How often should councils collect rubbish? Yahoo readers have their say

Yahoo

31-01-2025

Yahoo UK's poll of the week lets you vote and indicate your strength of feeling on one of the week's hot topics. After the poll closes, we'll publish and analyse the results each Friday, giving readers the chance to see how polarising a topic has become and if their view chimes with other Yahoo UK readers.
Bristol City Council could become the first local authority in England to collect black bin rubbish only once every four weeks.
And Yahoo readers are almost universal in their view of this: it's not often enough.
In our poll earlier this week, we asked how frequently councils should collect household waste, and only 1% of the 4,520 readers who voted said every four weeks.
The most popular answer was once a week, chosen by 52%, followed by twice a week, chosen by 42%.
The poll's Have Your Say feature attracted some passionate comments, with many readers focusing on potential public health issues, particularly in the summer.
Kay W, from Greater Manchester, said: "Collecting the landfill less often will encourage rats and maggots especially in summer. This is a danger to public health and definitely should not happen!"
And Carol A, from Barnet, said: "The collection of refuse should not be less than every two weeks otherwise you get insect infestations etc, and during the winter foxes etc. This affects all of us and could also spread disease as well as having a rather nasty smell during the hot summer months!"
The Green Party-led council believes less frequent bin collections will encourage Bristolians to recycle more items, but Pete T, from Grantham, said: "I recycle absolutely everything possible so I don't buy the council's excuse it'll make people recycle more. A four-weekly black bin collection will cause fly tipping and overflowing bins which will cause havoc due to rats etc. It will cause anger too. I don't pay a huge council tax bill that increases every year to have my services cut. Where will this end?"
Meanwhile, other readers raised concerns about how four-weekly black bin collections would impact larger households.
Steven M, from London, said: "When you live in a household of four to five people including a baby, the household rubbish bin gets full very quickly. Even collecting every other week means a huge build-up of waste."
And Jo D, from Southampton, said even fortnightly collections are a struggle: "There are three older teenagers and one adult living in my house, and often there are more as I am a foster carer. We are only allocated one household waste bin and one recycle bin. Twice-weekly means I have excess bin bags that get ripped by foxes rays and seagulls, causing a huge issue. The bin men won't collect excess bags so therefore when and IF they collect my bin, as it is frequently not emptied, the excess half fills my bin before I have even begun to use it for that week. It becomes a continuous circle of catch up which I never manage."
A four-weekly black bin collection will cause fly tipping and overflowing bins which will cause havoc due to rats etcPete T
However, there were also some readers who agreed with Bristol council's stance.
Mark P, from Merseyside, said: "As a family of four, I sort the recycling and the general waste. I put my general waste wheely bin out maybe once every four weeks. I always wonder what people are throwing away because the majority of things we use are recycleable. I had no problem going from weekly to fortnightly collections and could easily cope with four-weekly collections."
As a family of four, I sort the recycling and the general waste... I had no problem going from weekly to fortnightly collections and could easily cope with four-weekly collections.Mark P
And Tom H, from Bristol, said: "Our household of two produces one very small bag of black bin waste about every two months. It's very easy once you've put basic systems in place. So four weeks?! Bring it on."
Yahoo also asked readers how they would describe the frequency of bin collections in their area.
Two-thirds of the 3,853 respondents said they are about right, while 31% said they are not frequent enough. Only 3% said they are too frequent.
Bristol Council launched a consultation on Monday, saying it is "some way behind meeting the national target of achieving 65% recycling by 2035. Our local analysis suggests that up to half of what is currently being thrown by households into their black non-recyclable bin is material that can be recycled."
It asks people if they would prefer moving to a three-week or four-week pattern for black bin collections, or if it should remain unchanged at every two weeks. It will run for six weeks, with the council hoping to make a decision in the spring.
An online petition calling on the council to scrap the plans, started by the Bristol Labour Party, has fetched more than 7,500 signatures so far.
Read more of Yahoo UK's Poll of the Week articles