To be fussy about my wheelie bin?

Ele19 - the bags I use are compostable. Carolpaint cooked slop can be flushed down the toilet Are you mad!!! Do you know how much is spent on unblocking drains because of idiots like you! I can only hope your post was an attempt at a wind-up.

A lot of plastic bags, especially those used for food recycling are made from maize and are compostable and if they got to the see would biodegrade within days.

The real culprit for plastic pollution are the plastic shopping bags that used to be handed out at super markets and plastic bottles. My one big black plastic month that go into the rubbish cart and then into the landfill site is highly unlikely to end up in an ocean.

I think all these problems need to be seen in proportion.

The answer lies with the local authorities. They need to bring back weekly bin emptying. Food waste involving meat or fish, has to be wrapped securely in polythene. Paper just does not do the job. Have you ever walked down a street when the bins are on the kerbside awaiting emptying? You can definitely tell by the stink which ones have unwrapped food in them. Not healthy. Attracts flies for one thing.

Yes. Definitely use bio-degradable bags.

We have 3 wheelie bins - general, recycling and garden. Also food recycling with small inside one & biodegradable bags and a bottle one. We pay £10 a month for the general bin to be cleaned and a new bag inserted. We could do it ourselves but the cleaning men generally have come from being out of work to having this business then move on to something better paid so we keep using them. My small general kitchen bin has a bag inside so it is tied and then goes in the big wheelie bin's bag. They do get smelly don't they? I was skeptical about the food waste but what a lot is generated from peelings and skins for 2 people! We don't have a lot of out of date stuff either but was surprised at the amount we recycle.

i only have room for one bin as my house was built before the other bins [garden waste and recycling] were invented.
for several years i had the "pull out" service as i'm disabled, lived alone and couldn't get the bin out on to the road. my bin was lovely and clean and as i too bag everything it wasn't smelly.
then my daughter and grandaughters moved in with me so i couldn't have the pull out service any more. so it's now my younger grandaughter's job to take the bin out and bring it back.
sounds simple? the first week she couldn't find "our" bin to bring back and we had to have what was left outside. so i put our house number on it and thought that was that.
no it wasn't - the second week she couldn't find the bin i'd labelled and brought back one of the most evil smelling bins i've ever smelled.
that one wasn't labelled with our number but she couldn't find it when she went to get a bin in. that one smelled rather better [but it wasn't MY bin!].
in the end, after marking the space on the lids several times with our number i gave in and bought some big white numbers and stuck one lot on the side and another lot on the lid. thankfully my grandaughter was able to lay claim to our new bin and we've now used it for about three weeks.
i will have to get it clean and non-smelly though as i can't abide it [it lives just outside my front door] but i'm not too sure what to use ............... no running water at the front of the house and i'm disabled so can't go to and fro with buckets - and there's nowhere for the dirty water to go.
but i'm sure i saw several years ago some sort of powder for keeping bins smell free - can't find it now though ......... typical.
we had a big bin for years and then, last year, the council in its infinite wisdom decided that they'd change to a smaller one - which was ok as i lived alone. now though with four people in the house we fill this bin completely every week - and the council will be cutting back to a fortnightly collection later this year!!
sorry to go on for so long - i could go on about the recycling bin and the fact that i'd have to pay for a garden waste bin but i think that's for another time!

Interesting thread. Like most of us, we have the three bins plus a little one for food waste. But where do you put used cat litter? I've only got the one cat who does go out to play but comes back indoors when he needs to "go" so I have to clean out his litter tray daily. Solid waste gets flushed but the wet clumps of litter I tie up in a nappy sack and put in the general waste bin. By then end of the fortnight between collections the bin smells pretty ripe! Any suggestions?

In our area General Rubbish goes into landfill so if it is in plastic bags, they will take forever to break down, whereas some of the contents might be degradable (vacuum cleaner dust, for instance).

We have to pack our food waste in biodegradable bags and it is collected weekly, where other rubbish isn't. I walk around our village a lot, including on bin days and I am not aware of any bins smelling. All food waste is no more than a week old and in sealed plastic bags in sealed containers.

I have a friend who never lines even her kitchen bin, and rarely washes it. I don't know how she can bear the stink! I have often thought I might say something, but I would hate to offend her - it would be a bit like telling someone they had body-odour.
I'm a bit OCD about bins, I like them clean and odour-free!

My council does not allow food waste in the general waste bin. I have a separate bin for waste food (cooked) and a black bin for general waste into which goes only non-recyclable plastic or mixed materials. Everything else is recycled or composted. We have our own system of recycling boxes on shelving outside the back door and my husband polices our waste with hawk eyes to spot anything potentially going into general waste that can be recycled. Until they had a recycling facility at work he also used to bring ALL of the recycling home from his office.

