UKH

Bin men work hard on minimal pay. I get that. If ever you're stuck behind a bin lorry the pace they work at is impressive.

The side effect of this however, is they throw the bins haphazardly on the side of the road.

This means, when I'm returning form nursery drop off, with a row of cars behind me and in front of me, I start to turn into my drive, and there's a bin there, often laying on its side. This means I have to stop, get out, move it whilst holding up a road full of traffic.

I'm tempted to write to my council to ask that part of their instruction is not to place bins in a way that blocks driveways. I assume it's been requested before and clearly hasn't worked but if you ignore problems they never change.

Question is, is this an unfair demand? Looking for a general consensus. I wouldn't want to cause a massive inconvenience to avoid a minor inconvenience. But if it's no more effort to place the bins in a safe place, then that's what should happen.

It sounds like something that would double the time it takes to replace your bin.  Multiply by the number of bins and that's a lot.  Are you willing to pay the extra tax to cover this?

More likely it's caused by the fact that bin men are allowed to go home when their round is finished regardless of if it's early.  Thus there is an incentive to do a rush-job rather than a quality job, and it doesn't half show, with bins left all over the place and litter dropped during the job not collected.

This is incredibly poor management.  Incentives should be on quality service, and "customers" be encouraged to feed back on whether the job was done correctly or not.

This was my first thought, but at least for my situation, I don't think it would take any more time to place it on the side of the drive, compared to the middle of the drive.

I think you answered it yourself "a minor inconvenience"

I’m Ireland taxation doesn’t pay for the bins to be collected. People have to pay private companies to do it instead.

You can see the difference when you got down a residential street in Ireland.

I'm trained such that every process should be reviewed and improved upon on a continuous basis.

There is a safety element to it as well.

Cars park along my road so you can't see the bins until you turn in. People tailgating in rush hour don't expect me to pull into my drive then suddenly stop.

The minor inconvenience may one day be a major inconvenience 

I suspect they have been told not to block pavements, so centre end of drive is a perfect solution for them - your bin is on your property, their job done.

If however what you're saying is that the bin is just abandoned in the middle of the pavement infront of the drive, then yes I'm inclined to agree that it's lazy - ours are actually are pretty good at not doing this.

Then you should also understand that there will be somebody else who wants the bins left in the middle of their drive for their convenience.

So its a no win situation!

Nope, on my drive, in the center, but very near the pavement. I didn't say this correctly in my OP. I said side of the road, but I meant just off the pavement.

Edit:

Just had a quick look down the road, seems to be 50/50 whether it's on someone drive or the on the pavement. 

How is the middle of the drive any more convenient than the side of the drive?

Or are you referring to my mistake in the OP when I said side of the road, instead of just off the pavement.

You drive onto your drive, not reverse?

Can you turn around on your drive, and come out forwards, or are you one of those people who expects the world to pause as you reverse onto the carriageway?

I am pointing out that somebody else will find that the bins being left where they are ( in the middle or wherever) is perfectly ok with them and works well for their needs.

Try, 

"I'm fortunate enough to have a drive and a car and I'll put my own bin and my neighbour's bins away. 

In future, I think the best option, all around, is for me to walk or bike my child to nursery / school rather than driving my car this short distance, clogging up the road, clogging up the air and setting a dreadful example to the next generation.   This will have a much more positive effect on the world than me coming onto dadsnet to whinge about the local council."

This should probably be a new thread.

It doesn't matter if you reverse or drive forward onto a drive, you block the road either as you enter or leave. Take your pick.

I find when leaving by reversing, people let you out when they see you reversing so it's controlled and everyone knows what's going on.

If revers in to enter the drive, you indicate, then stop in the road to reverse in, people don't know what you are doing as you slow down, they stop right behind you, then they have to back up so you can reverse in.

So yes, I drive in (usually), it's overall easier, more controlled, safer and no I can't turn around, I haven't installed the roundabout yet.

I have had mine 5 houses down the road instead... 😆

So you reverse across the pavement where pedestrians are walking, expecting them to stop.

Then the cars have to stop, because they see someone breaking the highway code (?),  assume a numpty at work, so stop to avoid an accident.

By the way, how far is this nursery from home?

I have a bit of a thing about people who drove on, reverse out. I consider it very selfish.

Haha, ye, ok.

I don't know what world you live in, but it isn't mine. The assumptions you make that you think can apply to anyone is just gross.

When you need to drop off a 2 year old at nursery after 8am 4 miles away, then a 5 year old at school in the opposite direction by 8.45 and magically start work at 9am you're really going to walk/cycle?

Ever tried walking a 2 year old? Walking the 5 year old a decent distance is bad enough when pressed for time. There's no chance in hell they are cycling on these roads.

