Refuse Bins

[Bazile]

When did this practice start of keeping refuse bins on the frontages of houses ?

[calda49]

When I lived in a second floor flat that was the only option. Also lived in a terraced house , so unless you wanted to drag a full bin through the house it was easier to leave at the front. That was over twenty years ago.

[barry1010]

When we were given wheelie bins.  Prior to that we had to put a black bin bag out.  If that was kept outside the foxes, rats, gulls and pigeons would tear them apart in no time time, so rubbish was only put out on bin day.

Lots of houses don't have a side or rear entrance to their gardens so have no choice but to keep them at the front.

[youngmafbog]

Bin men used to come up the drive pick it up and carry it to the cart.  Many are not strong enough to do that and with the advent of wheelie bins that are larger it was no longer possible to have them out back.  Add to that alleyways all blocked on many terraces where else do you put them. Many have to leave them on the pavement.

Ours are out back though, I built a bin area for all four of them.

[barry1010]

When I was growing up I lived in a terraced house with a very long back garden that had an entry several doors down that served about 20 houses.  The binman would carry what looked like a huge galvanised baby bath down the entry, along the backs of the houses and empty several bins in to it before lugging the stinking thing to the bin lorry. 

They seemed to enjoy their job, though, all in the pub for lunchtime opening, then home for a nap.

[davebro3]

Ours are in a communal (4 flats) locked bin roon & get put out as necessary on collection day. It's a tight squeeze with 8 wheelie bins in a small space that was designed for 4 old-style bins. Most of the neighbouring houses can put their bins out back. 

[jno]

for me, with wheelie bins. I transfer rubbish to them during the week and the binmen empty it within 24 hours of the due date.

The only one I keep out the back is for garden waste, so that has to be wheeled through the house and back. I do keep it under cover so it doesn't get muddy. In olden times the council didn't even collect garden waste, and Londoners are banned from burning it, which was extremely annoying.

[barry1010]

My council has only been collecting garden waste for 15 years and this year started charging for the service - £36 a year.

We can have bonfires but not many folk do.  I have one a year, around bonfire night so nobody complains.   

[jno]

barry, yes, I just regard it as a garden tax. About £60 a year for me, for one bin. As a lot of houses round here have multiple occupancy, I suppose it's unfair that those starving in the garret upstairs should fund my little Babylon.

[bhg481]

We pay around £50 a year for bin for garden rubbish, collected once a fortnight. Given that they have a special lorry/collection just for garden rubbish and not everybody has a need for a special collection, I think it's perfectly reasonable to charge extra for it. We pruned a cherry tree yesterday and, after shredding it, virtually filled our green bin; well worth £2 to have it taken and emptied for us. It would have cost us that in diesel to take it to the tip and then we'd have to lug the contents up some steps to tip them into the skip.

[jno]

just mowing the lawn fills half my bin; but I'm not sufficently oversupplied to want to pay another £60 for a second bin. Ideally I'd just put out  as many bins as I need every fortnight and they'd debit my credit card or bank account accordingly, but it's probably too much hassle for them to do it that way (and it would no doubt have crashed today).

[douglas9401]

I'll try to summarise:

Council issued every house with a compost bin and caddy for in the kitchen, waste to be put in a compostable bag or wrapped in newspaper, this was to divert food waste away from landfill (black bin).

Brown Bin issued to every house for grass, weeds, small twigs and branches.

Blue bin for dry recyclables was supplemented with a green bin for every house with blue now being for paper and cardboard while green is for cans and plastics.

Council buys new digester so scrapped the compost and caddy thing and everything organic now goes into the brown bin, so far so good.

Suddenly and for no discernable reason anyone wanting garden waste uplifted has to pay £50/bin, maximum 2 per house. If you only use it for food waste, no charge but one stray blade of grass and the bin is left to fester.

At the same time our five recycling depots have their hours cut drastically and booking is now required, no exceptions, and photo ID plus proof of residency is required.

Job creation married with utter incompetence = endless waste of money and resources.

They also seem to have a team monitoring Facebook to get chippy with taxpayers who dare to voice concerns/complaints.

Utterly mind-boggling.

[wolf63]

I live in a city centre, the building has no place for wheelie bins to be stored.

I have to take all my rubbish bags to communal dumpster across the road. 

[Old_Geezer]

Probably at lesst since they became chest height with wheels and started multiplying.

[davebro3]

Getting back to the OP - I don't think it's a "practice" as such, it's a necessity for many since wheelie bins came in.

On my trips to Spain it seems common (at least on housing estates) to have skips positioned at street corners for household waste & there is no house-to house collection. (such a thing would probably be widely abused in the UK)

[Old_Geezer]

Likely had daily collections too.

[barry1010]

Those communal Spanish skips are usually emptied at least once a day. They're ugly but you get used to seeing them 

[pastafreak]

Block of maisonettes with a locked bin store to which we, and the bin men, have keys. There's one closed bin for recycling and 3 dumpsters for bagged rubbish. 

[david small]

Garden waste collection every other week. £109 a year. Take it or leave it.

[maggiebee]

Our garden waste is collected fortnightly.  Waste permit costs £45 per annum.

[jno]

that sounds expensive, david small. Mind you, it's all year, I'm down to monthly over winter, so about 20 collections a year.