Be Excellent To Each Other

Here in my part of Madchester, we still have 4 wheely bins. Brown for bottles (I'm assuming that the counsil official who made this decision is a Viz reader), metal and recyclable plastic, blue for paper and cardboard, green for food and garden waste, and grey for non-recyclable stuff. The green has always been one of the large ones, the blue and brown were small, but we recently requested large ones as we regularly fill both of them, and they were supplied free of charge ...... But they didn't take the old ones away. We have a calendar which tells us how often and when each of the bins will be emptied. Green is emptied every week during the summer, and fortnightly at other times. All the others are emptied fortnightly.

We've managed very well with this for years, but recently we've been informed that the large, non-recyclable bins are being replaced with small ones, but will still only be emptied fortnightly. The council reckons it will save millions of pounds by doing this. So we've been issued with a new smaller grey bin [b]with our address on a plastic label stuck to it[/] (good) and the old ones have been taken away (bad). So, they spent a huge amount to give us all new small bins that we'll probably fill completely each week and removed perfectly good larger bins that they were only emptying fortnightly anyway. Doesn't make sense to me.

I keep our wheely bins by some conifers in the front garden.

A possum has taken up residence in the trees and this creates a few annoyances for me:

1 - The possum poos drop on the lids of the bins
2 - The possum drives the dogs mental and they spend all evening barking at it
3 - The Boy wakes up at night and thinks there is a possum in his bedroom
4 - The possum makes funny hissing noises and scared the stuffing out of me one night when I shone a torch outside and the light reflected from its big beady eyes

I got home from a walk today and noticed that my brown garden waste bin was still half full after the collection.

It was odd as there were still hedge cuttings in there, but I had put these on top of the bin this morning and it was already 80% full.

So called the Council and the women on customer services struggled to hide her delight at the chance to bash the bin company and said they would call me back.

So get a call and I was explaining to the bin company lady what had happened, in the conversation I mentioned I had put some bamboo in the bin the week before.

She then told me that I can't put bamboo in my garden waste bin. I say sorry I won't do it again (I will but it will be at the bottom of the bin )

Then I'm told that they won't come back as I put the wrong thing in the bin. I tell her that the binmen have taken the bamboo and left hedge trimmings in the bin, but she is having none of it. So I say ok as I really don't care that much given I have 2 of these bins.

Around 10 minutes later I'm at the front of the house reading an email from the council, confirming that I've committed a garden waste infraction and that if I want my bin emptying before the next scheduled collection there will be a fee.

Next thing back comes the bin lorry and empties my bin !

Just love Council incompetence

Garden Waste infraction! Splendid.

They'll be sending Robocop round next. Seriously though, bamboo? Why can't you put that in there and where does it say that anywhere?

Bamboo is too fucking strong, and tends to fuck up mulching machines.

In my defence it was very thin stuff from the top of a bigger cane I harvested.

Our local recycling contract has changed hands. My friend is a really keen recycler and has all of the literature ever distributed about which kinds of plastic, etc etc.

Anyway, she put out her recycling as normal and it wasn't collected. Just a notice pasted to her bin saying that there were non recyclables inside.

After a lengthy call to the council it turned out to be due to there being black plastic food containers inside, which the old company recycled but the new one does not. By this wasn't told to *anyone*. Can you imagine the number of people that would have had those?

They are recyclable, but not cost effective to do so. Apparently they make meat look redder, but the cameras on the recycling machine find it hard to identify them.

Anyway, she was told she'd have to pay to have collections reinstated. She made quite the fuss and got this changed.

I think I'd give up on recycling if my council was like that.

People seem strangely convinced that it's Thursday.

When it's actually it's three-days-after-bin-day.

Aha! BINS!
Now we're talking. Is Pundy around?

We got some bloody great sticker on our bin the other day, something along the lines of THERE WAS FOOD WASTE IN YOUR BIN; YOU ARE THEREFORE WORSE THAN HITLER. DO IT AGAIN AND YOU WILL BE EUTHANISED

... I mean, really - food waste in a bin? Whatever next? How very outrageous I'm sure! (I gather we're supposed to be keeping some minging brown plastic slops bucket in the kitchen - yeah, that's really going to happen. Oh no)

Hopefully they'll find some other shite to get aerated about and this is just some initiative/phase. Me? I wish they'd get on top of stuff that actually matters, e.g. fly tipping twats dumping tonnes of shite in the beautiful countryside round here, instead of getting in a fucking tizz because traces of 4-day old Madeira cake were detected in a black wheelie bin.

