Weekly bin collections - do you give a 4x?

[fork me]

Those places have large communal bins these days.

Yeah, even worse. I lived in Steine Street in the town center for about 9 years up until leaving the UK 2 years ago, they'd just introduced those before I left. Apparently the
council introduced them because they would be "more convenient" for residents. I fail to see how it's more convenient to carry your rubbish to a communal bin than have binmen come and collect it. The reneged on all their promises even with them. The FAQ sent out to residents stated they would never be full or overflowing because they would be emptied regularly (they were regularly full) and they would be easy to open, even for the elderly and disabled because of the "foot pedal" design. They stopped getting the foot pedal ones in preference for one's you had to open from the top after the first batch as a cost cutting measure. They are a real step backwards as far as I can see.

Still, on the bright side, when I moved out of the town, I dumped tons of stuff in the community bins that the binmen would never have taken. I probably filled one by myself.

 

[JJ McClure]

In Burgess Hill there is the alternate landfill/recyling collection with green waste on Thursday which I believe costs a few extra pence a week. We are a family of 3 and generally fill the landfill bin in each two week period but recycling is only normally two thirds full. The statistics seem to suggest that with this system, councils have found recycling has increased 240%. So, I don't have a problem with it but I can understand that large communal refuse areas, such as blocks of flats need more collections.

.

Also a burgess hill resident. The landfill one week / recycling next week system works great. Never fill up either bin except maybe at Christmas. And yes the recycling figures have vastly increased.

 

[fork me]

You don't have to live in a conservation area not to be allowed to put your rubbish out early.

A statement so ridiculous as to be worthy only of derision.

Do they get everything else in Cyprus that we get as tax payers then. Free NHS and the like?

Not everything, no, although there IS a free health service, it's nowhere near as good as the NHS. This is a much poorer country. But I've never understood why the UK has such high taxes and such poor services in some areas.

Note, I say "some", I still thing the free health and education in the UK is among the best in the World. But local services and some utility type things are much better done over here, a much poorer country with much lower taxes, and they're still improving things. When I moved here, public transport was the biggest joke, it was virtually non-existent. Last year the governement said that had to end, bought shit loads of buses and laid on proper bus services in all major towns and between the smaller towns and villages. Not only that, it's just €2 for al all day pass. They started out last August with dirty old second hand coaches that they rustled up from anywhere that drove on the left, but now they've virtually all been replaced by new single deckers.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to give the impression that I think everything in the UK is shit and everything here is wonderful, there's a lot both countries could learn from each other, but value for money, considering the tax you pay you get more here. The big problem they have here is that they can't put the taxes up too much because people don't earn nearly as much, but they seriously need to improve the health and education systems.

One odd thing, despite this country being a lot poorer, having much lower wages and rising unemployment (as most of Europe) you don't get the same homelessness problems here. I think that's a cultural thing though, people stay with their parents for longer.

 

[ATFC Seagull]

Those places have large communal bins these days.

Which are massively overflowing even the day after collection!

 

[Brovion]

So, you don't want your place to look like a third world slum but wouldn't have any qualms about inflicting the same on everyone else. If you can make the effort to fly tip then why note just take it to the local dump?
.

It's the principle. I perhaps wouldn't mind if there was a complete re-vamp of collections whereby they collected general waste, food waste, recyclables, cat litter, etc on separate days, but simply saying 'Recyclables one week, rubbish the next' is an abdication of responsibility and takes us back prior to the 1875 Public Health Act. If they can abdicate their responsibilities then I can abdicate mine.

However, as I mentioned Brighton show no signs of doing this. There's three of us as well (plus two cats and three dogs) and we recycle everything we can - plus we compost kitchen waste. Even so our wheelie bin is full most weeks. Also we fill up our three, fortnightly collected, recycling boxes and I'm forever taking the overspill to the recyling bins outside Fiveways Co Op.

 

[Screaming J]

By the time I've put green waste, paper, metal and plastic in separate receptacles the amount of 'ordinary' waste that goes in my wheely bin is so small that I can't see that a weekly collection is justified. I just can't figure out why its necessary. And we are a 'normal' (?!) family of 4; not rabid tree huggers who only eat macrobiotic brown rice or whatever.

 

[seagullsovergrimsby]

Fortnight collections force people into having to recycle because there isn't enough room in the bin to put all the rubbish in. With the current industrial unrest in Brighton over bin collections it wouldn't surprise me if the council bring in fortnightly collections for household rubbish and announce its a Green party manifesto pledge rather than a cost cutting exercise.

 

[Cian]

I've had fortnightly collections for about three years, not a bother since there's a recycling bin provided also that takes a decent range of stuff; and I've got a compost bin.