Bins. It’s a subject that could start World War III in this country. Our local council provide three bins. A black one for stuff that can’t be recycled, a blue one for card / glass / plastic and a brown one for food and grass.
Anyhoo, they come for the blue and black bins one week, then the black the next. It means that your bins don’t get collected for two weeks. Despite what you read in the paper (and the many thousands who protested when weekly collections were stopped) it actually works very well. Chucking cans, tubs and cartons into the blue bin means that a lot less goes in the black one, but this week our black bin is pretty full.
So, this week it’s snowed. The roads on our estate have snow on the road because, despite the incline on the roads, the council haven’t gritted or given us a box to let us do it ourselves.
Anyway. The very large “refuse vehicle” / “bin wagon” couldn’t get down the road safely. I can understand this. Many can’t. Many moan about “in the old days they’re turn up no matter what the weather”. However, if that bin wagon did slide into your car / garden / house you’d soon be saying something different.
So, I’m happy with the two-weekly collections. I’m happy with the fact that the bins weren’t collected due to the snow / ice. I’m EVEN happy with the fact that Lichfield Council WON’T be trying to collect the black bin until next Thursday (a week later).
But, what gets my goat is this..
We are sorry but we won’t be able to take any extra waste when we next empty your black bin. This is because we will be back to empty your black bin again the following week. Thank you for your understanding.
Hang on. I don’t mind waiting a week, but our bin is full. What are we supposed to do with the extra rubbish? We can’t put our cat litter, vacuum bags and other non-recyclable stuff (if that’s a word). Do we stick it in the blue bin and hope that we don’t get told off? No… Do we put it in black bin bags and leave them outside until the bin is emptied, then shove those in the bin when it’s emptied next week?
Yup, it looks like the latter. Luckily our council is quite “modern” and they’re on Twitter. So I asked them a simple question, “What do we do with our extra crap? Can you take it next week?” Unfortunately they told us to read the same thing I’d already read, which is a bit rubbish really. Sorry guys, but the least you could do is take the extra bags next week. Bit crap really.