View Full Version : Bin day Bothers
I missed putting out my bin last night so I now have a week to wait until they come to empty it again. That's one more week of smells drifting across my driveway.... :( [sigh]
We have the wheelie bin system where you have to drag the bin to the pavement, the bin men then move it to the lorry, press a button and it automatically empties. They then carefully place the bin in front of your driveway so that you can't drive in when you get back home. It's a bit easier for them then replacing it where I left it. Poor things....
Remember the days when the binmen used to come to the back of your house and actually carry it to the van and empty it? I don't forget it often but I do wish that they would assume you have forgotten it rather than assume that you have no rubbish this week....How do the aged and infirm manage to drag it to the front of their house? I can see that they must feel that if they start doing that then no-one will bother to put the bin in front of their house. Is that really a problem though? Their predecessors did that, and they have to lift it over their shoulders. Now a machine lifts it for them.
Some places around here only have a fortnight collection which is not hygienic in my opinion, not in a civilised society.
Anybody got any stories or opinions to share?
timewarrior2001
17-01-2006, 11:31
I missed putting out my bin last night so I now have a week to wait until they come to empty it again. That's one more week of smells drifting across my driveway.... :( [sigh]
We have the wheelie bin system where you have to drag the bin to the pavement, the bin men then move it to the lorry, press a button and it automatically empties. They then carefully place the bin in front of your driveway so that you can't drive in when you get back home. It's a bit easier for them then replacing it where I left it. Poor things....
Remember the days when the binmen used to come to the back of your house and actually carry it to the van and empty it? I don't forget it often but I do wish that they would assume you have forgotten it rather than assume that you have no rubbish this week....How do the aged and infirm manage to drag it to the front of their house? I can see that they must feel that if they start doing that then no-one will bother to put the bin in front of their house. Is that really a problem though? Their predecessors did that, and they have to lift it over their shoulders. Now a machine lifts it for them.
Some places around here only have a fortnight collection which is not hygienic in my opinion, not in a civilised society.
Anybody got any stories or opinions to share?
Bin men round here are pretty good, bins tend to end up out of the way of drives and pedestrians.
They come once a week, they clean up any spills or mess they make in th eprocess, they often take other things left out with the bin also.
I know a binman, he worked at it for years, he still does, he's a lot safer now with the wheelie bin system as there less chance of cutting himself on rubbish in the bags, or straining his back lifting heavy objects. Dont foget these guys walk miles and miles a day, it is a strnuous job, even now.
Its regrettable that you forget to put your bin out, but thats your fault not the binmans.
I didn't bother leaving a christmas tip for the bin men this year because of their charming little habit of leaving the bins/boxes anywhere they feel like......they didn't even bother tidying up their act on the run up to christmas this year...:dozey:
SMHarman
17-01-2006, 11:37
Some places around here only have a fortnight collection which is not hygienic in my opinion, not in a civilised society.I agree in Hoboken, NJ, USA, general rubbish is collected twice a week and then cardboard/paper once a week, glass on another day and cans on another. No collections on the weekend. Fantastic.
TheDaddy
17-01-2006, 11:38
We have the same fortnightly collection system here, I bet your council tax bill for refuse collection was not halved though, seeing as the council are now offering half the service they used to for the same money perhaps it should have been.
Its all about cutting costs and the council doing less and us doing more now a days. Some of them are no good at all. Often, after putting out stuff for recycling, we find half of it is left over the pavement and the bins have been taken to the wrong houses.
Instead of waiting a week, you could stick it all in the boot of your car and head down to your local tip.
liamboyle06
17-01-2006, 11:40
We have to drag our bin to the car park so it can be emptied, as as they usually arrive about 9:00 am, if slept in would take 2 weeks again before being emptied.
we pay to have the bin cleaned every time, which also means that it is left right in our back yard and not having to worry about it while working.
Saying that our my bin men do not lift anything other than the bin, black bags or otherwise sit in the street until somebody decides to lift it.
TheDaddy
17-01-2006, 11:46
I am sure that there must be some sort of health and saftey issue here as well, it's hardly hygienic having rotting rubbish left for two weeks, especially in the summer.
Councils generally keep a register of those people who need help wheeling out their bins. The binmen then wheel these bins out and back. I suspect many councils don't go out of their way to publicise this though.
