Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[05omegav6]

Just had our recycling bin collection... normally they simply shuffle them into position and the truck comes along to pick them up. Today the first bloke decides to have a look in the bin to see if there's anything worth nicking in there that there shouldn't be.

First two things he spots are a dead self leveling pump and it's even more dead bracket.

"Ooh!"Says he, "is this your bin?"
"Yes," says I, after all it is our bin...
"Can't take, it's contaminated."
"With what, there's nothing in there that the EU says can't be recycled."
"There's metal in it," pointing at the two aforementioned items.
"Ok, I'll remove them, then it won't be contaminated."
" Still can't take it, as there could be anything under all that..."
"You're shitting me, right!"
"Nope, you'll have to put it out again in a fortnight."

Rang the council, and was told verbatim the same thing, with a but... "If you put it out with your regular collection on Wednesday, then we can send it to land fill..."
"Well", says I, "there's nothing in it that cannot be recycled, so if you want to bury it, then that's on you..., I will put it out on Wednesday then, along with our regular bin."

What's the betting that they refuse to empty it again...

[tunnie]

EU has sod all to do with it, depends who the council use to recycle. Metal not allowed in our green bin either.

Back home up norf, they take grass in the green bin. But down here in Surrey, nope. Not in either black or green bin!

They want an extra £60 bucks a year of me, just to collect a few grass clippings? 

[Andy B]

EU has sod all to do with it, depends who the council use to recycle. Metal not allowed in our green bin either.

Back home up norf, they take grass in the green bin. But down here in Surrey, nope. Not in either black or green bin!

They want an extra £60 bucks a year of me, just to collect a few grass clippings? 

I put my grass in our brown bin ....... paper goes in my green bin 

[tunnie]

We only have Green/Black, in Northants is Green/Black & Blue.

Appears every council is different!

[Bigron]

When I had my first house, the garage/car port was open through to the garden where we kept our traditional galvanised steel bins. The dustmen walked through and collected them, along with anything placed close by (care needed, if you wanted to keep it!), and then brought it back again.
No luxury of wheels on the bins and no customers doing most of their job for them by sorting rubbish - they actually did the job they were paid for!
Remember those halcyon days?......

Ron.

[05omegav6]

We have three... a regular green bin, a blue recycling bin for all glass, card, plastic, car parts, cans etc, and a brown bin for garden waste which we pay £40 a year for the privilege of having.

As for who does the recycling, it all gos to the local, state of the art Biffa sorting depot...

[Varche]

I fell foul of this when I stayed at my parents in Yorkshire. Bought a computer online. Cut the cardboard up and put it in the blue recycling bin (paper and cardboard). Dustbin men wouldn't take it as cardboard was contaminated with parcel tape (miles of it) my very elderly dad had to painstakingly seperate the two.

I still prefer the Spanish system of large bins at street end for paper, general waste, plastics, brics, old clothes etc. You can use them anywhere. It could never happen in Britain as residents wouldn't want them outside their place. 

[05omegav6]

I can see another argument about fruit stones in the green bin

[Andy B]

We only have Green/Black, in Northants is Green/Black & Blue.

Appears every council is different!

Exactly. Wigan, next door use the same coloured bins ... but put different things in them.

Recycling costs councils a fortune - umpteen bin wagons on the road doing 3 or 4 mpg, they should all chuck in the same bin & incinerate it all. Or maybe use a MURF https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materials_recovery_facility

[Andy B]

....
I still prefer the Spanish system of large bins at street end for paper, general waste, plastics, brics, old clothes etc. You can use them anywhere. It could never happen in Britain as residents wouldn't want them outside their place.

Edinburgh city centre does the same 

[biggriffin]

We have
Green bin all garden waste,food waste, animal straw.
Blue bin recycling, paper,glass,metal,cardboard, dry recycling.
Grey bin everything  to landfill.

[Andy B]

When I had my first house, the garage/car port was open through to the garden where we kept our traditional galvanised steel bins. The dustmen walked through and collected them, along with anything placed close by (care needed, if you wanted to keep it!), and then brought it back again.
No luxury of wheels on the bins and no customers doing most of their job for them by sorting rubbish - they actually did the job they were paid for!
Remember those halcyon days?......

Ron.

I remember that system too. If you look at the cobbled back streets oop north - I believe Bore-anation Street's opening & closing credits shows them  , there used to be a small door for each back yard where the bin lived. The bin man walked down the backs, opened the door, removed the bin, emptied it & then replaced it.  The binners then used to have a leather shoulder protector. There again, there wasn't the packaging to put in the bin compared with now.

[biggriffin]

....
I still prefer the Spanish system of large bins at street end for paper, general waste, plastics, brics, old clothes etc. You can use them anywhere. It could never happen in Britain as residents wouldn't want them outside their place.

Edinburgh city centre does the same 

More like people's go rummageing in the communal bin to see what they could sell on ebay.

[EMD]

We only have Green/Black, in Northants is Green/Black & Blue.

Appears every council is different!

No its not its Brown/Green/Black and a small Green one for food waste 

What s stamped on the bins not to put in has all changed now so we put everything in anything 

[STEMO]

When I had my first house, the garage/car port was open through to the garden where we kept our traditional galvanised steel bins. The dustmen walked through and collected them, along with anything placed close by (care needed, if you wanted to keep it!), and then brought it back again.
No luxury of wheels on the bins and no customers doing most of their job for them by sorting rubbish - they actually did the job they were paid for!
Remember those halcyon days?......

Ron.

I remember that system too. If you look at the cobbled back streets oop north - I believe Bore-anation Street's opening & closing credits shows them  , there used to be a small door for each back yard where the bin lived. The bin man walked down the backs, opened the door, removed the bin, emptied it & then replaced it.  The binners then used to have a leather shoulder protector. There again, there wasn't the packaging to put in the bin compared with now.

In Liverpool, and I'm sure Manchester, we had a hole in the back yard wall, with a metal frame, which the bin slotted into. Our bin men would park at the top of the jigger and walk up and down with heavy metal bins over their shoulders. In snow, wind, rain, the lot. Good, honest grafters who were, unfortunately, treated like shit for what they did.
In the days of almost full employment, binmen were definitely bottom of the ladder.