The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant.

[Andrij]

Council binmen are GITS.

Rubbish was finally collected today - it's been roughly two weeks.  With the holidays, no surprise both our bins were full.  I had an old pair of bicycle tyres to dispose of, so hung them off the corner of a bin.  I could jam them into an empty bin (when we have such a thing) but they would need to be pulled out by hand.  So what did the binmen do?  Took the tyres off the bin, placed them neatly up against the front of the house, emptied our bins, then carried on. 

I'll have to venture out with wire cutters to cut each tyre in half and place into a bin.

[Mrs Pingu]

Would the tyres not wrap up into a figure of 8 and thence fold into 2 smaller rings?

[Andrij]

Would the tyres not wrap up into a figure of 8 and thence fold into 2 smaller rings?

Wired bead.  I'd rather just cut then faff about trying to twist and fold.

[jsabine]

Twist, fold, zip ties - I'd see that as easier and neater than cutting.

As for the binmen, they're quite possibly not permitted to chuck loose rubbish into the back of the lorry - wheelie bins (assuming that's what you've got) will be picked up and emptied mechanically, reducing the risk of injury from either overreaching or from getting caught in the mechanism.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Also, taking things left out in the vicinity of the bins would inevitably lead to claims of "You took my ... that I left somewhere or other!"

[Andrij]

Four snips per tyre, fold each tyre in half, drop into bin.  And Robert is your avuncular relation.

[Andrij]

Also, taking things left out in the vicinity of the bins would inevitably lead to claims of "You took my ... that I left somewhere or other!"

...
I had an old pair of bicycle tyres to dispose of, so hung them off the corner of a bin.
...

[T42]

Also, taking things left out in the vicinity of the bins would inevitably lead to claims of "You took my ... that I left somewhere or other!"

Heh. In the late 70s an outside developer working for our company left all the docs & mag tapes for the BASIC interpreter he was working on in a CS box beside his workstation and had to go fishing through a skip out back where the cleaners had dumped it.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Also, taking things left out in the vicinity of the bins would inevitably lead to claims of "You took my ... that I left somewhere or other!"

...
I had an old pair of bicycle tyres to dispose of, so hung them off the corner of a bin.
...

Precisely! Their regulations might say they can't take anything that is not strictly in the bin. I know it's obvious your tyres were meant for collection, but regulations have to allow for idiots, chancers and professional complainers (as well as honest mistakes).

Anyway, our bins haven't been emptied since 23rd December but they did collect the recycling this morning. And managed to break the lid of the food waste bin. Admittedly it was a tiny bit over-full; but only very little. And how could it not be, not having been emptied for so long at the foodiest time of the year?

I think it's a shame Christmas and New Year are a week apart. Rubbish collection is only one of the reasons.

[Kim]

Weirdly, in cost-cutting Middle Earth there's minimal disruption to the bin collection schedule over the holidays.  It may be only Christmas Day itself that's affected.

[Bledlow]

Also, taking things left out in the vicinity of the bins would inevitably lead to claims of "You took my ... that I left somewhere or other!"

I was walking along a street in Reading many years ago when one of my companions suddenly said "Wait a minute", then darted into a front garden, paused briefly beside the dustbin, then rang the doorbell. It was answered, there was a short discussion, a handshake, then he returned, picking up a bike frame from beside the bin on the way.

Rather nice 531 frame, C IIRC. He flogged it for a sum which was useful to a poor student, as he was. Well spotted.

[Wombat]

I'm bemused by these mentions of "food waste".  Why do people waste food?  Eat it!

I think we may generate as much as a litre of what could be classified as food waste, in a fortnightly bin collection period, that would be vegetable peelings which we really ought to compost, and a few tiny morsels of uneaten cat food.

I gather nationally that we dump thousands of tons of food, why? Buy what you need, and eat it, where is the problem?

[ian]

Buying too much, sell-by dates, finicky kids, that kind of thing. BOGOF offers and the like encourage that sort of over-accumulation.

[essexian]

I'm bemused by these mentions of "food waste".  Why do people waste food?  Eat it!

CBH irritates the pants off me with her wasting of food! Take, for example, a lump of blue cheese I had been eating over Christmas. Its "best before" date was 28th Dec but when I came to have a salad on 30th, it had been moved from the fridge to the bin, as according to CBH, it was no longer fit to be eaten 

She will also open a new bottle of milk when there is still at least half a dozen cups of teas worth in the old bottle. And don't get me started on cat food! 

[Cudzoziemiec]

I'm bemused by these mentions of "food waste".  Why do people waste food?  Eat it!

I think we may generate as much as a litre of what could be classified as food waste, in a fortnightly bin collection period, that would be vegetable peelings which we really ought to compost, and a few tiny morsels of uneaten cat food.

I gather nationally that we dump thousands of tons of food, why? Buy what you need, and eat it, where is the problem?

