I've just bin :) told by Onyx that if we create more rubbish than a wheelie bin will hold, it's tough (somewhat paraphrased I'll admit).

We used to have two bins, but when Onyx took over they stopped emptying one bin and only when I chased it was I told we were only allowed one bin. They even took a bin away! Since then, we've always had an overflowing bin.
Now the bin men have started removing any bags piled on top and leaving them on the path! When I challenged Onyx on this I was told that the council only allow them to empty one bin - and a bag sticking out is more than a bin full!!!!!!! They also claim a standard wheelie bin is big enough for a family of six - we are a family of five and we recycle a lot.

I've had to write to Onyx, who say they will have to monitor our rubbish, then possible apply to the council for a bigger bin!!!

What a load of crap :loopy:

It just shows how good privatisation is.Letting companies like this is daft.While ever **** like Jan Wilson are in charge there will always be problems.

They've always been the rules since we we're given wheelie bins - if they used to empty it for you then that's at their discretion. Imagine if everybody started leaving an extra bin out - where would we put all the extra rubbish and who would pay for it to be removed? If you have too much rubbish ask if you can fill a neighbours bin or take it to the tip.

I agree, Onyx are useless. When we first took the pub on, we gave them a month's notice that we needed a bin. Three months later it was delivered. Then after it was delivered they charged us for it but didn't collect any rubbish for another three months. They wondered why we cancelled the service! Then they carried on trying to take money from our direct debit that we'd cancelled.....we explained four months later that we'd cancelled and why on earth were they doing this....they apologised again and realised their error.....then sending us a cheque for the money we are supposed to owe them! Eh???

Had the exact same problem in Derby last year. When we moved out of old house we left 5 black bin bags of rubbish outside the house which we couldn't fit in the wheelie bin. Had no car so couldn't take it to the dump, cos in derby it's 3 miles out of town (don't think a taxi would have taken it either!!)...

Apparently this cost the Council £150 to clean up. Yeah right....

The problem is though it's ok when one or two people do it - it's when everyone starts doing the same it suddenly takes a hell of a lot longer and costs a lot more to shift all that crap :)

Rinty you sure must create a lot of rubbish to fill a wheelie bin in a week (although to be fair like you said there are 5 of you).

As Fnkysknky says, if everyone did we would have a massive problem. (This country already creates enough waste to fill the Albert Hall - every hour !!!).

I'd certainly agree about Onyx though - I just can't believe that building a much larger incinerator is a good idea. I reckon that in the next few years the EU will get much tougher on this and we'll have a great big incinerator that will be useless.

Anyone know why businesses don't have blue bins?

Hi Rinty

we have same problem, and there's 5 of us here too. We recycle glass and put just about every scrap of paper of card in the blue bin.

We asked council for bigger wheelie bin but they refused saying they are only for families with 6 or more people.

as don't drive, I can't take stuff to the tip either.

We've only got one bin collection over the Xmas/New Yr fortnight. Just hope onyx will take the extra then.
-

Try making less waste! Food comes in paper bags if you go to the local greengrocer and butcher instead of polystyrene and cardboard and cellophane. It doesn't even have that if you grow your own It might be a bit radical but you will feel much better in all ways - wallet, health and greenness :)

Hi Tony,
Love the theory but unable to follow through in practice due to personal circs.

Do my best to save the planet, not totaly unaquainted with green ideas.

still doesn't follow that family of 5 produce same amount of rubbish as small households, as we all get same size bin.
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Originally posted by blue-kat
still doesn't follow that family of 5 produce same amount of rubbish as small households, as we all get same size bin.
-

Not true, there are 2 different sizes of bin on our street. You need to contact Onyx and ensure that you've got the larger size.

Creating less waste is far easier said than done.

I got my reply from Onyx this morning, which is quite impressive really. Unfortunately, it's a bog off response :(

I do get the feeling that whoever reckons a wheelie bin is fine for a family of up to 6, doesn't have a family of 6 :)

At least our bins are being emptied on xmas eve this year.

Well use the tip then, that's what it's there for.

I think it's a good policy. Restricting the amount of waste that is collected for free is a way to discourage people from over consumption. Nowadays everything is overpackaged and disposable. People have a "just throw it away" attitude (where exactly is "away"? - an overflowing landfill site or burnt at Bernard Road?).

