The bin-men used to come on Thursdays. Simple. Since the council introduced ‘Alternate Week Collections‘ nobody knows when they’re coming. We’re all at sea. One day it’s plastic and tin cans, the next it’s green waste. Newspapers? Household waste? No idea.
Everybody’s moaning about the smell (and the rats) but I’m more interested in what the change reveals about group decision making. In our street what we all do is nip out in the evening to see what everybody else is doing. Since nobody really knows when they’re coming, it’s about 90% likely that somebody will have put their bins out.
So, just to be on the safe side, we all beetle off and bring our bins out. Consequently everybody’s bins are out almost all the time. It’s Bin Street out there, man. Wheelie Bin City. Bin Central.
I put all my bins out every Tuesday here in Oxford. I have 5 bins now, no joke, plus a bag for garden waste…
And for the last three weeks or so, my glass-filled bin has not been collected.
And I just found out my council has not been recycling the plastic bottles I have been carefully rinsing and putting in the blue (or is it green) bin…