OT - Love your Wheely Bin

[John]

On a recent holiday to Spain I noticed that the end of the street bins on wheels had been replaced with bright new containers for rubbish. They were colour coded according to what needed to go into them. Certainly they were an improvement on the old bins that used to wander around a bit and rarely had the lids closed.

The replacements are summarised here:

I really hope the concept does not attract our councils as:

1. The vandals would love to wreck them. The arsonists would love to set fire to them.
2. The collection vehicles come to the location several times a day and create noise and traffic problems. (the bottles etc. are dropped into the lorry from about 20 feet. The hydraulics are noisy. The emptying is done from alongside.)
3. Residents and businesses have to take their sorted rubbish to the bins.
4. Antisocial people will dump other stuff alongside them - the one man operation cannot deal with this rogue rubbish.
5. The cost of manufacture and servicing them is not "green".
6. Would you want one outside your house? Would you want one too far away?

So - make the most of your wheelie bin and live with the collection rotas. It must be better than what might follow.

[chris French]

In message , John writes

I guess that might depend on where I was living, no I wouldn't want one outside my house. but we have plenty of space for storing wheelie bins on the drive.

The row of very small terraced cottages along the road from us have no rear access, limited internal storage space and just a small area at the front of the house for storing bins. People living in them might find such arrnagements more attractive.

[John]

What did they do in the olden days of the cylindrical metal or plastic dustbins? (Pre-Wheelie Bin)

I have noticed in my town that some terraces have started to abandon their rear access by failing to cut back bushes, etc. The house I once lived in and was able to ride my Lambretta down an entry and round to the shed is now inaccessible for this reason. At that time keeping it spotless and tidy was a matter of pride for the 4 households that were served by the entry. The blue bricks shone!

[pete]

Only in some parts of Spain - in other parts they don't come for days - leaving the bins full up and overflowing (esp. the waste paper, whcih doesn't appear to be economically viable to collect).

But people who live in flats in britain have to do this anyway

... and some of them do this, too.

Yes, in a second - provided I could pay council tax at the spanish rate, about

60 euros a year in a lot of places. Though they do tax other things: f'rinstance pretty much any DIY or building work needs, strictly speaking, a license from the town hall, which typically costs 3% of the work's value.

[SantaUK]

In Portugal I saw them emptying three small bins outside a flat. The three bins were all connected to the floor, which tipped back, and then the bin lorry lifted out a huge bin from underground, emptied into the bin, and then replaced it. Lid closed and they drove off. I was mighty impressed by the amount of rubbish that was contained in it, with only three small normal looking street bins!

[chris French]

In message , John writes

Dunno. But I part of the issue is surely that having multiple type of collections (which I'm in favour of in general) requires multiple bins etc. Though I think the council here only requires that you have the black bin (for general waste), you can continue to use the blue box they used to use for recycled stuff, or just put it in large clear plastic bags IIRC.

My memories of pre wheelie bins are vague now. By the time I moved to London in '89 we had them there. I remember not having them in Brighton in around 85-87 (between those times i lived in flats with large shared bins. In the pre wheelie bins houses IIRC we jsut used to put the ribbish out in black bin bags.

[Peter Twydell]

In message , John writes

What's the 'proper' name/technical term for a wheelie bin? Mobile refuse container, or something like that?

[Dave]

In those days we all had open fires, or fires behind glass doors. Those with open fires used to burn as much rubbish as possible on it. Hence the name, ash bin (they also had to put the fire ashes in as well.) After smokeless zones were introduced, plastic bins came in.

Can't remember what those with open fire did about ashes. As we were living in a flat, or house with gas fires.

Dave

[Dave Liquorice]

We still put our "ribbish" out in a plastic bag, bright blue, to identify it as "domestic" waste not "commercial" waste. Commercial waste can still be in a black bag. Though why they need to differentiate I don't know it all gets picked up by the same truck on the same round...

Wheelie bins are just so slow compared to man hopping out of cab, picking up the bag lobbing it in the back and hopping back in. The truck hardly stops moving.

[Dave]

Just billing. Industrial pays a higher rate. They know how many industrial sites they pick up from.

Who could argue with that?

Council inefficiency?

Yes, definitely :-(

Dave

[dennis]

Me.

Wheelie bins are somewhat larger than black bags, hence the reason they want two week collections. Then there are the safety issues..

Not having to worry that some idiot has put something sharp in a bag Not trying to lift a bag and finding its full of concrete Less litter caused by ripped bags to clean up (they do clean up don't they?) ..

[Roger Chapman]

Dave wrote: snip

When my metal dustbin died of old age the plastic replacement (which I still have) has "no hot ashes" embossed on the lid. So those with hot ashes would have to be patient.

When black bin bags came in the normal practice of collecting the whole bin obvious went as well but so, shortly after, did the practice of collecting the rubbish from the rear of the house if that is where then bin was kept. Saves time and money for the council but can be a burden on the elderly. A burden that wheelie bins have made worse in some cases.

Incidentally Bradford Met. got its knickers in a bit of a twist over the colour of their wheelie bins. Green bins were introduced for general waste so when 'green' bins came in they had to be grey. Since then in my area big grey bins have been replaced with small green boxes that are collected by a private firm. Large bins seem overkill for recycled rubbish anyway. Full they could be very very heavy and opportunities for pre sorting are limited.

[dennis]

My council still collects the bins, empties them and sometimes puts them back. But only from the front, not the back. They also have green wheelies for the garden waste and like most councils offer an assisted collection for those that can't move them on their own. If you know people that can't manage get them on the assisted collection list and they won't need to do anything.

[Andrew Gabriel]

We had to pay 50p per bag to buy the commercial waste bags (10 years ago - probably more now). OTOH, it also meant you could choose to have someone else collect your commercial waste, if they did it cheaper or in some other way that better suited you. We did this for some types of waste such as large boxes and packing pieces, which worked out very expensive and time consuming to break down and stuff in the 50p bags.

I only put my wheelie bins out when they're full, which takes me

6-8 weeks, so mostly they don't have to stop to empty mine at all.

[pete]

in which case they just leave 'em behind

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ LOL

[Phil]

Already happening: