Nature

[IceMaiden]

Our rubbish collection is, well, rubbish . We're allowed to put just three black bags in a green wheelie bin and their only collected every three weeks, so we're basically allowed one rubbish bag a week . The council also supply a blue box, which is like a plastic storage box without a lid, for recyclables that are collected every Saturday morning, but they won't sort the stuff out, you have to do that. They don't supply you with any bags for sorting, so you have to use your own bags, which often means you waste an entire bin liner for just three glass jars or four tins . You can have more than one box if you have enough space or don't mind your garden being full of plastic tubs.

There is an optional brown wheelie bin you can request, for garden stuff only, emptied every other week and a ridiculously small 'food bin' which would be full in a day in an average 4 person family, collected once a week. its really awful, bin collections should not be allowed to be less frequent than once a week, especially in the summer months. If you put a chicken carcass in the bin here by the time it's collected it'll be full of maggots. If the lid of the bin won't close they won't take the bags (goodness know what they expect you to do with them ) and they won't take any that aren't in the bin. Only exception is Christmas, your allowed an extra bag over Christmas and the new year.

[Deej92]

Well rubbish and the environment has a big impact on nature, so I think we're reasonably on-topic for us.

True.

On the principle of less frequent bin collections, I think it is the right one. If having three week or even monthly bin collections can encourage more recycling and a greater awareness and consideration towards the environment, I don't see it as a bad thing. A lot of councils are facing strict central government targets to increase recycling and reduce landfill use, and failure to meet these targets will incur fines which ultimately will have to be footed by the taxpayer .

I have also read a number of stories about 'problems' caused by less frequent collections, such as overflowing bins and piles of black bin bags causing problems with rat and mice infestation and seagulls. However, I looked at the images of the rubbish and I could not help but notice how many of the items in the pictures could and should have been recycled. So I do think there is an element of individual responsibility to ensure that people recycle properly and are properly educated on how to. I'm not saying though that most people don't already do this, but there are people out there who don't.

These days, most things can be recycled and I know there is special provision within councils for things such as nappies. I have actually seen a council demonstrate that even after four weeks, one wheelie bin can still remain 1/4 empty if everything is recycled properly. I do understand though that for larger families and people living in shared accommodation such as students, less frequent collections will be more challenging for them. However, if these schemes are implemented properly and provision is made for those who may have more problems, then I think less frequent collections are workable and have shown to be in areas which have had them introduced.

[Rob Houghton]

Living in a place that still thankfully has weekly collections (fortnightly for recycled stuff) I'm not sure I agree. We recycle a lot of things but still have quite an amount of 'rubbish' that can't be recycled. Until ALL plastic can be recycled, for instance, recycling rates can not hope to rise. There are so many things that can't be recycled because they are manufactured out if the wrong materials - that isn't the fault of the householder.

To my way of thinking, anything less than weekly rubbish collections in this day and age is ridiculously unhygienic.

I agree that more things should be recycled, but that will cost the council more money, so they aren't likely to be encouraging it, and many people can't get to recycling centres to do it themselves.

[Fiona1986]

The main problem with the 'unhygienic' fortnightly or less collections is we are throwing out too much food waste. A family of four probably shouldn't be binning so much food waste that they fill a small food bin (some neighbourhoods in my city have those so I know roughly the size we are talking about) a week. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has done some excellent programmes about this.

[Rob Houghton]

We rarely have any food waste. The cats help us eat any left-over meat, and many other things, such as old eggs, meat, left-overs etc go into a bowl for the local fox to eat over in the wasteland behind our house! We feed the ducks and birds with bread, any rotting fruit usually goes to the birds also. I would say there would be very, very little food waste at the end of a week in our house - probably just potato peelings and some peel/trimmings off from vegetables really!

Mind you, supermarkets could help with food waste considerably, by doing away with plastic wrappings on their fresh food, so that if we like we can just buy two potatoes or three carrots instead of a whole bag that usually goes rotten and has to be thrown away!

[Anita Bensoussane]

We rarely waste any food as we're all Hungry Horaces who finish everything on our plates! However, we do eat a lot of vegetables and fruit so the peelings, skins and stalks soon mount up. So do teabags, bones and eggshells. Things like that can be composted, of course, but we haven't space for a compost heap.

[Katharine]

We don't have much food waste either, but we do have a lot of things like peelings etc. We have two compost bins though, so the only green stuff that goes in our wheelie bin is weeds and hedge trimmings. We put grass cuttings on the compost heap too, and when we had the guinea pigs and hamsters we put their bedding there too.

I agree about prepacked fruit and veg. I'm lucky that there are several good greengrocers around here, and also the market is within walking distance, so we can buy what we need but I'm sure some people don't have that option.

[Rob Houghton]

I agree about prepacked fruit and veg. I'm lucky that there are several good greengrocers around here, and also the market is within walking distance, so we can buy what we need but I'm sure some people don't have that option.

We used to have several green grocers around here - at one time there were two just on the local 'village' green at Kings Norton - but gradually these have all closed, as people opted for cheaper fruit and veg from supermarkets, I presume. Now we either have to go a mile or so up the road to the nearest green grocer, or into Birmingham city centre to the market. We have a local market every other week, but things are very expensive there, so most people go to supermarkets.