I only think about my wheelie bins when they have to be hitched onto the car and towed down the hill to where the bin lorry comes (we're not on a road) and then back up again afterwards, though actually Minibags is getting quite good at the towing back up when empty after she gets off the school bus, bless her cotton socks viscose tights.

They are not what you careful people would call clean, inside or out, but none of it smelly dirt so I don't care.

*Phoebes"

In Spain it took me a while to work out that "whiffy" means "why-fy"

Before my MIL went into a home she used to bag up all her incontinence pads and put them in the bin. You can imagine the stink by the time the bin was emptied (and the weight! She produced a lot more than a small baby with disposable nappies) When I rang the Council I was told "That's fine they just go in the bin" I did feel for the unfortunate bin men.

Ladies, using plastic bags is bad for the environment. Loose rubbish in all bins would save so much precious oil.

We have one grey for household rubbish one green for recycling can't put any garden waste in they are emptied for nightly alternate they are checked and if anything I them what shouldn't be is left outside or full bin is left depending on which. bin man checks them ?

we have 2 wheelie bins, 1 for general rubbish I always bag & tie anything that goes in that bin we also have a green waste bin (£35 per year) these are collected on alternate weeks. we also have 2 boxes 1 for glass & cardboard the other for cans & plastic, also a food waste bin for collection a caddy for indoors (I use green recycleable bags for food waste. these are collected weekly. we also have a blue plastic sack for white paper, newspapers, magazines etc brown paper has to go in with cardboard. I have my list of what goes where pinned on a corkboard in my kitchen.

I have lived in different areas of England & every Council is different - wish it wsas the same wherever you live it would save a lot of confusion

I put loose rubbish in my recycle wheelie bin but never in my black bin. Everything goes into black rubbish bags, especially in the Summer when there are flies around. I usually cut up an onion and put that in to stop any odours, too!!! My husband thinks I'm barmy

I am a bit OCD about cleanliness anyway but bins are a special case for me. My mother had appalling hygiene habits, she:- kept food in the fridge until it was mouldy, had horrific dirty, smelly bins and never washed her frying or grill pans. I am afraid I have rather reacted against this and all of my rubbish is bagged before it goes in the wheelie bin. However, I am not alone in this. My husband is as circumpect about bins and hygiene as I am.

I don't see the point of bagging non-recyclable waste items as long as they aren't organic waste. They are all going to landfill and the plastic bags simply add more waste. Here almost every item of packaging can be recycled which leaves very little for the black wheelie bin. Anything organic can go to the compost heap, though at the moment I am wondering how the said compost heap fared during Saturday's flood. I have tried several times to post this, but nothing doing. I hope these attempts don't eventually result in multiple copies!

Oh thank goodness for that!

I can't think of anything worse than putting raw waste food into a wheelie bin. I always put any rubbish whether it be food waste or recycling waste into bin liners first.

My family on the other hand negate everything I do and mess up all the bins continuously so they stink to high heaven.

I wash out the bins inside and out as I don't want them to be any more dirty than they are - being bins

The only bin I use differently is the brown bin for garden waste. Every so often I wash that out, but the waste goes straight in as garden waste goes directly into the skip without any plastic.

Until they had a recycling facility at work he also used to bring ALL of the recycling home from his office.

According to my local authority I do not have a licence to transport waste and therefore cannot take my work rubbish home. I have to have two bins at work and pay for them to be emptied. They are full about once every two months because we have so little rubbish at work.

We have been told NOT to put plastic bags into the recycling bin. They are not needed as the recycling is cardboard, paper, and washed (or at least rinsed) tins and plastic. Nothing sticky or dirty to mess up the green bin to be collected fortnightly.

Food waste goes into a small caddy bin lined with a biodegradable bag, and emptied into a slightly bigger bin and put out once a week. I wash both of those out as they do get a bit mucky.

General rubbish goes into the lined pedal bin, the liner bag tied when it is full and put into the landfill bin, but some stuff is also thrown straight into that bin. no point adding more plastic to landfill if the items are not dirty. The bin is emptied fortnightly.

Garden rubbish goes straight into the brown bin, emptied fortmightly.

Rinsed bottles and jars go into a blue box, without a liner, emptied fortnightly (or it would be if there were enough in it to be worth putting it out that often - every few months is often enough.)

I use biodegradable black bags for my landfill bin. Does anyone know why the new bags smell of tobacco? One roll of extra strong ones I once bought smelt so strongly that I couldn't bear to use them.

What's wrong with putting "cooked slop" down the toilet? My Mum always did that. After all that's what faeces is.
As long as it's not grease.
We have a septic tank, not mains drainage, if that makes any difference.