My house of 3 only puts the bin out once every 2-3 weeks. We buy most food locally in brown paper bags rather than in a supermarket in a plastic tray (made from non-renewable oil that we have to start wars to get). When we do go to the supermarket, we don't buy things that have unnecessary packaging. If we really must buy something with waste packaging, we take it out of the packaging in the shop, taking just the item and bar code to checkout and leave the shop to deal with the waste.

Consume less! :)

jolly good for you.

I also leave excess packaging at Aldi /Lidl and take my own bags and baskets rather than buy plastic bags, return plastic bags to tesco online.....but didn't feel it was necessary to get on a soap box about it.

All five of us are at home most of the time, few meals eaten outside + 4 pets. Great number of people, and sue of the house, does unfortunately bring about more waste.

Actually I found the replies suggesting that thos of us from large household with overfull bins are some overconsuming squanderbugs with no care for the environment pretty offensive.

Hopefully there will be a kerbside scheme for recycling plastic and tins soon, as this would cut reduce contents of wheelie bin.

Originally posted by blue-kat
Actually I found the replies suggesting that thos of us from large household with overfull bins are some overconsuming squanderbugs with no care for the environment pretty offensive.

Me too Kat, but I'm getting used to being told off by people who aren't in the same position as me (school run comes to mind but I'm not starting that one again :) ).

Between four adults, we just about manage to fill half of one wheelie bin a week, which I think is pretty good going. We don't all live in the same house, we just share a bin with our neighbours because it makes sense, and we're all too lazy to take two bins out.

However, there are always going to be times when there is just too much rubbish to fit in your bins, and then the bin men should take it away. It only costs the council more to remove it later when it's become a health hazard. And I'd rather the bin men just bit the bullet and took the ten seconds to get rid of it, than see it wind up in a nearby greenspace/scattered down the road, etc.

Unless it happens constantly, in which case bigger bins should be supplied, or if that doesn't help, charges made.
I do agree with charges being made if people just throw masses away every week of the year and don't try to recycle or change their habits. Having really gone and LOOKED at a landfill site, it suddenly becomes much harder to justify the amount of rubbish we produce. And I am not pointing a finger at anyone here, lol)

I wouldn't mind seeing a full recycling service available, like blue bins, through the council. And a small charge made for any leftover rubbish that has to be put in landfill. According to my dutch neighbour, it works very well in her home town, and recycling is just an accepted part of life.

Cosy:P

OK OK you're not "squanderbugs" (good word, by the way)

Renegade action may be required? Get yourself to the bottom of my road - Cowlishaw Rd S11 - where there are several bins permanently left outside the houses just uphill from the off licence. Those houses all have their own bins round the back, and the ones left out the front are spares blocking the foot path. (I know because I got so fed up dodging them in the summer when the students had left that I put the bins in the back yards, only to find bins there already).

Then you "just" have to work out how to leave 2 bins outside without the dustmen realising...

I've been frustrated by Onyx too. We put our blue paper recycling wheelie bins out for emptying and they couldn't even be ar*ed to go to the top of my road and collect all the bins. They went about half way up my road and didn't bother with the other bins. It's kind of frustrating when we're making an effort to recycle our paper and it doesn't get taken...

They can't take the extra rubbish - where are they supposed to put it? You start leaving extra rubbish out they need a bigger truck - they can't get a bigger truck so they have to send binmen back out on another round to collect it. Suddenly their costs just doubled because you can't be arsed to use the tip.

I heard on radio 4 that "the UK is unlikely to meet it's European landfill reduction targets", so presumably we have to dump less waste into the ground. This might explain the policy.

Originally posted by fnkysknky
They can't take the extra rubbish - where are they supposed to put it? You start leaving extra rubbish out they need a bigger truck - they can't get a bigger truck so they have to send binmen back out on another round to collect it. Suddenly their costs just doubled because you can't be arsed to use the tip.

Crap. When you take rubbish to the tip, where do you think they put that?
Did Onyx scrap all the trucks, when they took the contract on, and replace them with smaller ones because they ALWAYS used to take both the bins we had, as well as anything put out with the bin.

This is nothing more than profit watching by a private company doing a public service - it happens everytime.

Has anybody else been woken up at unearthly hours by the binmen in Sheffield?

A one off would be OK, such as at Christmas or when catching up after a Bank Holiday but every week?

Surely there must be some law that regulates this type of noise between certain times of the day.

