Rubbish / Refuse - How to deal with it?

[Big Sis..]

Can anyone explain to me why in Spain[who pay a lot less
rates than us]

get Refuse collections every day and they will take anything from Half a tree to Patio tables & chairs.....

They also work Bank Holidays and Sundays....
We were in Torre and where surprised to see the bin men out on Easter Sunday.....

Where as we are lucky to get collections every fortnight[never a Bank Holiday] or Sunday.
and if we bother to take large items to the tip at our expense can only take 2 cupboards a time and not 4.....[so making 2 trips. not very environmentally friendly]

Soon with the spies in Wheely bins we will only be able to dump the 'right' sort of rubbish.

And it wont be long until we are charged extra depending on how much rubbish we have.....so making fly tipping inevitable!!!

[Hells Bells]

Our recycling bin has now mysteriously disappeared.

[Partridge]

[quote="Ros"]Can anyone explain to me why in Spain[who pay a lot less
rates than us]

get Refuse collections every day and they will take anything from Half a tree to Patio tables & chairs.....


Hi Ros
I have wondered about that too, they come round a midnight, every night without fail. I kind of assumed it was because of the heat ie a really smelly job but have to confess I don't know for sure.

[halcyon999]

Just a quick update,

since having the SITA bins installed, and also updating our guest info packs with detailed info on refuse and our charges to remove it (including numbers for the local council also), we have had far fewer problems - things are running much more smoothly on that point!

Ta, Darren.

[Stephen]

we have two wheeled bins, one for reycycling one for rubish/gardbage and they are collected on alternate weeks, If there is something in the recycling bin that shouldn't be there the bin men will not empty it,they open every recycling bin and look in.

We make a courtesy telephone call on the night of the guest's arrival, and also explain to guest's about the Garbage/Recycling
bins and tell them that if the bins are not emptied the council will charge us to come back and empty the bins and we will have to pass the charge onto them, it's not very nice having to go through peoples rubbish and if I have to do it I want paid for it...after all, I suspect they put their own garbage out ok at home.

We also get 50% discount on our rates as we are classed as a small business but our garbage is collected on the same day as the rest of the village, and we have recently requested larger Garbage and recycling bins and are waiting for their delivery.

[Mouse]

Gosh Stephen! What a palaver! Is that in th UK or Florida?

I was recently talking to someone at a dinner party who lived in London....they were telling me that they only got their rubbish removed once a fortnight (!) and if they put their bin out before the correct time then they were fined!! The problem they had was that they left the house very early to go to work and usually put the rubbish out the night before - now they can't do that & have to rely on a neighbour. Add to that, that the latest innovation from the council is for them to be charged extra if their rubbish is over a certain weight!
As they explained - their bin is usually full to the brim each fortnight and theres only 2 of them, the family of 5 next door are having a very stressful time of it.

I know we all care about the environment but surely this goes too far?? Especially considering the level of council tax they pay?

Mouse
x

[Stephen]

Mouse
that is in the UK, in Florida the binmen collect twice a week for general household rubbish and once a week for gardening stuff palm tree branches etc.

In the UK, If 5 or more people live in a house you are entitled to a larger 360L wheelie bin compared to the standard size 240L , we have a 360L one at home and are waiting for the 360L bins to be delivered to our cottage, in the meantime they say they will collect 2 extra bags of rubbish until the bigger bins are delivered, our village were only issued with wheelie bins last month.

[Guest3]

I too am amazed at the stringent rules re. rubbish collection in the UK!! When we left our Bedfordshire village 5 years ago the wheelie bins were collected once a week (irrespective of weight) together with a bag for recylling materials i.e. paper, plastic and tins. Now they collect rubbish every two weeks irrespective of the number people in a household, and charge extra if the bins weigh over a certain weight! If you want a larger wheelie bin you have to justify the the need in writing and pay extra for the convenience per year!

Here is Spain there are large municipal household waste bins and recylling bins spaced out along the road and the bins are emptied every day! We have a regular road sweeper that keeps the pavements clean on our quiet suburban road in Torreblanca....yet in all the years of living in our Bedfordshire village I can honestly say I NEVER EVER saw a road sweeper even though we were charged a ridiculous amount of council tax! Everyone in the village tended to keep their own portion of pavement and road clear of rubbish.

