Fortnightly rubbish collection and fines

It's just so typically British isn't it?

Instead of councils helping and enabling people to do the right thing regarding recycling, they just go about antagonising and even criminalising the people who pay them.

My poor Grandmother has Alzheimer's but prior to it becoming worse, always did her best with recycling.

Not so long ago, two burly men from the council came banging on her door demanding to know why she was no longer recycling and putting the wrong waste into the wrong bag. This upset her so much, as she didn't remember doing anything 'wrong'.

What kind of society have we become when these kind of things can occur?

Targeting the weak and the helpless - hasn't this been done before - somewhere in Europe, around 1939 to 1945?

oh yes, all that money councils save with fortnightly collections - i'm sure that the comparatively recently introduced recycling collections are entirely free and the council are just sleeping on mattresses filled full of the money they've made only collecting your refuse once a week.

quite frankly, uniformed residents take the biscuit but apparently not time to think things through!

As you say it is all about saving costs. It cannot be green. What is green when everyone has to take their overspill to the local tip in their own cars. If they collected once a week, like they used to, then one lorry would do the same job. Recycling benefits are not that clear and lots of items although recyclable, by indication on the packaging, are not allowed in the recycling bin: What is going on here? If you are away and miss the collection you are well and truly stuffed. All councils can say is "have you tried composting?". What if I am not interested in composting or gardening? What if I am not interested in cleaning out yoghurt pots? Rubbish is rubbish and they should recycle it all at the plant. They should, in my opinion, still come and collect your bin from your backyard, like they used to. What are we paying for? In the US, where 5 have a property, they have no recycling at all! Rubbish collections are twice weekly and I am allowed to put out 5 bags (or wheelie bins!) at each collection! Why are we being forced through this? What about China, India, South America, US etc.. etc.. The people who set council policy and those who have allowed us to be ruled by European directives are out of touch with reality. They live in a socialist utopia that simply does not work in a capitalist society. Something is going to have to give.

With fortnightly collections, it's all fine until one day something happens just once which means you don't put your bin out; OR, you have a BBQ or party or a tidy-up which generates a one-off large amount of rubbish; it simply won't fit in your small bin, so you have to stack it up in your garage, where it festers for 2 more weeks, and then takes up extra space in the next collection; it can take up to 6 weeks to clear the backlog. End result: Rats, vermin, smells.

Hi bigger etc! Your idea would be the only sensible way to go if they are going to start charging us by weight of rubbish.

I live next to a small block of flats and the bins all go out in the same place as ours. We do all sometimes sneak a bit in each others bins where there is room (but only after they are out for collection). This has always been ok but now there is someone in one of the flats who is putting stuff in the green composting bin in plastic bags (not allowed!). They are throwing food away without even unwrapping it! Their bin is now full with a tag on it, and I am just waiting for them to start filling up all the others.

People like this make it difficult for everyone.

I think bins should be fitted with locks that only the refuse collecters and the bin owner can open. The local council has halved the size of our dust bins and I live in flats each with our own bin only problem is when I go to put something in MY bin (which is not very often) I usually find that someone else from the other flats have put their rubbish in MY bin because they have all filled their bins! Once I could not put anything in my bin because when I went to it I found it was already full of other peoples rubbish!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

First halve the bin collections. Well now the fools are seriously considering getting rid of their pest control departments. Brilliant. What a gift to the rat population of the UK (& I mean the furry, not the Adidas-wearing rat population). One half-wit from Forest of Dean council said the the authority was struggling "like any other business". Business? It's a LOCAL AUTHORITY, idiot.

I've had a fortnightly bin collection (general waste one week, green waste the next) for 3 years now and do not find it a problem at all. If you bother to recycle what you can (paper, plastic, cans, glass) then you're not left with that much that has to go in the general waste bin. I think all councils should adopt the fortnightly collection, if they haven't already - it may encourage more recycling. On the other hand, with the every growing population of lazy b*stards and chavs, it might just encourage fly tipping.

A broken car-window, as a result of vandalism, presumably with the intention of stealing either the car or its contents, is no longer considered a crime. Overfilling a dustbin with rubbish, in the vain hope that it will be collected at some point within a fortnight, is now considered a crime.

Tax, fine or criminalise the hardworking, morally respectable and law-abiding citizens. Laud, protect or fund the utter scum that take advantage of this spineless nation; the politicians who have no grasp on everyday life, the bogus asylum-seekers, the babies-for-benefits chav scum, the spoilt teenagers who think the world owes them the ultimate respect and honour, the home-grown British-born terrorists, the frantic, desperate talent-free celebrities, the overpaid bully-boys masquerading as premier league footballers and their cheap, nasty girlfriends, the proponents of total, utter, mindless violence towards babies, children, pets, animals both wild and domestic, the elderly, the disabled.
Where is this country's sense of perspective? I truly, truly despair...

Is this a Bin ploicy or is it an envirommental policy?

People like to give the impression that they are very pro the environment. We can alll understand why people would like to live in a clean, fresh uncomplicated environment, it's bound to be easier than living in the fug-like atmosphere of a swamp. THE quetion has to be, when faced with the possibility of being able to vote Green Party, why did the vast majority recently vote Conservative in the local elections????

Don't tell me it's because you vote one way locally but another in a General Election. I am not buying this. I could if the Tories had won say 100 to 125 councils, but they didn't, they won 256. That's too many all on one day to argue with any credibility that the vote will be different come a General election?

He'll not be in for much longer. Labour have exhausted their expiry date with the people of this country. Just like Hitler's Generals had had enough of him, his troops fighting constantly for years, returning their medals enveloped back to Hitler from the front.

Time out for Labour am afraid. They invest no good for the benefit of the people of Britain.

Let Norway and Denmark supply the mosquito nets to Africa, why is it Britain is constantly coughing up for the remainder of the world?

These space cadets in power really leave me feeling empty, empty as a politician's promise.

The similarities between Labour and the Nazis are that once they are in power we have no bloody chance of getting them out again. Gordon Brown is not an elected prime minister, nobody wants him in power and everyone wants another election. In any other country in the world this would be called dictatorship.