Weekly bin collections back - good or bad ?

[youngmafbog]

The government is looking to fund councils to retain to return to weekly bin collections.

For food waste I can see the advantages but for recycling and garden waste bins surely fortnightly is good enough, so long as the receptacle is large enough?

[ummmm]

We already have weekly collections in Northampton.

Much better. They fill up really quickly....especially cans and plastics.

[Ann]

Yes i agree - I'm quite happy with the fortnightly collection of rubbish and garden waste. We have weekly bins of paper and plastics. It seems a waste of money to go back to weekly for the two big wheelie bins. I would rather councils spend their spare cash and give us back our street lights during the night instead of us being plunged into total darkness.

[Ankou]

we have adjusted to suit the 2 weekly cycle and found it be sufficient.

weekly for us would mean they are trundling around emptying half full bins.

[rowanwitch]

I think Birmingham has it right household waste weekly and green waste alternate weeks with the glass/plastic/paper recycling you can have as many recycling boxes as you need and they provide rolls of green waste bags Street cleaning is pretty good too...

[riptide]

Think yourself lucky youngmafbog, we had a circular round from our Council this year to say that in future households will receive 80 bags per year for single and couples (presume more for larger households) for all household waste and will not collect it unless in the supplied bags. Also, they will not be collecting garden waste anymore unless you pay £60.00 per year for a bin. This is on top of the council tax we already pay and will come into effect 2012/2013. I really do not see how they can restrict you like this on household rubbish. Presume you have to buy more bags if you run out. Shame on them.

[Ankou]

we don't have a garden waste collection any more.

the council decided that if we want to continue it then we need to sign up to t new scheme and pay £25 per year. most people now just put it in the general bin.

[ichkeria]

We, too, are perfectly happy with fortnightly bin collections (of NON-RECYCYABLE waste, for I think that's what we're talking about). I can see that people wouldn't want food waste hanging around in a bin for too long but, in our area at least, weekly bin collections only stopped when weekly food waste collection came in. I am confident our local council will not revert to weekly collections of non-recyclable waste - it would be expensive and pointless, and also a damned nuisance. We already put out two recyclable waste boxes and one food waste box every week, and the food waste bin, garden waste bin and "the bin" on the other weeks.
If there are council areas where, literally, no waste is collected at all on alternate weeks, then I agree that that is not good, but are there?

[boxtops]

We currently have fortnightly for recycling (including green) and weekly for the "dustbin bag" of food and non-recylclable stuff - it's about to change though, five new containers arriving any time now, I think they are still collecting the waste weekly though. I wouldn't want that honking about for a fortnight.

[EvianBaby]

We have three standard bins. One for food waste, one for all recycling and one for all non-recycling.

The food waste is collected weekly. The recycling will be collected one week and the non recycling the next week. Everyone moaned about the new system when it came it but it has worked extremely well. I think as long as food isn't left to linger for two weeks then a fornightly collection is fine.

[johnk]

We have our recycle bin collected fortnightly and general waste fortnightly and they alternate so one goes every week and that's worked fine.

[rowanwitch]

weekly in the summer fortnightly in the winter might work....

[ichkeria]

I wonder if Eric Pickles is out of step with the People of Britain on this?
I feel another U turn coming on :-)

[ummmm]

So where do people store their full binbags for a fornight?

[ichkeria]

"So where do people store their full binbags for a fornight? "

We store binbags and other non-recyclable waste in our bins. Which are rather large.

[ummmm]

We don't have wheelie bins.

[ichkeria]

"We don't have wheelie bins. "

In which case for your area maybe weekly collections are a good thing.

[redman41]

The more we recycle the less we have to have taken to landfill sites and we are fast running out of these.
Recycling should have started Years ago and should be encouraged as much as possible.
It will save everyone money in the long run

[Ann]

When our fortnightly scheme was introduced in Leicestershire it wasn't so much the fact of the food hanging about for 2 weeks etc - it was "where do we keep 4 bins of varying sizes if we can't get then from the back of our house to the front". People who live in terraced houses have to drag them through the house - imagine doing that in wet weather on your carpets! On our estate most people, us included, keep them in the front garden/drives and I think they look hideous! We visited Lincolnshire yesterday and the bins are colours which blend into the garden - I know some councils have bright blue and red wheelie bins (just awful, they stand out like a sore thumb!)- why aren't they a uniform colour all over the country - green and brown to tone in with the garden?

[Gromit]

Well, fortnightly collections were unpopular (with a vocal minority) but they worked, and no one got ill or died as a result.

But if the Government have nothing better to spend £250 million (which is what they intend to pay councils to do a weekly collection) then so be it.

[anotheoldgit]

Must agree with Gromit on this one, why waste all that money when the fortnightly cycle seems to work perfectly well.

Our council allows us to wrap all food waste up in paper and deposit it in the garden waste bin, this in turn is all composted and turned into plant compost, which we can then purchase off the council.