feeling a bit narked

well I rang cleansing again and they promised that a supervisor would ring me within 48 hours. I'm not holding my breath however as that is what they promised the first time I rang and got a how to recycle leaflet.
Where I live we have a black bin for general waste, a blue bin for paper and cardboard, a brown bin for tins, glass and plastic a large green bin for garden waste, a small green bin for food waste and a kitchen caddy. I live on my own so have the small size wheely bins apart from the garden waste one. Apart from the food waste bin which is collected fortnightly in the winter I can get away with putting the other bins out monthly or even six weekly.
In my terrace of five modern houses only the two end houses can put their bins in the side garden, the other houses do not have back gates so have to keep all those bins in their tiny front gardens. Planning madness.

We have 4 bins, black for general household waste, green for garden waste, brown for bottles tins and plastics. Blue for paper or cardboard. We have a basket with liners for kitchen waste which includes food left over, also scraped from plates including bones,peelings of all kinds ,egg shells, tea bags and dead flowers. When the food basket is full we tie it and put it in the garden waste. We get a calendar each year to tell us which bins will be collectedon every Friday. All very efficient.

We have two bins, food bins and bags for garden waste here. One is a rubbish bin collected fortnightly. We have less than a quarter of this bin filled in two weeks. The second bin is for recyclable items. Papers, tins, plastic bottles, clothes, cardboard etc. The recycle bin is always completely full to the top each fortnight.

We too have silly rules about the recycling, we can put in plastic bottles but not plastic spread tubs or plastic yoghurt pots. We can put in cardboard boxes but not corrugated cardboard boxes. They have now changed the clothing rules as all old clothing and shoes could go in and be used to sell for ragging. We now are only allowed good quality clothing and these must be in a separate bag.

Our garden bags can be filled with all garden waste as long as twigs are not too thick.

We do not use the food bins as we have very little waste here. We were brought up after the war when food was short and was not wasted. We also have our step grandson living here so there is very little food left after a meal.

Our recycle and garden waste go into one bin lorry too but the lorry is actually divided into two parts and if we follow the lorry down the road we can see the belts going up into separate sides of the lorry.

Sorry inishowen, cats and pigeons have to go in 2 completely different bins.
Our council has a "help with your recycling" section on its website. It has really helpful suggestions like - Plastic bottles go in the recycling bin. If you're unsure, the additional helpful guidance says "If it's plastic and looks like a bottle then put it in". Well, that clears that up then.

rojon you are not being unreasonable in any way! Farcical is how I would describe it.

We have just been staying with DD who has 3 wheelie bins issued by her local council. They have three different collections all on different days.
Every single household in the area has a row of these large plastic monsters standing outside and where there are flats there is a whole army of them. After they were emptied the wind would blow them around and tip them over making them a hazard to traffic and pedestrians.
I was totally bemused by what rubbish goes where as it is not as simple as you would think and so I left DD to it in the end.
We only have one wheelie bin thank goodness and there is rarely more than a small kitchen bins worth sitting in solitary splendour in the bottom of it. I don't have enough rubbish to make it worthwhile separating it all out and neither do I have enough space to keep all those big wheelies. As for remembering when what goes out on what day - no chance!

It really is a shambles. I've been told by council workers that Birmingham has mixed the contents of all the bins regularly. Regarding food waste, my birds recycle mine. Apple cores, pear cores are absolute favourite, unwanted cat food, if anyone has a cat they will know what I mean, and, sorry about this, but my cat gets frightened sometimes and she will throw up, she's a bit nervy, but the crows think it's a bit of a treat! Well, it saves filling the bin.

Write to your local paper. That will put the cat amongst the pigeons!

They do ask on the dedicated clothing bins that items are bagged. I watched an episode of 'Undercover Boss' a while ago. It was the guy who runs Biffa, the recycling collection firm. In my innocence, I imagined that the contents of my recycling bin (all clean and dry) would be delivered immediately for hand sorting. What I saw on the TV programme really opened my eyes. The stuff waits for weeks or months, getting wet and going mouldy. People put the wrong things in their bin (someone once asked me if I thought it would be OK to put used paper tissues in!) So it's a wonder anyone will do such a disgusting, soul destroying job. So, clothing that's not bagged would be ruined and only fit for landfill.

My council will take old clothes in the recycling bin so I put out an old blouse only for it to be left on the ground. When I contacted the council to ask them to clarify they said it had to be left in a plastic carrier bag!!

At recycling points locally we had separate bins for different colour glass. When the bins were emptied all the glass ended up mixed together in one big bin on the lorry? Now we just have bins for mixed glass. Common sense at last!

Rojon, don't give up until you get the response you expect. We pay for this service and should not accept incompetence.

It is the same where we live Jalima the council make such a fuss about different coloured bins and different recycling methods and yet when the lorry comes it all goes in the same place. Can't see the point.

I agree - I'd pursue this. They have completely misunderstood your complaint and it needs to be spelt /spelled out to them in words of half a syllable.

South Oxon has circulated leaflets stating that they will now take small electrical items on recycling collection day if left on top of the bin in a poly bag. Twice I have put a broken small fan heater out as described, and each time it has been chucked onto the ground and left behind. The same often happens to batteries left in the same way. The heater is now in my land fill bin, I don't know why I bother trying to do the right thing!

Teetime when they empty your green bin, how do they know where the cabbage leaf or the apple core have come from?

aprilgrace the only thing I can think here is that when opening a dog waste bin, one is met with a noxious smell. Dog owners must tolerate this, but non dog owners could well feel annoyed at having such an assault on their senses when disposing of an empty crisp packet. And, of course, the council is in the business of encouraging people to use bins, not discouraging them.

How ridiculous, why not send them a bill for needing to clean your bin after they tipped the food waste into it?

Our local park has big wooden boxes, each containing one bin for general waste and one for dog poo. I watched the man emptying them last week. He pulled out the two bins, emptied one into the other and threw them on the lorry. What's the point of separate bins?

Our food waste is separate from our garden waste.
However, they both go into the same recycling lorry.

Teetime I have never heard such rubbish (no pun intended )
They need to get some better recycling facilities sorted out in your area!!

A national 'joined up' scheme is long overdue.

Put it on their Facebook page! Most councils have them.

I think you are being perfectly reasonable. Your rates might have been increased to account for separate waste collections so certainly worth writing to repeat your point.

We have a green bin ( for garden waste) . We have a waste food recycling caddy in the kitchen and that has to be emptied into the green bin , which is emptied weekly.

All recyclables in pink bags and everything else in black bags except glass which goes in an orange bin !

Its a faff because we now need seperate kitchen bins . I don't mind recycling but tiny UK kitchens are already tight on space . I wonder why we don't use waste disposal units like the US?

How odd! I wonder why we don't have a national system that is clear for everyone. I was told here that I may not put any raw vegetable matter that has been in the kitchen into the green bin. I asked if I could put for example cabbage leaves from the garden in - yes of course, cabbage leaves that had been in the kitchen - no on no account, an apple core that I had eaten in the garden which had come from my tree - yes indeed, an apple core that had come from the supermarket and had been in my kitchen - no on no account? The explanation I was given was that the green waste facility is on a farm and my kitchen waste might come into contact with the farm animals and give them an infection.

In the main I compost it but we have too much for a small garden so reluctantly it goes in the grey bin to landfill.

I think you should write to them again. Ask them what is the point of you separating it all. Don't give up!

No. Some jobsworth obviously had no idea what to do...