Shared bins.

sheep1003

I have lived in a block of 4 flats with a communal stairway, shared back yard  and 2 bits at the front split into half which  each side is the responsibility of the downstairs flats, I have lived here since 2008. Three of the four flats are rented from the council (mine included) and the other is rented out privately after it was bought from the previous council tenant.

I have seen lots of people come and go from all the flats over the years, some have been absolutely fine and lovely neighbours others have been terrible!! I accept this as part of living in a block! At the moment there are 6 people combined living here, two of the flats have a couple in each and 2 are people living alone (I’m one of those). A lot of that may not seem relevant I just wanted to give enough detail!! 

We all share 4 normal sized wheelie bins- 2 black bins (normal household waste) and 2 green bins (all recyclable material exc. glass which should be taken to the glass bank up the road and garden waste). Over the years it has generally worked  with sharing the bins, more often than not I do have to stamp down the rubbish (nobody else that lives here at the moment does this just balances it on top) to make sure the bin is collected (the council will not take the bin if the lid is slightly open). Every now and again someone will fill up the black bin the day after collection with stuff that most reasonable people who share a bin would take to the tip but not my neighbours! 

So to my point finally… it is now got the  to point where at least one flat is not bothering at all anymore to separate their waste and it’s all going into the black bin, I’m talking about stuff that from just seeing the outside of the  bin bag that it’s cans, tins etc. although mixed with pet litter/food stuff etc. so I can’t just move the bag to the green bin. I’m not fanatical about recycling but what gets to me is that when they do that and the other flats do it on a smaller scale and also with the stuff that doesn’t belong there, there is not enough space in them. They will keep stacking up rubbish down there even if the bins are  full rather than the sensible option of taking the rubbish else where. 

Last bit before the question.. I have mentioned in passing to the flats about the bins but they have taken no notice and I have not mentioned it again as I don’t want to be ‘that’ person, also they are very unapproachable and listening to the often screaming and shouting not particularly nice people! I have looked at my tenancy agreement and the only reference to bins is keeping the area they are stored in tidy. 

What my question is…. Where do I stand with asking the council for another green  bin and another black bin for my flats exclusive use? They I’m sure are bound to say no but I would like to know if they have any real justification for that, considering I along with the other flats pay our own separate council tax, this block is not a scheme of any sort, not retirement housing etc. I would just like to be prepared for when they say no what would be my argument for it?

With thanks. 

theoretica

Just ask - if they say no you might ask about replacing the normal bin for your flat and one other with 2 smaller ones - around my area the general waste bins for one property are all small and the recycling small/normal/large as requested...  But you might then need to be prepared for neighbours to use your bin.

luvchocolate

I had a similar problem..other flat users putting general waste into green bin..which were not being emptied. 
Called council and they replaced the green bin with another general bin. 
So no recycling bin but at least bins getting emptied. 
Definitely give them a call see what they suggest 

Brie

In our area blocks of flats have large bins - about the size of 4 - 6 bins in one.  Maybe you could ask to have one of those.  Alternatively I would think there should be 1 of each bin for each of the flats.

Our waste bins are relatively small, much smaller than the recycling one.  This became an issue when MiL needed a lot of disposables due to being very ill.  There was no way this could all be contained for 2 weeks with the other waste and a simple request to the council sorted that as they provided an additional bin within days.  They were surprisingly understanding of the whole situation.

gwynlas

You can ask about having your own bins but these are likely to be abused by the other tenants. Is there anyone at the council who is tasked with recycling who might go through offending bin bags of mixed rubbish to source evidence of who is doing this in the same way they search for evidence of fly tipping? If no one at the council is prepared to take action you will just be wasting your time frettting about it. You can only take responsibility for your oen actions.

elsien

If you had your own bin, there’s a fair chance the other tenants would use it unless you put some sort of lock on - no idea how effective they are. 

jrawle

This was one of the things I hated about living in a flat. I would take time to separate waste correctly, then other people would dump incorrect items in the bins, meaning my effort was wasted, and to make it worse it might then not be collected.

In our area, the council are happy to supply extra recycling bins, but not general waste bins, as the latter are strictly quota controlled as they want to keep the recycling rate up (as we are one of the top areas in the country for recycling). If the flats are already served by a sufficient number of general waste bins, they won't want to supply an additional one for you. You also need to consider who is in charge of the communal yard. Presumably there is some sort of management company, so they would need to be consulted about any additional bins. Or are you proposing to keep the bins in your private outdoor space?

