Vocal Voices

At about 10:15 the binmen arrived in a sort of rotating drum bin lorry not seen before and emptied the bins. Just now a more traditional machine has arrived to empty the earlier emptied bins.

The binmen haven't clocked that when the bins go up there is no sound of the contents falling into the hopper because they are empty - just silence. The work docket probably says to empty the bins so empty them they will and must.

I sent a report to our council, South Staffs, last week about some broken fencing along the path from the estate onto the common. It’s that low fencing where there’s a 6” (ish) square of wood resting on 2’ high posts. There’s probably a proper name for it but….
Anyway, I had a reply saying that it was nothing to do with them, contact highways at the county council on the link provided. I did that, pinpointed where it was on the map provided and got an immediate response saying that it wasn’t anything to do with them as the roads and path haven’t been adopted and are still the responsibility of the developers (10 years after the estate was completed).

Now, the grass on which the fence sits is cut by South Staffs, the bin which is situated on the path has the council logo on it and is emptied by them and the bushes which looks like they’ve damaged the fence in places are also maintained by them so I emailed South Staffs and got a reply saying that perhaps it is their responsibility after all so they’ll look into it

Couldn't make it up Jo

I’m determined to report everything Jan, seeing as they put up the council tax by £10 a month

Crazy isn't it? Forgetting garden rubbish, we used to have one bin lorry a week, which alternately collected household/food and recycling/food. One visit, 4 operatives.

Now it's one lorry for the alternate weekly household / recycling waste and a second lorry, later in the day, for the weekly food. Two visits, 5 operatives.

Plus a completely brand-new 2021 fleet of bin lorries*! All this to "be more efficient and save ratepayer's money" ......


* Although in fairness, perhaps I ought to add that Dorset Council's old fleet of bin lorries were tending to catch fire half-way through their rounds with increasing frequency.

Kaz wrote::shock:

We have a weekly black bin collection - general household stuff - fortnightly, alternating with garden waste which is a different wagon - then another wagon for the recycling. All of which send Fraggle into a frenzy!

We have five normal rubbish bins, down on the main track They get emptied on Saturday at the moment and Wednesday, when it gets hot. We now have - ta da - a bottle recycling bin too

Everything else, cut down trees, washing machines, whatever , just gets put down by the bins and every now and then, it's collected by another lot of vans.

The Portuguese are pretty good on recycling, just they forget the empty the bins on a regular basis. Daft thing is, they collect the cardboard one, take it away and bring it back in a few days, Ditto the plastic, then ditto the bottles

But, we don't pay any council tax and other friends pay peanuts.

We have four bins. This week it is green for food and garden waste and brown for glass plastic bottles and cans

We have a blue bin for paper and cardboard and a black bin for any rubbish which will not go in the other bins.
I take plastic bags and fil to Asda as they have a container fot plastic bags.
Have seen the bin lorry only take one bin where on hose has more than one bin of the same colour.

We have a recycling bin that takes paper, plastic glass etc which is emptied fortnightly.
Our soft plastic recycling ie bread bags etc we have to take to the supermarket separately where there are special bins to put them in.
We have a garden waste bin (that is the same colour as the recycling bin, seriously what were council thinking..!) that is collected once a month
We are getting food waste bins soon. No idea when. Soon has been for 4 years now.
And lastly we have a general waste. There’s 2 options, another big plastic bin, or bags. The bags are bigger and cheaper and not run by council. The bins are smaller and more expensive and run by council.


So once a month, in one day we have 4 rubbish trucks come down the street (soon to be 5)

Most weeks it’s 2 or 3 depending on the week.

It’s all a little bit crazy, but it seems to work.

Oh and the guy over the road get his rubbish collected by yet another company, so the truck comes all the way down to the end of the street on a different day to everyone else, just to empty his 1 bin.