[Mouse]

Hi Crystal!

I so agree with you about Spain, our village also has a regular road sweeper (and gardener!) plus within a couple of minutes walk we have access to 3 bin stations and 2 re-cycling bins for paper and glass..and batteries.

When visiting the Uk for work I'd stay at my mums house (alone as she was in Spain) - and I put the bin out without knowing any of these silly rules.......guess what? I got 'told off' by the authorities for putting my bin the wrong way round!! I didn't realise I had to put the bin handle towards the road
So; don't put your bin out before a certain time, place it in a specific spot, fill it only with certain materials and only to a certain weight and then make sure you put the handle facing the road

Oh Lordy!!

Mouse
x

[Nightowl]

The trouble with the UK is that EVERYTHING is so heavily packaged!! It's possible to avoid buying packaged stuff in some instances - you can sometimes buy your fruit loose but if yoiu want a particular one that isn't sold loose, it comes with tons of trays and linings etc. And what about stuff like dishwasher tablets /laundry tablets; some of those have so much excess packaging. So the consumer has all this blooming stuff to get rid of. It's no wonder our bins are full!!And junk mail as well - none of us want the blooming stuff but we are the ones who have to get rid of it.

I use any scrap of green stuff for compost bins religiously (I also have 2 guinea pigs that will eat veggie scraps) but even for a family of 4 our bin is always full - We have a wheelie bin, recycling of glass, paper and tins in separate bins, and a once a week collection at the moment.

I hate it when we have had fish in the summer and it doesn't all get eaten (or you just have the bones etc to wrap and bin) and it sits stinking outside in your bin for a week...every time you lift the lid you get a stinky pong.

But as everyone has said, in Spain, the rubbish collection is fantatic - you can put whatever you like in there and it is collected at about midnight every day. And we can eat fish whenever we want and not worry (too much) about stinky bins.

[Big Sis..]

Totally Totally agree...

As ive said before the collections are every night and bank holidays and they will take everything......Half a tree, Patio Tables...
One little niggle when we were last out was that some people left carrier bags of Rubbish outside the bins[when theyre was plenty of room]
I was moaning about people being ignorant etc.
and I didnt know why they couldnt just lift the lid and put it in
[I suppose it is like the people who put the sacks out the day after the bin men had been cos they didnt want there rubbish on there property....]
But my friend who lives out there said Its the Kids that are sent out with rubbish but cant reach to lift the lids....so its the parents who are too idle to cross the road and put rubbish in bins....

Back to the UK rubbish system[or lack of it]..
As we were away last week we missed the black bin rubbish day on Weds[which is the smelly stuff] which means that we wont have a collection now until after Xmas[and its already full] so its a trip to the tip with a smelly carload but how do people manage who havent got cars etc[not by bus thats for sure]
which is why we get so much flytipping ...

Someone said that your not sposed to put wrapping paper in the green bin as it had already been recycled ??????
this cant be right surely.....If we go by that how would we know what paper to put in...Weve already got the no shredded. no envelopes.etc etc....

Anyway I read somewhere that theres been some complaining about the fact that all these extra green bins are being made and how is that helping the environment [weve also all still got the little green boxes we were issued with originally]
Surely this is using extra resources....unless theyve been recycled.............
Theres a thought would we need a recycle bin to put an old recycle bin in to be recycled.....

PS Crystal we saw the road sweeper car outside the houses everyday when we were there this time though hadnt noticed him once before that ..

[halcyon999]

Just a quick one on junk mail - to keep bins clear of it, you could post it all back in their free, pre-paid envelopes for them to recycle their end, with any extra bits included that you can fit in the envelope........if everyone did that, we'd be getting a lot less junk mail...........anyone fancy being a bit 'militant' and mailing everyone they know and getting some direct action going? Hee hee.....

Darren.

[Stephen]

Brilliant Idea !!! That's what I will do from now on..