It's brilliant where we live, as there are so few of us we don't get a regular bin lorry for the 'landfill' waste - it's just a bloke with a transit with an open cage on the back. That means he hoiks anything you leave out into it, whether it fits in the wheelie bin or not. He comes once a fortnight, and the second wheelie bin, a brown one for compostable waste, is emptied the alternate fortnight. So we get a visit once a week for the wheelie bins. Additionally, we sort glass, paper, plastic and metal into boxes that are emptied weekly. Provided we put all our waste in the appropriate bin, we're not normally short of space to keep it.
My only gripe with Stirlingshire council is they are very picky about their plastic. They will only recycle type 2 (LDPE). All other kinds of plastic have to go in the landfill wheelie. It annoys me every time I have to throw out a plastic bottle that my council has deemed it too much hassle to recycle, even though I know it is entirely recyclable.
ian@huth
17-01-2006, 11:51
We have two wheelie bins and a blue box.
Black lidded bin for general rubish emptied every two weeks.
Green lidded bin for certain recyclables, paper, cardboard, tins, plastic soft drink bottles, etc.
Blue box emptied every 4 weeks for glass.
They will not empty a bin if the lid isn't fully closed. Leave it only a couple of inches open and it gets left. That's great when you get home and find your bin unemptied because someone had stuck their rubbish in it and you have two weeks to go before next collection.
They will not take anything left near the bin, only the one bin.
They never check to make sure all the rubbish has been emptied from the bin. Sometimes bin gets choked with trying to make sure bin lid is fully closed with having two weeks rubbish.
They want the bin leaving so that it doesn't block the pavement and the handle is facing the correct way. They just push the emptied bin in the general dirction of your house not bothering about whether the pavement or drive access is blocked. Many a time the bin is left 15 yards up the road blocking someone else's drive.
If the bin hasn't been emptied or only part emptied and you phone the refuse collection department they will send out a lorry and crew to empty it. What a waste of resources that could have been avoided if the job had been done right in the first place.
TheDaddy
17-01-2006, 11:54
Sounds like we could do with performance related pay for bin men and council jobsworths.
We are told to have our bins out for 7am to ensure collection as that is when collections start in this area.... very annoying to see the bin men going past at 6.15 am just as you are about to go down to put your bags out.
Doesn't anyone feel that they should come and retrieve the bin like they used to? It's on wheels now so should be easier. Mind bin is actually only stored about 2 foot away from where I place it for collection.....just behind my wall....I know they may suspect that some will just leave it in situ rather than move it to the pavement but I think a lot of people would oblige. It's just really annoying to have to wait another week/fortnight.......
Its regrettable that you forget to put your bin out, but thats your fault not the binmans.
I appreciate it's my fault. I never agreed in the first place to put it on the pavement from when they decided that they would no longer collect it from my passage.
They seem to have a thing around here, if they cant move it with 1 finger they put a sticker on saying "to heavy".
If the lid isnt closed, you get a "to full",
You then phone the council and they send a bin waggon out to empty it :shrug:
I appreciate it's my fault. I never agreed in the first place to put it on the pavement from when they decided that they would no longer collect it from my passage.
Hang on!! You want someone to collect waste from your passage? Now I've heard of some strange things in my time but...... ;)
On a sensible note though there are issues with people having to access peoples property to remove waste. If anything happens and the bin man is injured who would be liable for damages and on the flip side what happens if something goes missing from the garden/ property? Who will be blamed for that?
.......................collect it from my passage.
Ouch !!!!
(sorry :D ) :Sprint:
grandmaster
17-01-2006, 12:32
Most bin wagons are now too big to fit down allyways and the like, hence they ask you to move beins to the end.
They also have larger rounds and more waste which means they dont really have enough time to wheel bins around to the back of people houses.
A bin man from manchester was threatend with a knife because he went on a "customers" property to get a bin.....
Doesn't anyone feel that they should come and retrieve the bin like they used to? It's on wheels now so should be easier. Mind bin is actually only stored about 2 foot away from where I place it for collection.....just behind my wall....I know they may suspect that some will just leave it in situ rather than move it to the pavement but I think a lot of people would oblige. It's just really annoying to have to wait another week/fortnight.......
I appreciate it's my fault. I never agreed in the first place to put it on the pavement from when they decided that they would no longer collect it from my passage.
