Waste removal and recycling policy

@Jo F "just come back from living in Australia and they recycle everything, it is so much better" Well maybe you should move back to Australia then if you like their recycling system so much, problem solved!

I live in Oxford and they keep changing the rules for rubbish collection. We only get fortnightly collections now, which is awful, considering how high the caouncil tax is. They keep changing the days, and if you miss one collection, you can have rubbish hanging around for four weeks! In the height of summer that is a serious health risk. People are expected to have these ghastly gigantic plastic wheeled bins like silos that totally block up their alleys or side paths. As for those who live in terraced properties, there is just nowhere to put them. Until recently the garden rubbish used to be collected in sturdy sacks. I paid for some extra ones. Then suddenly the council decided to charge extra for garden rubbish collection, and demand that we all get a brown wheeled bin - for most people, the third!! So now gardens are completely jammed with THREE bloody wheeled bins, two recycling boxes (a green one and a blue one) and also a food-waste bucket. I've refused to have most of these as I would hardly have room to live here with all those bins.
The only legal alternative is to buy paper sacks - which are of course bad for the environment! The collection team actualy threw my old sacks into their van so they were all shredded for mulch.

I believe we should recycle,but this website didn't answer my question!
how does your council collect waste for recycling? pleasee someone Answer That!

Imho.
I believe its more environmentally friendly to unpack what I buy in the shop and leave the plastic for them to dispose of and then burn the rest of my packaging waste in a garden barbecue. The ashes are good for the garden and dont contribute to the masses of landfill waste we are having to live with

Do yo know that most of the waste you put into your recycle bins still ends up in a land fill ?
The council can't cope with the response they they have had with the recycling program.

Maybe the people who have the problem with 2- weekly collections are the ones who throw away a third of the food they buy?

I've recently been collecting my compostable kitchen waste in a seperate waste bin in my kitchen, in a compostable corn based "plastic" bag that itself is compostable. The council have refused to accept my entire wheelie bin load on principle it is contaminated waste. Whilst I accept that it's unfair to expect on of the refuse collection people to decide on what is or not compostable, I did object to the threatening letter I received from the council several days later stating that I could be fined up to £2000, but on that occassion "no further action would be taken".

We have had fortnightly collections for 2 years and it does seem to work, along with weekly recycling. Although if you are on holiday you have to get someone to put the wheelie bin out for you. You can fit quite alot in a wheelie bin. Maybe it cheating but we have an little incinorator to get rid of carboard. I'm saving lots up for nov 5th!

I absolutely agree, I think it terrible that you cannot recycle your plastic along with all your other recycling. If they have to sort the paper from the foil and from the glass why can't they sort the plastic also. We have just come back from living in Australia and they recycle everything, it is so much better, I was shocked when we got back to find that your plastic goes in with the ordinary household rubbish. What idiot decided that one!!!

The Lib Dems in Oxford should be booted out at the next election. The have turned the city into a wheelie bin nightmare. Everywhere you look there are boxes/overflowing wheelie bins/black bags/lilac bags and all we are told is, "the scheme is working". Well, dear couincil members it is not working. Perhaps if you have a house with plenty of space for your bins and boxes it's fine but not for the rest of us. The streets stink on collection day. I was once a good recycler now I find it a chore solely because of the attitude of the council. I get very little for my council tax and a weekly collection of waste is the least I deserve.

Our black (refuse) bin is collected every two weeks. The bin men used to take bags that were also placed out by the black bin on collection day. They do not even do this anymore. I complained to the council and they said the bin men should not take black bags that are placed next to the bin and we need to pay £1 for a special bag if we want extra bags collected. They also said they will be removing the current bin men and replacing them with another, as they had not been following procedures. So, I complain, they do nothign but waste our money by re-assigning the bin men. We have a sky-high council tax bill, yet we are expected to pay £1 per extra bag. I can get 3 bags in my black bin. I now have 4 black bin bags that will not fit in it so will rot in my garden. I do not have transport and cannot afford to pay extra for the collection. Well done Dacorum council.

I have a feeling fly tipping will become more popular.

See More-butts... (this stupid filter won't allow me to write it as you did) I think you have a good point when you say that this policy forces people to recycle more. I agree, I think it does too. Unfortunately there are some families that simply cannot help but produce more rubbish than the bin will accommodate. Fortnightly collections, regardless of any political bullsh*t that may be out there, are far less hygienic and desirable than weekly.
I cannot see why the councils cannot collect normal waste weekly and provide a recycling site to where we can take our re-usable waste.

My council are introducing the alternate week collection (AWC), and are to supply us with a new blue wheelie for recycling.

We are a small family and recycle all we can at our village every weekend, we even pick up any cans etc, we find on the way. So as far as we are concerned the blue wheelie is a waste of our council tax.

We will probably get away with 2 weeks worth of household waste not overfilling our present green wheelie, but larger families will not. They already overfill their bins on a weekly basis and sometimes use our bin because the dustmen will not take black bags etc. It is no problem to us at the moment but with AWC it could be problematic. Tie this with the smell of 2 week old food and increase in flies, ants etc I cannot see it being a good idea.

I heard on the radio that 9 authorities on AWC have reverted to weekly collection of household waste, I already hope we will be number 10.

Whether you recycle or not (though I hope you do), it is a good idea to squeeze all the air from plastic containers then tighten the lid. They take up much less space in the bin.

Unusually I'm not going to moan about this one. There are 5 people living in my house and as we recycle all our plastic bottles, glass jars, cardboard, paper, metal and food, we rarely fill up our unrecyclable rubbish bin. I'm no ecowarrior, I'm just doing my bit. We had a few maggots last year, but none so far this year.

If by collecting the rubbish less frequently forces people to recycle more, good.

WYRE BOROUGH Council in Lancashire, have in their infinate brilliant wisdom of fantastic idea's, are going to empty our bins WEEKLY.

Fantastic, only problems is we are goin to have to wait until 2010 for it to start, WHY the F**k do we have to wait 3 bloo*y years.Only WYRE BOROUGH Council know that answer.

And they won't tell us.

Bl**dy IDIOTS.

It is interesting to see that a commons committee has, within the last couple of days, strongly criticised the policy of two week collections. Now that they have realised that it is unpleasant then maybe the councils will be forced to listen.
On a personal note, I hate this system as there is a very definite smell during the second week that the bin is unemptied. I live next to a young couple with two babies that obviously do what babies do best. This couple cannot compact their waste into one bin despite how much they recycle. The result is that soiled nappies are left in the garden in tied up carrier bags during the second week. On the evening prior to collection day they have to ask several neighbours if they have any space in their bin to take the nappies. Normally somebody has. If they do not then they have to 'store' them for another two weeks as the bin collectors will not take anything other than the bin contents. Surely this cannot be healthy? Although I have not yet noticed an increase in the local rodent population, I am certain that it will given time.
The recycling issue is not really a problem as it does not attract any unwelcome visitors and it makes sense to do it.
Our local council claims that they are saving a fortune by collecting this way with no detrimental effect to residents. If this is the case I would be interested to hear why they think that council taxes need to continue to increase at excessive rates? Also, why does almost everybody else think that this is a problem but they refuse to acknowledge it as one?