General Chat

We have a fortnightly collection of our garden waste wheelie bin, collected alternate weeks to our household rubbish.
This week we have had letters to say that as from April 1st, this service will no longer be free and we will have to pay £ 35 a year for collection.

What happens where you live?

Gwyn

here in Cardiff we get a fortnightly collection garden waste and cardboard - no mention of a change to the system as yet - if they do start charging I'll just dump it in my compost bin, although as I don't grow veg since OH died I don't really use it, but no way shall I be paying

We also have our garden waste collected on a 2 week basis.
No mention yet of this service to be charged, however once one Council starts the rest seem to follow, so i am expecting notification.

The mind boggles what they will charge for next.

George

I compost too but find the bin useful for more woody prunings.
I also often fill it with clippings from the overgrown shrubs and brambles from the public flower bed opposite.
Should I charge the council for my work?

Gwyn

OH! Don't talk to me about compost bins, i have not added to mine for a while.... I'm still waiting for the rats to vacate! We have been told , in our area, that we would be getting a garden wast wheely bin, so am waiting for that. Don't know yet if they are going to charge.
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Hi Gwyn Just heard this on local news, i expect out area will be next, i can see lots of people disguising it into household waste.
We do have a compost heap but usually have far too much than we can compost.
Val

We have a green bin for normal rubbish (non recyclable which is collected weekly. we have recyclable boxes for glass, cans and newspapers collected fortnightly and also a brown wheelie bin, for which we pay £26 per year (at least that was the cost last year) and that is collected fortnightly. We also have a compost bin and think we too have a ratty around there somewhere. but we also think we have probably always had a couple under the shed.
And Stan, we have never put cooked food into our compost bin.
Ann
glos

I know thats what i thought, Stan! I only put uncooked veg peelings, grass and weeds and clippings in. I went on an allotment site where it was being discussed, as there were a lot of people having same problem. Apparently it is a myth and rats will eat anything! Solution... to bang the bin or stir up to disturb them as they don't like it! I havnt done it cos i dont want them jumping out at me!
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n

We have a fortnightly garden waste collection wheelie bin during the summer (March to November) which is free so far. That takes the hedge/shrub/tree trimmings.

Also have a compost or two which occasionally gets rats, even though we do not put cooked food in it, only grass cuttings, peelings, banana skins and suchlike.
We also have two, no three dogs, including a terrier, which does not seem to worry the rat (although come to think of it, I've not seen any signs of it for a few months).

Stan
I think £30 is the going rate here if the council send someone to get rid of rats.

Gwyn

Not sure I am keen on rat poison Stan, what about the birds and cats?

thanks will look into that.

Garden waste and recycled paper, glass, cans, card and plastic collected avery week, wheelie bins once a fortnight but coming soo in our part of the world weekly waste food collections coming back because of the problem with vermin and smell last couple of summers

Ann
We had to call them several years ago and the man left blue coloured wheat in polythene bags tucked away behind shed, under fence etc.
At the time we had a rabbit which ran free in the garden. We kept it in it's hutch after pest man's visit then he returned to check no bait was left and rabbit was free to roam again.
Rabbit fine, rat was seen no more.

Gwyn

Thats what i was worried about too, I have a dog that eats anything, plus i don't like killing anything!
xx

I had rats in my compost bin - Council came and saw them off. My old toothless cat did nothing at the time, just sat and watched!! Had to kick the bin before I took the lid off! To be honest I don't mind rats that much if they are down the bottom of the garden and the local branch railway line runs at the bottom of my garden and they do seem to live round railway lines. My new cat is a killer though!!!!

We have a large brown wheelie bin provided by Bexley Council which is for garden waste AND all food waste, including peelings, raw or cooked meat, fish and bones and even plate scrapings (Motto is Scrape Your Plate, lol), anything compostable can go in there. It's collected weekly and there is no charge.

We also have a plastic box for paper, one for plastics and tins and another for glass, which are collected fortnightly on alternate weeks.

The normal green wheelie is just for packaging and other non-recyclable waste.

Our Council is about to start fortnightly collections for the green wheelie and weekly for all the others.

Dee
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What does one pay councel tax ?for Then??if not to empty ones bins!! we have a black bin for all normal waste which i bag anyway a green one for news papers/cans/ cardboard/ and plastic bottles' and a brown for garden waste/ie grass cuttings/and plant cuttings.if they start charging us I shall dump in on town Hall forcourt. Jean

We live in a country village about 7 miles from the nearest dump (sorry recycling centre!!!).
We used to be able to take any old rubbish there but now they have big signs saying what percentage of waste they recycled last month and they glare at anyone chucking in anything which can't be recycled. I once got a real telling off for lobbing a black bin liner full of general waste in the "cannot be recycled" skip but we'd missed the dustbin men and were going to the dump anyway.

We try very hard to recycle stuff. Once a fortnight our bottles, cans and paper are collected by the council but mountains of cardboard, plastic bottles and cartons seem to gather. That we have to take to the recycling centre.

We have two large compost bins and save what we can but we can't compost the larger garden waste. That piles up in heaps until we usually end up having to carry it through the house to the front garden and piling it up into our trailer.

It all seems so much more complicated than it did when I was a kid. Then we had one dustbin which Mum lined with newspaper (no bin liners). The Scouts collected our papers. Dad heaped all compost at the end of the garden and burned everything else in an incinerator or on a bonfire.

Sue
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