I've never had a binman get my rubbish from my back garden, years ago you had to put your dustbin by the side of the road, then it was bin bags and when we first got wheelie bins you had to wheel them to the side of the road, I wouldn't want a binman (or anyone in fact) in my back garden.
ian@huth
17-01-2006, 12:45
I don't know how the occupants of the many terrace houses cope with having two wheelie bins and a blue box with talk of yet another bin or box. Some of them have no front garden and only a small back yard with no access except through the house.
ntl customer
17-01-2006, 13:22
I live in a block of flats and we have one large communal bin for each block out the back. However, the one for our block hasn't been emptied this week (although strangely the other blocks have), and it is packed full to bursting point with festering rubbish. Glad it's not summer! :sick:
Oh and you may have noticed that the councils are actively increasing the recycling operations, yes? Well, not for these blocks of flats they aren't. All houses around here have recycling bags/bins/boxes, yet for us who live in flats, we have nothing. It means that if we want to recycle anything we have to do it ourselves and lug it to the nearest depot which is quite a way away. :afire:
handyman
17-01-2006, 13:30
We have 7 people in our house. Our rubbish is in a standard stized wheelie bin and only gets emptied every fortnight :erm: Our 1 green wheelie bin , 1 Glass/tins blue box and 1 Paper blue box get done on the other week.
Many a time we have to go to the tip or bottle bin and have to burn anything we can to manage to fit within the councils service.
Collection every 2 weeks :shocked: ..That's awful :td:
Ours is collected early every Friday morning, we leave the black bin liners out the front the night before. Our council isnt into the wheelie bin thing :confused:
On a sensible note though there are issues with people having to access peoples property to remove waste. If anything happens and the bin man is injured who would be liable for damages and on the flip side what happens if something goes missing from the garden/ property? Who will be blamed for that?
Not directed at you Paul but...
Everyone is so obsessed with blame, litigation and damage claims these days that its a wonder we actually get out of bed at all for fear of being sued! The binmen collected waste from the back of my house for years not so long ago.
Now we spent all day worrying about what "might happen" to them and who is to blame. I don't have a problem moving my bin to the front of my house but I wish the bin men would be a little more proactive if I have forgotten to do it. Even a knock on the door would help. They could even knock on the door and clear off, I'd at least be alerted....
Collection every 2 weeks :shocked: ..That's awful :td:
Ours is collected early every Friday morning, we leave the black bin liners out the front the night before. Our council isnt into the wheelie bin thing :confused:
If that's the case, then it is inevitable that sooner or later it will change. All councils have to adopt new waste collection policies in order to comply with recycling targets. If you still have weekly, unsorted refuse collection in your area, it just means your council hasn't introduced its new policy yet.
Different councils implement their own plans so it varies around the country, but you will get at least one wheelie bin, and probably one or two plastic boxes as well. You'll have to sort your rubbish into plastic, glass, metal and (possibly) compostable, plus an 'anything else', and you will find that the 'anything else' only gets collected once a fortnight. The idea is that if you are recycling, you won't fill the 'anything else' bin in under 14 days.
homealone
17-01-2006, 15:57
we get a weekly 'land fill' wheelie bin collection, while the boxes for paper/tins/glass & the garden waste wheelie bin are collected on alternate weeks. Even the 'landfill' rubbish is sorted at the council recyling centre before being dumped.
We have also been offered extremely cheap composting bins - great big ones, for a fiver...
Overall our council seem to have their act together with rubbish collection/recyling :)
Overall our council seem to have their act together with rubbish collection/recyling :)
If you live in the posh areas ;)
We get the weekly 'landfill' collection, but that's your cracker. Having said that, I do only live about a mile and a half away from the tip, and I could fall out of my kitchen and land at the nearest recycling place, so it could be worse :)
homealone
17-01-2006, 16:29
If you live in the posh areas ;)
We get the weekly 'landfill' collection, but that's your cracker. Having said that, I do only live about a mile and a half away from the tip, and I could fall out of my kitchen and land at the nearest recycling place, so it could be worse :)
I think if you stopped recycling cans, there would be a world aluminium shortage ;)
- but more seriously, isn't it amazing how much difference there is between even fairly adjacent areas - other parts of Cleethorpes get bins for recyling plastic, while we don't .....
I think if you stopped recycling cans, there would be a world aluminium shortage ;)
- but more seriously, isn't it amazing how much difference there is between even fairly adjacent areas - other parts of Cleethorpes get bins for recyling plastic, while we don't .....