I would suggest talking to your neighbours, and placing noticed on the communal bins asking people to separate waste correctly. You could also contact the management company and ask them to send letters asking people to use the bins properly.

sheep1003

Thank you for all your replies it has given me a lot to think about. I decided the first thing I needed to make Sure it would be a no and called the waste people at the council… it was a No! apparently we have enough black bin volume for our block, the lady suggested I get in touch with the estate manager and inform them, so I’m going to do that today in an email.

Just  some points that have been made

Unfortunately  there is no the space for the bigger bins, mainly as it would be impossible to empty them from the rear of the property and there is nowhere at the front for them to go.  

If I were to get my own bin, not only would I label it but would be perfectly happy to remove the rubbish that I didn’t put in there, that’s if the gravity bin locks aren’t as good as advertised! Im hoping that they will come back with that they will get rid of the bigger style wheelie bin and have individual smaller  bins for each and to be honest as long as I can put my own rubbish in, what the other tenants do with theirs is their problem!!!

  I have often been tempted to put up a notice, it would be obvious who had done and as I said the other people aren’t very nice people and at the moment the bin issue is only annoying me and apart from mentioning it in passing it hasn’t caused any aggression and to be honest I think the situation with the actually got worse after I mentioned it! 

The communal yard is our responsibility as tenants, the council really have no input with it. 

. 

I will send off the email and keep my fingers crossed, I guess as someone said here they will send letters and I will just have to monitor it.  

bouicca21

We had a bit of a problem in my block because the bin capacity was just too small for the volume of waste.  We just got extra bins - I can't remember whether we had to pay for them or not, but if we did it was well worth it.

Sandtree

Brie said:

In our area blocks of flats have large bins - about the size of 4 - 6 bins in one.  Maybe you could ask to have one of those.  Alternatively I would think there should be 1 of each bin for each of the flats.

Our waste bins are relatively small, much smaller than the recycling one.  This became an issue when MiL needed a lot of disposables due to being very ill.  There was no way this could all be contained for 2 weeks with the other waste and a simple request to the council sorted that as they provided an additional bin within days.  They were surprisingly understanding of the whole situation.

Aren't those private bins? I know our service charge includes bin rental for 4 recycling, 3 general waste and 1 food waste bins.

Our recycling bins are always massively overflowing with vast amounts piled on top but thankfully our bin guys take it all (plus the times its worst is when they've missed a collection or are delayed due to bank holidays etc)

Our experience has always been the flats have shared bins and yes you always get issues with people using the wrong bins etc but just one of those joys of shared living. 

Jude57

sheep1003 said:

Thank you for all your replies it has given me a lot to think about. I decided the first thing I needed to make Sure it would be a no and called the waste people at the council… it was a No! apparently we have enough black bin volume for our block, the lady suggested I get in touch with the estate manager and inform them, so I’m going to do that today in an email.

Just  some points that have been made

Unfortunately  there is no the space for the bigger bins, mainly as it would be impossible to empty them from the rear of the property and there is nowhere at the front for them to go.  

If I were to get my own bin, not only would I label it but would be perfectly happy to remove the rubbish that I didn’t put in there, that’s if the gravity bin locks aren’t as good as advertised! Im hoping that they will come back with that they will get rid of the bigger style wheelie bin and have individual smaller  bins for each and to be honest as long as I can put my own rubbish in, what the other tenants do with theirs is their problem!!!

  I have often been tempted to put up a notice, it would be obvious who had done and as I said the other people aren’t very nice people and at the moment the bin issue is only annoying me and apart from mentioning it in passing it hasn’t caused any aggression and to be honest I think the situation with the actually got worse after I mentioned it! 

The communal yard is our responsibility as tenants, the council really have no input with it. 

. 

I will send off the email and keep my fingers crossed, I guess as someone said here they will send letters and I will just have to monitor it.  

You should certainly write to the relevant officer at the Council, including the issues with the loud arguments and any other anti social behaviour. Make the Housing Officer aware that there's a connection between the two issues and that your efforts to resolve matters in a neighbourly way have been unsuccessful.

I'd also recommend you approach your local Councillor about the impact uncollected bins have on the neighbourhood environment. Councillors are elected to represent you and to help with just these sort of issues. The Council will have at least one Councillor with responsibility for Environmental issues so you could also approach them. Their names and contact information will be on the Council's website. 

My local Council are pretty good but it's the local Councillors getting hands-on involved that has addressed most of the issues my neighbourhood, a predominantly student accommodation area, has had, especially at end of term/academic year when students literally throw everything into the lanes behind their flats.