Wheely bin stabiliser

If you mount the magnets at the rear edge, the natural leverage as they tip the bin to drag it, should make the breakaway fairly easy.

You can get disc neodymium magnets with formed holes to take bolts/screws - you could bolt it to the underside of the bin with a repaire-washer topside to avoid pulling through the plastic.

Here:

So if you think a 20kg load in the bin would hold it down in your winds, perhaps a pair of 15kg or one 30kg magnet at the back.

When they empty the bin it will be heavy, so they'll probably not even feel the magnet given the leverage of tipping.

Things to watch:

These magnets are brittle and break easily.

The steel plate probably needs to be floating and loose so it makes good contact with the magnet. Mounted on some soft rubber or weak springs perhaps?

Sounds like it could work well...

This is all very well, but our bin men put the bin back in random places

- sometimes next door.

Rough guess would be about half the impulse that a gust of wind (say

Air density is about 1kg/m^3 so I reckon ~10kg of downward force ought to be enough to hold it steady under all but the worst conditions.

Grab force varies as the inverse cube of the separation and ceramic magnets are brittle so you probably want to put some plastic over them.

Ours only tends to go walkies if the wind is in the right direction only after it has been emptied (and you cannot be sure the bin men will put the thing back onto you preferred spot so you can only halve the problem at best). I have never had a full bin blown over - only empties.

What makes you think that the bin men will place the emptied bins back on your magnets? Around my way it's smaller bins for waste paper and food waste (plastic sacks for other mixed recyclable and general waste) The bin men don't even manage to return the containers to the outside of the right house - and that before the empty containers blow down the road.

Training them to replace the bin is more than I hope to do. The problem is wind blowing over part full bins.

Tim

Is that the rear or the front? ;-) Anyhow, I take your point but thinking about it, fitting a plate into the public pavement is probably a non-starter. I could however fit one to our low garden wall at the front and then fit the magnets on the vertical face low down.

Thanks. Seen several on eBay that would do.

Tim

We do get the occasional full one blown over. It?s compounded by our pavement sloping slightly towards the road.

Tim

Not worried about that. Clearing up all the wind-blown litter when my un-emptied bin gets blown over is what concerns me more.

Tim

Probably doesn't matter when the bin is really empty if it gets blown over.

It's for the first day or two when it has a bit but not much weight in it.

You store your bin on a pavement? Or it is really not heavy enough on collection day to stop it blowing over? (Mine is).

is probably a

As an alternative, how about an eyebolt in the wall at lid level, then a length of chain and a karabiner type clip threaded through the hinge pin and clipped back to the chain?

Or, a concrete block rawlbolted into to the bottom of the bin so that it doesn't fall out when it is tipped?

How about a concrete block with a chain attached to it and then run the chain around the bin / over the wheels and fasten it. Then when it is bin day unfasten the chain as then the bin is full and heavy. Could also move the location if needed. You may even be able to train the bin men to undo the chain themselves :)

If they are going to be strong enough to be any good isn?t there going to be a risk they attract themselves to the dustcart, tin cans and lids in it or on the ground, bin mans steel toecaps,nails etc etc. And though weaker by the time it has got through the plastic won?t magnets strong enough to hold the bin down hold tins and lids inside at the bottom so they don?t fall out when it is tipped over the cart.

Sounds a good way to piss the bin men right off.

GH

Multiply that by the number of bins on a round. I don?t think the bin men will take kindly to anything that requires any extra effort on their part.

I can see that ripping a hole in the bottom pretty quickly. Have you watched how the bins are sometimes repeatedly ?bashed? when upside-down to ensure they?re empty?

Tim

When at the house our bin is held in place next to a wall using a bungee cord and two eyebolts.

After complaints to the council about spilt bins all our bins have been replaced with 1100 (?) litre communal bins chained to metal posts and the bin men have to do the unlocking and relocking.

About the only sensible thing the council's done for years.

Owain

It happens that Marland formulated :

Mount magnet on post, flexible so it can grab and mount a piece of steel on the bin's side.

Yes, I agree that's another good option (preferably with a tethered bungee)

Given a reasonable strong magnet that might work , I use some strong magnets on a post in the garden to hold and old Railway ?Don?t Touch The Conductor Rails ? for most of the year but easily brought in for the Winter Months where it is transferred to some other magnets on the workroom wall.

GH