When Is Bins ? - A Light-Hearted Look at our Domestic Refuse Collection System

 Editor's note: See update at the end of the main article for news on the new UK.GOV plans for recycling collections....

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As one of the more incisive questions of our age, "When is Bins ?" definitely deserves some attention…and hopefully a reliable and effective solution for those afflicted by recent changes (i.e. most of us!).

In days of old, life was much simpler when it came to getting our rubbish collected….

The majority of households had just one dustbin. We put it out for the dustmen (as we affectionately referred to them in those balmy 'pre-pc' days) on the same day each week, and with a bit of luck it got emptied sometime on that day. 

Life is much more complicated nowadays when it comes to dealing with our domestic waste.

The advent of recycling and climate change awareness, which admittedly was necessary, given our profligacy with the earth’s non-renewable resources over the last 100 years, came in the late 1990s, and none too soon. But it has led to a plethora of different schemes for collecting, sorting and processing of our domestic waste, with very little standardisation between the responsible Local Authorities (LAs) and their contracted collecting agencies. 

The real ‘killer’ when it comes to the poor householder, though, has been the change to fortnightly rather than weekly collections.

What this did was to make it essential to remember in which week of the 2-week cycle a particular collection fell…and then put out the right bin in good time for the collection (usually occurring at crack of dawn or even earlier in winter!). Many householders and tenants now have a 2-week calendar with 3 or more 'collection events' to deal with, rather than just one a week on a set day.

You might think this procedure would be relatively easy to manage once you got used to it…but it jolly-well isn’t.... 

Many’s the time I’ve seen anguished neighbours puffing up the road with a full recycling or general waste bin desperately trying to catch the attention of the receding bin-lorry's driver because they’ve forgotten that week was their collection week…for that particular bin. And the knowledge that their bin wouldn’t get collected again for a whole fortnight could be a bit of a facer if it was  a) already stuffed full and b) had contents which was already starting to mature nicely in the summer heat!

Most of us have adapted to life’s increasing complexity in this area by devising a strategy of some sort to help us remember which bin goes out when, and we usually manage to put out the right bin on the right day…until, of course, something crops up to disrupt our routine and makes us forget. Another issue, of course, is those pesky Bank Holidays, when collections get rearranged and the timing of the collectors' visits goes awry….to say nothing of the summer holidays when we’re away from home and can't put the bins out ourselves, but aren't allowed to leave them out in case we block the footpath and get fined, or they get vandalised...... 

The concept of domestic waste collection can now reasonably be said to 'cover a multitude of sins' (or should it be bins ?!).

Could things be made a bit simpler ?

If LAs were to return to collecting general waste weekly, this would help somewhat. You would know you were due a collection every week, and could at least guarantee your general waste (generally the smelliest bin in summer) wouldn’t pile up. You could also use it to 'sneak in' some of your recycling waste if you missed a collection and the bin was overflowing. You'd still have to remember the recycling and garden collection weeks, though. Sadly, LAs are all acutely short of cash nowadays so there is very little likelihood of a return to the halcyon days of weekly collections for any of the bin types. 

Neither is it likely that they will combine recycling and general waste bins into a single collection, since this would require 2 separate bin lorries visiting at the same time. Bin days in our area certainly demonstrate that it's difficult enough accommodating one lorry in our modern 'car-park-like' side-roads nowadays, let alone two at once. Garden waste collection is in any case always likely to remain on a separate schedule, given it's usually subscription-based in most LA areas and is normally dealt with by separate agents and controlled electronically from the cab.

Assuming we all retain at least two separate collections, with approx. 14-day collection frequencies, with an optional additional garden waste collection, what's the best way to remember when the collection days fall ? 

One solution which I devised a while back for my own use, having gotten thoroughly fed up trying to keep track of things 'ad hoc',  is to use the power of modern spreadsheet packages such as MS Excel to generate a list of collection dates for the whole year. 

If this is done at the beginning of each year, it can be printed out as a matrix and used throughout the year. The app itself comes as part of an online calendar and diary package designed to capture everything from future appointments to brief diary summaries for those who want to record their day to day life events, past present and future. 

The list of refuse collection dates it generates for you can be transferred to a wall planner-style printout and printed as an A4 sheet to stick on your fridge door, or stored as a .pdf file on your phone/tablet/pc. All you need to tell it is the first collection date in the new year and the frequency for each collection (usually 14 days) and the app will do the rest.

You can download it and try it for yourself using this link. Please read the instructions on the worksheet labelled ‘Info’ before using the workbook to ensure you get the best out of the package. It should run happily on Excel versions from 2010 onwards, but you will need to enable macros within Excel for the buttons to work. You’ll find the refuse collection dates generator on the worksheet labelled ‘Notable Dates’. 

The e-diary is already set up for all calendar years up to 2038, starting with 2025, so if you would like to start using the e-diary this year to record other events, both planned and past, there's ample time (and space!) to build up your 'life's chronicle', in case you're thinking of  writing your memoirs…you can even search the whole diary across the years for anything of note. You don't of course need to use any of this extra functionality.

Returning to the subject of waste collection, anyone interested in finding out more about what actually happens to our recycling and other waste in UK can check out the recycling articles I've posted on our local Community Fridge’s website.

Wishing you all happier bin collections for 2025….

Update 2.4.25: Could it be that at least some of our prayers about more frequent refuse collections might be answered ?

The new 'Simpler Recycling in England' regulations which UK.GOV have been cooking up since coming into office last July are starting to hit local news headlines now, and do indicate some weekly collections...but will they actually make things simpler ? I've provided a link to the official guidance pages here so you can try to make some sense of it yourself. 

The key point on timing is that the new rules will need to be implemented by all local councils by end of March 2026. We'll all get at least 4 different bins to contend with, corresponding with the 4 different 'waste streams', and the new (mandatory) food waste collections must be made weekly instead of fortnightly. 

Councils do have some discretion on how they propose to do this and they will also be allowed to 'co-collect' food and garden waste in the same container, so we may finally get free garden waste collections. As a founder member of skeptics anonymous, I'll believe that when I see it. Why ? The brown garden bins  provide a 'nice little earner' for many of our cash-strapped councils, who will certainly be loth to give them up without a fight....if said councils are actually still in existence a year from now, that is ! The other constraint is that if they do co-collect with food waste, they'll have to do both weekly)

More chaos to come, then...Labour's 'continuous revolution' will probably be with us for the next 4 years or so at least, so 'buckle up'....and have your bin calendar generator at the ready....

First published 1.1.25

Revised 4.4.25