Rubbish, rubbish everywhere!

gabbro86

Hi all,
Apologies in advance if this is not the best place to post this, I wasn't sure.

My Council doesn't provide wheelie bins. They only provide orange plastic bags for recycling, and ask people to leave their bags of rubbish on the street in the morning, for their weekly collection.
Lots of people put their bags out the evening before, leaving them out for the whole night... so during the night animals break the bags, feast on the rubbish and spread it everywhere. ALL the green areas are littered with household rubbish, which gets picked up by the wind and scattered around.
Every month I go out with my trusty grab stick and try to at least clean around my house... hoping my neighbours would follow the example, but they just don't seem to care at all. All I get is a few smiles and bless you's.

The reason I'm writing here is not just to rant... I'm looking for advice as to anything practical I could do to get the Council to provide wheelie bins, which I believe would reduce the issue quite a lot, and to maybe, every now and then, clean the green areas? Anyone here had any luck with similar issues?

comeandgo

Could you approach your councillor or MP?

elsien

Do they not have street cleaners who come round after the bags have been collected?
Not quite the same issue, but we got fed up of the amount of rubbish on the streets following bin collection day, and also the opening of a new supermarket which increasing the littering by a fair amount.
Getting local councillors on board got the street cleaners round more often, which has had a reasonable impact. 

You could also ask them what the council policy is, why wheelie bins aren’t being provided and push for them to raise the issue for you. 

They have also organised community litter picks to try to get more people involved. 

Have you spoken to the neighbours to see if they would support with this? 

Any neighbourhood associations you could join? Strength in numbers and all that. 

MalMonroe

Your council's rubbish collecting policy is, quite simply, rubbish. Obviously animals are going to rip the bags open when they are left out all night. 

You could put in a complaint to your council and I would do that without any delay and also ask my neighbours if they will also complain.

Then as comeandgo suggests, contact your councillor and MP. Both. Get them on the case - after all, we pay for them.

How to find your councillor - https://www.gov.uk/find-your-local-councillors

Your MP -  https://www.parliament.uk/get-involved/contact-an-mp-or-lord/contact-your-mp/

It's perfectly understandable it you do want to rant! I'm sure many people would. 

Complain and rant very loudly about this problem because there are probably rodents all over the place. Not what you want or need. Get the local press involved, too. 

lincroft1710

This is obviously not a new problem and must affect thousands of households, so I would imagine the council would be very aware of what is happening. Where I live we have had wheelie bins for over 25 years, where I lived previously (nearly 25 years ago) we had the same set up as you, but i cannot recall any animal attacks on the bags.


I'll give you odds on that if you raise the matter with the council, you'll get the reply "If you want wheelie bins, your council tax will go up"