Anyone else think/feel the same?!

Maybe i should make it my new years resolution to cut down on rubbish, but i dont think i throw out an excessive amount of stuff really...infact i often end up filling my bin with stuff that ought to go in the recycling bin but if thats full they wont take extra bags of recycling so i tend to have to throw it into the normal bin (which i hate doing) but otherwise i would end up with a backlog...

There is definately a failure in your recycling service - we have 3 recycling bins, a brown one for cans, plastic, glass and foil, a blue one for paper, card and drink cartons and a green one for garden and all food waste. The green one is collected every week, the blue one every fortnight and the brown one every month and this is perfect for us. Our black bin is a mini (1/2 the size of a normal one) wheelie bin collected every fortnight and we don't fill it.

I didn't think I would be praising my council's waste collection but it really suits us

Of course, I have to add that you do need the space to store all the bins which can be an issue for people

Maybe i should make it my new years resolution to cut down on rubbish, but i dont think i throw out an excessive amount of stuff really...infact i often end up filling my bin with stuff that ought to go in the recycling bin but if thats full they wont take extra bags of recycling so i tend to have to throw it into the normal bin (which i hate doing) but otherwise i would end up with a backlog...

There is definately a failure in your recycling service - we have 3 recycling bins, a brown one for cans, plastic, glass and foil, a blue one for paper, card and drink cartons and a green one for garden and all food waste. The green one is collected every week, the blue one every fortnight and the brown one every month and this is perfect for us. Our black bin is a mini (1/2 the size of a normal one) wheelie bin collected every fortnight and we don't fill it.

I didn't think I would be praising my council's waste collection but it really suits us

We have a brown bin thats only collected in the summer months (for garden waste such as grass cuttings etc we can also put compostable food waste into this one), then we have a blue bin for glass, plastic, tins, cans and cardboard and then a black bin for household waste. They are collected every 2 weeks but alternate weeks...so one week the black bin and one week the blue/brown bins. It just bugs me that I cant put extra stuff out for recycling...surley they should be encouraging that Sorry this turned into a bit of a moan

Our recycling is picked up weekly. The black and green (garden waste) bins are picked up on alternate fortnights.

We have 2 bins one for general waste, which is collected weekly and one for glass, plastic, cardboard, paper, which is collected fortnightly.

Our recycling is picked up weekly. The black and green (garden waste) bins are picked up on alternate fortnights.

Ours is the same, except we now have to pay £60 a year if we want a garden waste collection, which for us with our tiny garden is just not worth it We have a black box for cans/glass/plastic etc and a blue bag for paper and card. We can't put extra out unless its in an official container, although they will take oversized cardboard if you leave it out with the other stuff. The containers are available to buy from the council fairly cheaply. We usually fill our box and bag, but don't overfill them. We have two wheelie bins for household waste, as we are a family of 6 we qualified for an extra one. we don't often fill both, but we used to regularly fill one so needed the second iygwim. We don't compost as we have nowhere to use it, but i may see about getting a small composter in the summer just to reduce our waste as i do feel guilty when i throw the veg peelings etc in the bin (the stuff that the rabbit can't eat anyway ).

They are improving our recycling this year at some point, so they will accept things like margarine tubs and plastic trays from food etc, which they don't currently take.

Back onto the original subject, i know that in the Birmingham area there have been issues with the Binmen striking over pay, which hasn't helped. But i honestly can't say i blame them for doing it, when you consider that some of them are having their wage cut by as much as £3000 a year, which they just can't afford when they have families and mortgages etc They want all council workers on the same paygrade, so people like dinner ladies will earn as much per hour as the binmen, which just doesn't seem fair to me when the binmen do a much nastier and more dirty/cold/dangerous job

I think a compost bin makes quite a difference - especially if you eat quite a lot of fruit and veg. We can put out a caddy a day sometimes depending on what we're eating , and when the recycling bin is a bit full I quite often stick paper and card in there too.

I agree with this, I have been lax about composting lately and it makes a huge difference to how full our bin gets. Our normal waste is collected fortnightly and when I was composting we could easily miss at least one collection. If I don't then I make sure it is out every time. But my compost bin never seemed to be filling up
I have friends with babies in nappies who have to go to the tip between collections.

Maybe i should look into composting we have space in the garden i guess and it would help cut down the rubbish...

My collection (council) is the same as Annettes and it suits us well too.

The paper bin is the one we fill the most, especially last week the only time we filled the mini black bin was when they missed us so it went 4 weeks without a collection.

Of course, I have to add that you do need the space to store all the bins which can be an issue for people

That is a slight issue for me, I have a smallish back yard so if I stored the bions in there it would take up a fair ammount of play space for the kids and I would be dragging them up and down 3 steps to get from garden to pavement! I have to store them in my front 'garden' (small space but they just fit so shouldn't complain I suppose)