time to add a comment or two!
I have weekly rubbish collections and a weekly recycling collection the next day. No weelie bins. The problem is that the collection isn't from the front door/back gate/etc. I live in a cul-de-sac. The part of the cul-de-sac by the road just has two rows of garages. After the road ends, then the two rows of houses (back to back with an alley between) stat. When it comes to rubbish day, we all have to pile our bags at the end of the road for the binmen (sorry, sanitation officers!) to collect. As our collection is on a Monday, a lot of people put the bags out on a Sunday night. So it would be impossible to say how much each house is throwing out. I understand people's concerns re smells, as there's a lot of people in the Close who insist on putting the rubbish out on a Sunday night, even if (as we had last Chriustmas) the rubbish won't be picked up for three or four days.
Anne P - I've just ordered myself a green cone. Thanks for mentioning it as I didn;t know they existed.
Admin Annie - I hope I have better luck! Was it getting enough sun where it was positioned?
Our local authority haven't made it public with trumpets and fanfares but, hidden away on their website, they have decided from July 1st to introduce a green bin for cardboard and garden waste. They will "continue to do weekly bin collections", but will collect the recycling bin one week and the waste bin the other and so on. They will continue to collect tins and glass and newspapers in a seperate box fortnightly.
My biggest gripe is cellophane wrapping (for which there seems to be no way to recycle) and plastic containers (which are bulky and recycling points are few and far between).