Egg shells, orange peel, bones. In Mrs Cudzo's case, a plantation's worth of avocado skin and stones. But you're right that a lot of it is the result of buying too much, too quickly. Bagged salad seems to be the worst for this in our house (something that I don't remember personally encountering before 2010).

[Legs]

Any salad that goes soggy in our house (usually as a result of Andrew f**king about with the thermostat in the fridge and freezing it) gets thrown into the paddock for the geese to demolish.  See also: apple cores, outer leaves of Brussels sprouts, windfallen plums...

[citoyen]

Our bin collection alternates weekly between landfill/recycling and I feel very unhappy about leaving rotting food out for up to two weeks before being taken away. Luckily, we put hardly any food waste in the bin - peelings etc go in the Insinkerator. Putting them on the compost heap would be preferable, and reducing the amount of food waste we produce would be even better.

At this time of year, the bin collection gets even more erratic than usual. Down in the town, collection day is Monday, while out-of-towners such as us have their bins emptied on Tuesday. However, on bank holidays, collection day in town gets bumped to Tuesday and our collection gets bumped to... whenever they can be bothered.

We're supposed to have a collection calendar to let us know what rubbish is being collected on what day but we misplaced our 2016 calendar a few months ago, and despite numerous requests to the council, we've not been able to get a replacement. You'd think they could make this information available online, but apparently not. We've not had a 2017 calendar yet either.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Our food waste actually gets incinerated in a power plant, as does some of the landfill. I think.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

I'm bemused by these mentions of "food waste".  Why do people waste food?  Eat it!

I think we may generate as much as a litre of what could be classified as food waste, in a fortnightly bin collection period, that would be vegetable peelings which we really ought to compost, and a few tiny morsels of uneaten cat food.

I gather nationally that we dump thousands of tons of food, why? Buy what you need, and eat it, where is the problem?

I have very little "wasted" food in terms of things going off or being thrown out before they're eaten. Because I'm cooking for one, I cook as much as I want to eat and don't have leftovers. But I have peelings, shells, stones etc and I don't have anywhere to put a compost heap because I don't have a garden. (On the other hand, the council now provides food waste bins and collects the food waste and makes compost for its own gardens and parks etc).

[Kim]

It's relatively easy to avoid food waste if the person doing the shopping is also doing the cooking and eating, but it doesn't scale well to larger households, as the errors multiply (for exactly the same reason supermarkets end up having to dispose of out-of-date food).  Barakta and I don't generate much food waste - normally just the usual inedible bits and occasional cooking disaster or item that's gone off sooner than expected, except when illness or unexpected being away from home muck up planning.

That said, as a general rule, I'd rather throw away food than eat it just because it would otherwise go to waste.  Antithesis of the post-war generation's attitude, I know, but pragmatically food isn't scarce and not eating pointless food is the healthier option.  By the time you're making that decision it's already wasted.

[David Martin]

better wasted than waisted then..

[Cudzoziemiec]

A zillionty years ago a penniless non-student backpacker Cudzo visited a Hari Krishna temple in Fiji because he'd been told Free Food. Indeed there was, but it was so horrible I couldn't eat it. "Don't eat it if you can't," they said. "Too many people are eating forcedly." Meaning in the world in general. Evidently a lot of people shared my opinion because there was a big pile of plate-scrapings making an offering to a shrine of Krishna.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Mrs Cudzo OTOH gets really annoyed by uneaten food. This might be put down to her growing up in a place and time of food rationing, except that as she grew up on a smallholding (wheat, potatoes, cow, pigs, chickens, vicious turkey) there was no shortage of food. Perhaps it's due to seeing (taking part in) the labour of food production (almost completely unmechanised till her dad built a tractor); or perhaps it's inherited from her parents post-war childhoods, or even her grandparents experiences of wartime occupation. Then again, it might just be a character thing.

[hellymedic]

We waste little and have weekly food waste collections.
Kim has it; we're just a couple and our food bucket gets fruit & veg peel and stones + chicken bones.

Mum wastes much more than I do but is variably catering for just self & Dad, or HUGE family gatherings.

[Bledlow]

A zillionty years ago a penniless non-student backpacker Cudzo visited a Hari Krishna temple in Fiji because he'd been told Free Food. Indeed there was, but it was so horrible I couldn't eat it. "Don't eat it if you can't," they said. "Too many people are eating forcedly." Meaning in the world in general. Evidently a lot of people shared my opinion because there was a big pile of plate-scrapings making an offering to a shrine of Krishna.

In the early 1990s I was travelling around the Baltic states with a vegetarian. In Riga, there was a Hare Krishna temple, giving away food to those who might need it (some did: the economy had collapsed with the break-up of the USSR), & selling it to those who made no claim of indigence. Veggie food! Not just food with meat left out!

My companion was mad keen to try it, so we bought dinner. A rather nice vegetable curry, as I remember.  Well worth the modest sum we were charged. My companion had seconds IIRC, & I cleaned my plate.

Interesting discussion with a Russian-Latvian devotee, as well.