My brother has a slop bucket and he was trying to tell me it was a good idea the other day. I was having none of it.

The small environmental savings that are made are surely destroyed by the massive truck that drives slowly round the street picking them up.

Very likely, plus it's a minging, stinking hygiene hazard, both inside and out, especially with inquisitive cats/dogs/foxes/rats. Who wants a filthy repository of rotting food and liquids in their kitchen?

Not Mrs C, that's for sure. The Council are unwittingly taking on a formidable foe.

Just heat it up.

Soup!

If it's likethe Vale Royal one, it's an airtight mini-bin. Quite smart actually. My mother in law keeps hers outside

Bamboo is, and I won't apologise for my French given the problem the previous owners have left us with, a cunt.

Our Council have not tried that one yet, that said they are all different, the next council over to me still does weekly "throw all you shit in one bin collections"

Simply introduce some pandas and let nature take its course.

Whats the problem?


With mine, I make sure I cut it back and keep on top of it. I have a 2 lots, I'm sort of farming one patch and getting really good canes

Also, the council sent an expensive pamphlet to everyone explaining how it's fine that they're switching everyone to bins instead of bags now, and also switching to alternating green/general biweekly pickups because the bins mean the smells are kept in and animals out so that's fine and also that people that people who live, say, at the bottom of a wildlife-filled, bin-lorry-inaccessible lane will continue to use bags but now be on the stinky schedule anyway can fuck off OH NO WAIT THEY SOMEHOW GLOSSED OVER THAT BIT

the problem is when the previous owners didn't plant a clumping variety or install a barrier and then gave up digging up the rhisomes and now there is bamboo fucking everywhere.

Oh my god that happened to me too!!!

What does Animal.Crossing say to do?

Trapped in my home, send help please.

I have to pay to get garden waste collected and use a permit to take stuff to the tip. The council are dicks.

I have to.pay 80 quid to get rid of garden waste.

But the upside of living at the end of a single track lane is that fuck that shit, anything that doesn't compost goes in the incinerator.

I don't know. A dog with a sweatband came and sat on my bed and had an existential crisis, so I gave him some wallpaper as I watched my turnips go mushy.

This thread is Beex at its best.

Well we DO want a dog. I mean it seems like a long way around but if it's what works...

Does Amazon sell great Dane puppies?

So your previous owner was a rhizome cowboy?
Riding out on a hose in a star-spangled patio.

You don't deserve me.

Funny!

I do however deserve a hangover and somehow missed one, which is nice.

I have bin news.

We have received the following missive RE: bins.

What else is fresh in the world of bin collection these days?

I've been waking up with the words 'rhizome cowboy' singing in my head for a while now, or just popping into my head whilst I'm busy doing something. Now I know why!

You've been Bamboozled!

They're using a firm of charted surveyors to send a letter re bins?!

They have a point around the car blocking, but the overflowing is a bit mean, my Council always take over flowing bins.

The week after Xmas they even take cardboard from presents etc if it's stacked against the bin.

My bin news is good so far, 1 collection of 95% bamboo removed without issue 2 weeks ago and another one on the street now, so looks like garden waste rules don't apply!

The Bradford Council.app now pushes bin notifications to my phone.

We don't deserve you.

Living the dream.

I wish my council would do this

Just realised I dont know the bin day in my new house!

*stares into the abyss*

Oh no! That means you have to talk to the neighbours!

Nah, there'll be a website. There must be.

If you've moved to Birmingham, bin day is the twelfth of never.

I'd recommend Googling it but you'll probably only end up back in this thread.

Bins to stay in Oxford City Centre!



Wonder if I can get an arts grant for that instead.

Heh.

Sorry to leave you all hanging!

Turns out it was the same day as the collection at my old house, Monday.

BUT! Folks here don't put their bins out the night before, they do it in the morning.

AND! Some people hardly ever fill their bins, so it's now like I have extra half bins!

Toy with them by putting the wrong bin out one night.