However, it wouldn't hurt supermarkets to sell more things loose so we can choose how much to buy!

[Daisy]

Since we began by talking of nature and Enid Blyton I decided to take a look at my "Enid Blyton's Animal Lover's Book". I have no idea now where and when I got it. It's a first edition with a pencilled 7/6 on first page. The spine is detached from the body of the book at the front and I'm not sure if I ever read it. However I am now. As usual it is a delightful story about children who thirst for knowledge of the countryside and of course so much is taught in a lovely way that it doesn't feel as if one is learning. How much easier it is to absorb information when it is told in story form!

[Carlotta King]

We rarely have any food waste. The cats help us eat any left-over meat, and many other things, such as old eggs, meat, left-overs etc go into a bowl for the local fox to eat over in the wasteland behind our house! We feed the ducks and birds with bread, any rotting fruit usually goes to the birds also. I would say there would be very, very little food waste at the end of a week in our house - probably just potato peelings and some peel/trimmings off from vegetables really!

Same here, we hardly have any food waste because I give everything to the birds.

Living in an apartment, I can't bear putting any food in the kitchen bin because it smells and would attract flies, so everything apart from peelings goes out for my local birds. Behind my lounge is a building that has a flat roof that's about 8 foot lower than my window, and probably about a 20 foot distance away, so its perfect for me to chuck food across onto.
We have tons of birds who sit on the roofs all round, watching for food, all day, so as soon as I chuck it across, they all descend and its all gone within minutes, so there's never any leftovers rotting on the roof.

Its good that its a roof too because that means there aren't any leftovers on the streets. I'm always very wary of throwing food onto the pavement in case it attracts cats, becasuse the area I live in isn't exactly Park Lane, haha, its quiet and fairly nice but its in the city centre after all and we do get some nasty types about, so I don't want to encourage cats in case they hang about and get mistreated by some nasty people going by.

The only time I threw food out for a cat was to tempt a stray that I wanted to rescue. She had been hanging round for weeks and was just bones with fur on, Ive never seen a cat like it, I don't know how she was alive. So I threw food down, and while she was eating I nipped out and fetched her in, and I took care of her for a couple of days then took her to the vet for treatment as she had an abcess under her eye and various other things, and then the RSPCA took her in at their shelter and then rehomed her.

[Deej92]

Living in a place that still thankfully has weekly collections (fortnightly for recycled stuff) I'm not sure I agree. We recycle a lot of things but still have quite an amount of 'rubbish' that can't be recycled. Until ALL plastic can be recycled, for instance, recycling rates can not hope to rise. There are so many things that can't be recycled because they are manufactured out if the wrong materials - that isn't the fault of the householder.

To my way of thinking, anything less than weekly rubbish collections in this day and age is ridiculously unhygienic.

I agree that more things should be recycled, but that will cost the council more money, so they aren't likely to be encouraging it, and many people can't get to recycling centres to do it themselves.

I don't think less frequent rubbish collections need to be unhygienic though. I live in shared accommodation in Conwy with two other people and we manage okay with three-weekly collections. We generate very little food waste, as between us we eat most of it and we have our own compost bin to put things such as egg shells and fruit peelings in. Over three weeks, I'd say we maybe fill one or two black bin bags at maximum. As Fiona says, I think too much food waste is thrown out along with other items which are recyclable. It's the food waste which generates the mice, rats and maggots which could make less frequent collections more unhygienic.

I agree with you though that there are still some things (plastic etc...) which can't be recycled and that manufacturers and supermarkets both have a responsibility to ensure there is less packaging on products they sell.

Not sure I'd agree about it costing the councils more money though, as if they do meet their recycling/landfill targets, they will avoid having to pay fines. The ironic thing though is that recycling centres are also closing because of cutbacks.

[Carlotta King]

I've been looking online at the food waste policy for us and our council doesn't currently do food waste collections. I've never looked into it before because the wildlife gets my food waste, but since we've all been discussing it I thought I'd look into it.
So if I was to get myself a food waste bin for the kitchen, I still wouldnt be able to do anything with it because no one would collect it, I don't have a garden or any green space to compost anything, and I don't have a car so I cant get anywhere to take stuff. So the stuff in the bin would just end up going in the normal rubbish anyway!

My friend has as food bin in her kitchen and every time she opens it it stinks to high heaven!
I think I'll stick with feeding the birdies for now - any leftovers go straight out the window and at least some hungry souls are getting a meal!

[John Pickup]

The inevitable result of cutting back on bin collections is the increase in fly tipping in country lanes which is what happened here when weekly collections became fortnightly. I hate to see black bags dumped in ditches and hedgerows. Why can't these people take their rubbish to the local council tip instead of disposing of it in the countryside?

[Eddie Muir]

I hate to see black bags dumped in ditches and hedgerows. Why can't these people take their rubbish to the local council tip instead of disposing of it in the countryside?

I agree with you entirely, John.

[Fiona1986]

Fly tipping is revolting. It angers me when people take the effort to drive out somewhere nice to dump an old sofa when there are legitimate and free council sites for that. It also annoys me when people bring miscellaneous rubbish to the recycle points and fill them up so that I can't then recycle my recyclables.