There is outcry being publicised yet again on the news at people’s disgust at their rubbish only being collected once every 2 weeks to encourage recycling.
People claim the refuse that accumulates between collections creates a foul stench and can encourage rats.

We’re particularly interested in what you think about this - personally I’ve had my refuse collected once every 2 weeks for 2 years now, and find it works fine for me. However, as I live alone I do not accumulate as much as a family would. I also have a garden inwhich to store my wheelie-bin - unlike other people in the centre of my town, who were very aggrieved to the new system when it was implemented here in Somerset. And I don’t have the same smell or threat of rats like the reports are worried about - as I have to store all food waste separately and that is collected weekly. Whilst this isn’t the nicest container in the world to have under your sink, you can transfer it to a bigger food waste bin outside (again, space allowing) whenever necessary. I then have a garden waste collection each week I don’t have a ‘black bin’/normal rubbish collection.

Other than the problem of remembering which week it is (!) the only fault I have with the system is that the recycling collection, which happens weekly with the food waste, only picks up a very limited selection of materials - paper, tin, glass and silver foil as these are the only materials heavy enough to make it worth the council’s while. As so much packaging (try as you might to avoid it) consists of plastic and cardboard you have to go to the ‘Household Waste Recycling Centre’ quite often anyway - so I very often just take all of my recycling at once rather than even use this service.

I’ve also seen a family on the local news piloting this service - and the room it took up in their kitchen was quite immense, as they had a different bin for each material to allow their sons to easily use the system.