Should refuse collection be fortnightly?

Question

Recently news coverage has been interested in whether or not our UK local authorities will collect refuse one week and recycleable materials another week. A lot of people seem to be against this.

In our house we recycle everything we can through the bins the council provide, though cannot recycle plastics or cardboard that way. These we have to take to the local Tesco when we do our weekly shopping.

Rather than having loads of waste piling up in the black bin, the problem we have is that every week our recycling bin is overflowing!

So, is fortnightly waste collection practical or is the UK population just too lazy to recycle?

Answer 1

Here in Fife it already is a fortnightly collection for household, paper and garden waste and it seems to work well enough. There are a few people that miss the collection and end up with a months rubbish waiting for the next one but you will get that in any area.

Answer 2

Surely the correct answer is that rubbish should be collected before it creates a health or other hazard [ including visual] ?
We are going through a period of change vis a vis rubbish collection in the UK where recycling is on a hopefully upward trend , so this should be taken into account.
At present we have a wheelie bin which is emptied weekly and a small recycling box which is collected fortnightly.
The result [ for me] is a wheelie bin with one [or less] bin bag inside it , and one full recycling bag with an extra 2 or 3 bin bags perched on top of it when they ar ecollected .
Those households which have a much higher generator of total waste should perhaps have an extra bin .
Smell? maybe collect weekly in some urban areas where composting isnt an option and fortnightly in winter ?
The major source of waste does seem to be envelopes with a plastic window and mail with staples in them - why not ban them ?

Answer 3

I'm totally with you on that! Collecting waste alternating weekly with recycling refuse is the way to go. Introducing a workable green/organic matter waste collection scheme in addition would be great news.

Here in Adelaide, Australia, our council picks up waste weekly and recycling and green waste alternating every week. But like you, our waste bin is hardly half full because most refuse now goes in either the recycling or the organic matter bin.

Councils could do better in utilising technology that's been tested and around for ages elsewhere and recycle all sorts of plastic and cardboard as well, thus reducing the amount of rubbish even more.

It's more practical as well for the council to check on culprits who don't separate - if you want to go that road. I personally think it's a little too German...

Answer 4

In this area of the country we have been doing these fortnightly collections for over two years....It works OK....but summer does bring out an uncontrollable amount of pests. Myself neighbours and friends at some time during the summer suffered Maggots!!! It was terrible.

I recycle as much as possible and have a bin for that project...which does not bring any problems nor does my garden waste bin. I squash tins, cans and bottles and have even learnt to shop more wisely in the way of how it is packaged in order to keep space in my recycle bin.

When they come to collect my bin it sometimes is not even half full! We are a family of four.

I do feel that more people should compost leftover food and peelings to lower the waste in their household waste bin.
not everyone can afford to spend money in this area.
I will be starting this venture myself this year...I am just gaining information on it at the minute.

I don't think Laziness is the crux...In areas where they don't pick up recycling (which used to happen to us) people find it hard to get to recycling centres especially if they didn't drive!
The closest recycling centre to me is 4 miles away and whilst I have transport not everyone does...but we are lucky now...the council picks it all up!!

Answer 5

We have the fortnightly system where I live in Cambridgeshire and it works very well. We have 3 large sulo wheelie bins, a black one for household waste, a green one for all recyclables except glass, and a brown one for garden waste. The black one is collected one week and the other 2 the next. It has reduced our household waste down to 1 swing bin liner a week, so the black bin is only ever a quarter full on collection.

Answer 6

Our refuse is collected weekly id hate it to be every two weeks with the bags piling up outside my back door
In the summer it would be a nightmare i have to fetch my bags through the house its bad enough when its been raining We have a very good recycling service with our council
Every two weeks we recycle as much as possible
i live in South Wales

Answer 7

fortnightly will be terrible.we recycle loads aswell but the council only give us onr recycle box that the cheeky lil asbo kids in the street steal all the time and we cant keep drivin back and fore the recycle places. i pay my council tax for a reason so they better come every week, oh yeah and start gritting our roads aswell

Answer 8

No, it is just another way to add profit to your local council, but some incentive should be made to help recycle stuff, and manufacturers should be made to stop over packing merchandise so they can put their adds on the packets etc.

Answer 9

We have fortnightly collections where i live and they work very well.
Our council as a very good recycling policy, we must be one of the lucky few.

Answer 10

It's stupid.

My household goes through a wheelie bin a week due to their being 4 adults and 1 baby.

So it's impossible to cut down on what we use a week, this idea is another way to s***w the population over