:mad: :mad:

what about the poor binmen that have to work then

i dont so much mind the time they arrive(about 7.30 here) its the broken bottles they leave,and while we are on the subject of refuse collection,if your bin is overflowing which sometimes ours is,why do they take the top sack off and then leave it ? surely they could pop it in the back of the lorry somehow even if it meant sending your bin through again?

That's because some of them are bloody jobsworths :mad:

We don't have the same problem up our end - just as well, because our bins are emptied on Thursdays, so thanks to Christmas and New Year, we've had just a single collection in three weeks!

Originally posted by Mo
Has anybody else been woken up at unearthly hours by the binmen in Sheffield?

:mad: :mad:

If they collected the bins later, they may interfere with rush hour traffic and a whole bunch of people would complain about that!

"In trying to please all of the people all of the time, you end up pleasing none of the people none of the time... so just try to please some of the people some of the time... (or something like that!)"

:D

Some people just like complaining I think ;)

:rolleyes:

Fair point Tony - but two were holding me up at 7:30 am when I left for work!

We had the binmen taking the top bin out (it wasn't really overflowing just not completely shut) so phoned up the council to complain, as we said it would attract foxes and rats etc. We were told that the binmen are only contracted to empty one bin per household.

Originally posted by Jayne
We had the binmen taking the top bin out (it wasn't really overflowing just not completely shut) so phoned up the council to complain, as we said it would attract foxes and rats etc. We were told that the binmen are only contracted to empty one bin per household.
I remember this being discussed before, so I've merged the threads now.

My brother lives in Kirklees and they have several small wheely bins of different colours for different types of waste.

Paper/plastic/metal/glass are all seperated and recycled and one is for "general waste".

I think this is a great idea. He only needs the "general waste" bin putting out every 3 or 4 weeks.

I am sure there would be some practical difficulties is some places due to space etc. but in principle I think its an excellent idea. Existing land fills won't last forever and nobody wants a new one next door.

The answer is to adopt a system like they have in Switzerland. All recycling is taken away free, and rubbish is charged for by the sack. Therefore those that produce rubbish are the ones that pay.....Having said that, half my paper goes in the black bin coz the blue bin is far to small when only emptied once a month.

Thats a good idea in principal but it would encourage people to fly-tip their waste to save a bit of cash.

Originally posted by Chris
Anyone know why businesses don't have blue bins?

Prob because of confidential waste, I work for DSG and they shread and recylcle the paper but pay a private frim not onyx for this service. They would need 100's of blue btw.

Originally posted by fnkysknky
Well use the tip then, that's what it's there for.

Only good if you can get their we have a two dead cooker on our backgarden because we can't get to the tip. Large waste can't give a date so can't put them on the front. If we leave them there they would get vandelised or poss used to break into our home.

We have to bring the blue bin in and chain the normal bin up, becuase we have had two nicked. btw we have the big one and we had to wait two months for that, becuase we had to be accessed. we are a family of six and we use twice the amont of rubbish as when we were a family of four, becuase we have to buy more. two of the kids are in nappies.

And before anyone says green... green costs money, money we haven't got. we aren't poor but not rich either, we want our kids to have the best in life but its a juggling act. even though we are ten minutes walk from the tip try doing that with a 5 week old and a two and half year and a bag of rubbish.

Originally posted by garrence
I think it's a good policy. Restricting the amount of waste that is collected for free is a way to discourage people from over consumption.

Since when did they collect it for free?????????

It comes out of the concil tax!!!!!!!

Can someone answer this.

Why do we HAVE to line the bins neatly at the kerbside, but the bin collectors can just leave the empties higgle-de-piggidy?????

Originally posted by jubby
we use twice the amont of rubbish as when we were a family of four, becuase we have to buy more. two of the kids are in nappies.

And before anyone says green... green costs money,

Since when do terry nappies cost more than disposables? You could save yourself a fortune.

Originally posted by Tony
Since when do terry nappies cost more than disposables? You could save yourself a fortune.

Do you want to come round our house and do the washing the only time that washer stops is when the cycle finishes during the night. If we did use terry nappies we wouldn't have clean clothes.

We have looked at biodegradable ones but for 20 it costs £10.

Its not just the nappies that we use its the extra other stuff, when the kids are out of nappies we will still need the bigger bin, as 6 use more than 4 than 2 thats why my friends earn the same as me but have more expendable income than me.

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