Recycle cans? My car isn't big enough :D . Anyway, I'm using all that metal to build an extension :D
What narks more than anything when it comes to the recycling in Grimsby and Cleethorpes is that the 'poorer' areas (ie the ones least likely to recycle / to have the means to recycle) don't get the bins etc, whereas the better off (and, as such, more likely to have the means to recycle anyway) do get them :shrug:
Just my opinion, but I think they've got that one the wrong way round...
homealone
17-01-2006, 16:45
<snip>
What narks more than anything when it comes to the recycling in Grimsby and Cleethorpes is that the 'poorer' areas (ie the ones least likely to recycle / to have the means to recycle) don't get the bins etc, whereas the better off (and, as such, more likely to have the means to recycle anyway) do get them :shrug:
Just my opinion, but I think they've got that one the wrong way round...
I think that is a fair point - although when so many people in some of the more 'run down' parts of town just chuck stuff over their back fence & into the alley, it makes me wonder how many would actually use the facilities, if they were offered....
SMHarman
17-01-2006, 16:46
Isn't that a lot to do with the space to accomodate them. Same as for blocks of flats if they dispose of rubbish into chutes that drop into big bins then it is difficult to segregate. Rich areas with big houses and drives have room for a big collection of different bins.
I have all but given up recycling (and regained about 90 minutes a weekend - that quick drive to the tip takes a while). I am happy to segregate but environmentally I figure I do more harm to the environment driving the cans personally to the tip than I do putting them in a landfill. Can anyone run the numbers on that theory?
I think that is a fair point - although when so many people in some of the more 'run down' parts of town just chuck stuff over their back fence & into the alley, it makes me wonder how many would actually use the facilities, if they were offered....
Ah yes, but if the scruffy buggers have the equipment to recylce and still lob the stuff over the wall, then at least the rest of us can use the bins to beat them around the head until they learn how to live in a civilised manner ;) :disturbd:
beardsley
17-01-2006, 16:48
Looking at this I realise how lucky I must be.
We have a big black wheelie bin for general rubish, and a smaller blue one for recyclables. These are emptied (normally) once per week. However, it can get a bit confusing regarding which day they will pick up. Rather than always being on the same day each week, and missing a week if it happens to be a bank holiday, they have a system of putting everything back a day for each bank holiday.
So if the collection day was say Tuesday, the would be a collection of Tuesday 20 December.
Because Monday 26 and Tuesday 27 are bank holidays, the collection would move back 2 days, and the next collection is Thursday 29 December.
Then we have another bank holiday on 2 January, so next collection is Friday 6 January.
Keeps you on you toes!
The rules are that the bins have to close and extra bags/boxes will only be collected the first collection after Christmas. However, they are fairly flexible and will take the bin as long as it is not too much open to foul the loading machine. The bins are put back to aproximately the same place, not usually too much in the way.
The blue bin is for all recyling apart from glass. This is hand sorted into the various components. The coucil flyer says this is more cost efficient than collecting separate sorted boxes.
We occasionally get missed one day, and they come back the next day. More often, we forget which day it is this week and race out when we hear the lorry - often too late. But is seems that all in all we are very lucky, having read some of the accounts here.
Strangely enough, I have had the opposite problem today.
I put my bin out at 6am and its not been emptied, apparently yet again they have not been able to get the lorry up our street. Yes I blame the people parking on both sides of the narrow street, but the council also has to take the blame for removing the double yellow lines from both sides of the street when they made it a cul-de-sac.
The council placed wide concrete posts at the edge of the pavement to stop anyone parking on it, funnily enough shortly after a low loader parked on there and broke some after it had unloaded a digger to do some roadwork for the council! The situation now means pedestrians are not able to walk on the pavements because the terraced houses with no front gardens have their bins and re-cycling box on the pavement, the car mirrors opposite them and the concrete posts at the edge of the pavement.
Things will be much worse later this year when they introduce a two wheelie bin system to clog the street up a bit more.
I was 8 and a half months preganant when i first moved into my house, and living alone... but somehow managed to lug the bins to the very bottom of the street...(i seem to live in the house furthest away from the collection point).:mis:
It's a bit difficult to get the bins all the way down there, cos if my son is in bed when i get the chance to do the bins, what do i do?
Leave him home alone for a couple of minutes, and cos i have to go out of sight of the house i feel very uncomfortable with that. So i either had to get people to help or hope he was awake when i was doing the bins, bit easier now that he walks of course.
Not only that, we don't have wheelie bins either, so i've taken to using my son's old buggy with an old sheet over it for the heavier bin bags:erm:
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