How much do you fill your bin?

candygirl

Ours is always full:D

sparrer

We're I person, 2 cats, 1 small dog.

Black wheelie for non recyclables, ie for the tip, collected fortnightly, which is usually 1/4 to 1/3 full.
Green wheelie for all recyclables, inc clothing, paper, plastics etc but exc glass, collected fortnightly, again 1/4 - 1/3 full
Green bag for garden waste, collected fortnightly, almost always full except in winter
Glass is taken to a bottle bank, there are 4 in our small town so I usually pass one wherever I'm going

While a weekly collection of the green bin would be preferable, particularly in hot weather, and I appreciate I'm in the minority as a single occupant, in my case there's really no need.

mi_jardin

there is two adults and five hounds in our house, we have a black wheelie for normal rubbish, which usually only has two bags in it from the kitchen bin, that gets collected every fortnight. Then I have a garden waste bin which really depends on the time of year, today it was three quarters full with fallen leaves, but other times I don't put it out at all, thats collected every fortnight as well. Then I have a kitchen waste bin that it only 10L, thats practically full when its collected every week, I used to have a compost bin, but have started to use the council one now as we are planning to move and sold the compost bin on fleabay!
I recycle plastics/paper/cardboard via the binmen collections as well, and I take my glass to the bottle bank every week.
It always shocks me when I see these bins overflowing, there has to be recyclable stuff in there, but some people just can't be bothered, or think they don't have the time I guess. Sad.

Justamum

suki1964 wrote: »

See now reading the replies on here and always have been on fortnightly collections myself, I am at a loss to understand why councils in England are returning to weekly collections

Apparently a weekly system was originally introduced for health reasons. It takes 10 days for a fly to go from egg to fly, so a weekly collection breaks into that and stops bins from crawling with maggots and flies, so there's something to be said for having weekly bin collections in the summer. Also people pay their council tax for these services. Did everybody get a reduction when bin collection went from 52 times a year to 26?

We are lucky in that we still have weekly collections, even though I could easily go 2 and sometimes 3 weeks before needing the bin emptied even though there are 5 of us.

snowleopard61

I wouldn't mind fortnightly collections at all for my own sake (we are a household of one and two half adults - the kids aren't incomplete , just not at home all the time - and three cats), but I would mind the knock-on effect of other people's overflowing bins.

Most of all I mind that, living in sunny Southampton, we had a prolonged bin strike in the summer and have had a 'work to rule' since, which means that even now our bins are being collected on random days. Since the place I normally keep my bins (one general waste, and one recycling, which I use for everything they'll take) is either side of my back door for convenience, and nowhere near the collection point in front of the house, with a locked side gate in between, this is thoroughly annoying :mad:

big5

We don't have bins - the council provides clear bags for recycling (weekly collection) and reusable bags for garden waste (fortnightly collection). Rubbish goes out in black bin bags (weekly collection). We usually put out one black bag (not always full) and one recyling bag a week, and the amount of garden waste depends on time of year/weather, etc.

They will take glass, paper, cardboard, tins, cans and plastic bottles for recycling - we just stick it all in the same bag, it's so easy.

suki1964

Justamum wrote: »

Apparently a weekly system was originally introduced for health reasons. It takes 10 days for a fly to go from egg to fly, so a weekly collection breaks into that and stops bins from crawling with maggots and flies, so there's something to be said for having weekly bin collections in the summer. Also people pay their council tax for these services. Did everybody get a reduction when bin collection went from 52 times a year to 26?

We are lucky in that we still have weekly collections, even though I could easily go 2 and sometimes 3 weeks before needing the bin emptied even though there are 5 of us.

Why would you get a reduction if you are still putting out the same amount of rubbish?

Like I say here we have had fortnightly collections as long as Ive lived here and never had a problem with flies or over flowing bins.

Perhaps we should be like Germany, in particular Neustadt an der Weinstrass

Petlamb

Back at my parents' house, we switched to "fortnightly" a long time ago - we got the 2 wheelie bin system early as we were a test area IIRC.... I disagree to an extent with terming it 'fortnightly collection' actually - as there IS still *a* bin being collected every week - just that it alternates which bin?

We never had a problem with it, though we noted neighbours seemed to have very smelly bins in some cases - but they seem to add things like food waste to the wheelie bin not in a bag?! So asking for it really... we never binned anything that wasn't already bagged, so while our bin certainly did have a smell to it (dont they all?) it was nothing like the pungent aroma of some!

MATH

We have two wheelie bins, green for: paper, card, plastic bottles/containers, foil, glass, and black for: non recyclables. They are emptied on alternate weeks.

As a family of 5 (with 2 cats) we qualify for super-sized wheelies, but just have the regular size ones.

Green bin is always full, black bin is only ever 1/3 to 1/4 full

Need2bthrifty

I live alone and have a brown bin for garden and food waste collected fortnightly - It is regularly put out in the summer months but may be every couple of months during the winter.

The Black Wheelie bin is for "rubbish" ie anything that cant be recycled and is collected fortnightly but again because I dont use bags to store the rubbish it takes me months to fill the bin and because there is nothing perishable in it, months go by before I put it out for collection.

We also have a black box (glass, tins & plastic bottles recycled) and white bag (paper & cardboard) collection fortnightly again it can be months before I consider it worthwhile putting it out.

I suppose I am lucky in that the Council Waste Recycle Centre is not too far from where I live so anything like paint, wood, metal, batteries etc can be taken there.