Frozen wheelie bins

[Brian Gaff]

Is ther any easy way to free these up so they stay freed for a while? The local bin men have not had a great successful round today because so many bins won't open as they are tipped by the mechanism on the trucks, resulting in missed collections. If they were not plastic I guess they could fit the vehicles with flame throwers!

Its a bit like the wrong type of leaves or snow etc, we get in this country, ie nobody thought there was enough cold wether to make reasonable adjustments to the design of the lids? Brian

[NY]

How about pouring warm (not boiling!) water over the join between the lid and the sides, so the lid can be opened, and then dry it with a bit of kitchen towel or and old hand towel, so it doesn't refreeze before the binmen arrive.

Something greasy might prevent the lid freezing in the future, but you wouldn't want to get it on your clothes, so it might be better to use the hot water trick each week instead.

[Mark Carver]

You need heavy rubbish, that all. Our two bins were frozen solidly shut this morning, but I watched as they were hoisted into the air, and all the depleted uranium I'd dumped in both of them forced the lids open as they were tipped.

[Colin Bignell]

When you put something in, leave a bit hanging out that stops the lid from closing completely?

[Rod Speed]

Brian Gaff [e-mail] wrote

Nope.

But the greenys would have a fit and would glue themselves to the top of the bins to stop them being used.

Not sure what the Canadians do, maybe Paul will comment.

[Brian Gaff]

I wish you luck with getting us all to do that standing in the freezing wind with a kettle of water. If the edges were not sealed all around, there would be less adhesion and a place for leverage to be applied. Often they arrive before many people are up and the stuff freezes if you do it too fast. Brian

[Brian Gaff]

Ha Ha, If we put builders rubble in each I suspect a fine would soon follow!

Maybe we could use hot air to free them, The council seems capable of generating a lot of that. Brian

[Brian Gaff]

You can't do that with the sorted rubbish. It is probably possible for cardboard tand maybe land fill, but the tins and milk containers would hardly be amenable to that. Brian

[Colin Bignell]

Mine all goes in one bin and is sorted by the recycler. There is evidence that gets more stuff recycled than if householders are expected to do the sorting.

[jim.gm4dhj]

just thump the lid

[Davidm]

Well just dangle a bit of rope from inside to outside of the bin. You could probably even fix one end of the rope to the bin so that it didn't get lost each time.

[Ian Jackson]

A bit of gentle leverage with a chisel that conveniently just happened to be at hand.

[Martin Brown]

I'm surprised that the emptying mechanism doesn't give them enough of a wallop to break any ice bonding. The ones round here tend to smash the sides in of bins that are moderately full on the recoil.

More of a problem for the heavy garden waste bins than anything else.

Our recycling bins are particularly naff with a silly convex top that traps water and unless you open it very carefully will tip some of the water into the contents (giving any paper waste a negative value).

When they load them onto the truck I doubt if they get rid of all the water that pools on the tops in wet weather.

[Dave W]

I suggest cutting the rim of the bin to resemble a sawblade, so that the lid would rest on the points with not enough capillary action for the water to form a continuous seal.