If all the complications in your life happen to align then great, good for you but that's not typical.

Ours go and get them and put them together for the lorry to arrive, then just leave them dumped there afterwards with no attempt to return them, and regardless of whether they're blocking the pavement or whatever.   They're very, very rarely returned from whence they came.

Or "I'm paying good money for a public service, I want it delivered properly and professionally in return"?

Remember - what used to happen is that they'd go round the back of your house, get your bin, empty it and put it back exactly where it was.

Why do we just roll over and accept crap public services?  They don't have to be that way.

I was always, taught that you should reverse into the more minor opening. That way when pulling out into the busier flow of traffic you have optimum visibility to make the move safely.

To put it bluntly. If you have time to kill writing letter to the council asking for you bin to be placed 2m to the left then I suspect you can probably spare the 30 seconds or so every 2 weeks to move the bin yourself? 

Might not be the response you want but its the response the guys on the bin lorry will have when they are instructed with your request.

Unless you live on a major trunk road I would hope most people are patient enough to wait the 30 seconds it takes for you to move your bin  and pull your car off the road.

I'm on a residential road with through traffic. There is nothing in the highway code about reversing off a driveway. You're thinking of side roads and applying the rule to driveways which makes no sense.

How am I supposed to get on and off my drive without reversing? Pedestrians outside my house are rare to be honest. 30m to the right you're on a woodland road with nothing for miles.

Why?

More fly tipping? 

Have you not got a 4x4, you could just drive over them ?

Haha, The council would soon get tired of replacing them i expect. 

This is a sore topic. The Range Rover is Sorn at the moment until I sell my daily, which is somewhat delayed as a bus tried to redecorate my car.

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=10&t=2003233&am...

Well, should we start with the fact it is a TfL bus route.

No

This bugs me too. They pick up the bin from the side of my drive, then return it to the middle. It really is no more effort for them to put it back where they found it.

I rarely drive at that time of day so it doesn't affect me much, but my wife has been shouted at by the total k***heads that can barely cope with waiting while she reverses in, and so totally lose it if she has to get out of the car to move the bin.

Of course the real solution is to send said k***heads for retraining and / or disqualify them from driving until they can manage to behave with patience and consideration. But since that's not going to happen, minimising the obstacles to getting into the drive is important to us.

She's taken to driving in forwards and reversing out. I don't approve of this, but she says she gets less grief this way. 

I'm (montyjohn) on a TFL bus route, which are big red buses, so I assume it's a bus.
 

and

201
Do not reverse from a side road into a main road. When using a driveway, reverse in and drive out if you can.

https://www.highwaycodeuk.co.uk/using-the-road-reversing.html
 

Sounds tough but we've all been there*. Perhaps you are making choices that make you unhappy and stressed and you are mistakenly blaming the refuse collectors?

Looking at the greater context I can assure you that you will treasure any walk/bike to nursery/school much more than all the car journeys put together and that matters a lot more than some silly beef with the local council.

It's conker season and that made all journeys of this sort used to take much, much longer.  I suppose I could have avoided this by using the car but I'd never have swapped that for the anything.

Perhaps you should add walking/biking to nursery to your long list of hobbies? You should also ask yourself why there is, "no chance in hell they are cycling on these roads", and write to the council to improve the roads for your kids instead of complaining about the bins.

* obviously some might have these challenges still to come...

Whichever way you do it, you'll have to reverse 50% of the time, unless you have a very large drive!

If one's got a drive, surely one's staff should be able to sort it out?

The other advantage of reversing into the drive is that you first drive past, allowing you to look down and check for obstructions (or pedestrians further down the pavement).

Plus it's far easier for unloading the car, as the boot is closer to your front door.

There's not much choice in the whole drop off situation to be honest. We both need to work and the kids need to be looked after whilst we're working and childcare options are very very limited.

My child drop off routine is far more complicated than I was planning on going into here, but as a quick summary there are some days when I walk. As a sneak peak, the primary school is 1 miles walk away (or a 3 mile drive, roads are weird here).

She has wraparound care one day a week, a nanny three days a week and no other care one day a week as there's no space. 2 year old is in nursery 5 days a week.

The other variable is my wife's start times that are fixed in stone. So sometimes I have just the school drop off and we walk that, when I have both, no chance, I'm driving. When I'm just doing the nanny it depends on whether I'm going into the office or not as i can't get back walking and then go to the office as I would be late.

I pay them terribly so they don't do as I ask

201: Do not reverse from a side road into a main road. When using a driveway, reverse in and drive out if you can.

Not illegal, but bad practice. You can't be prosecuted for not doing so, but expect a potential careless driving charge (depending on severity) and the insurance company not paying up if you cause an accident.

"There's not much choice", nope - you've just made your decision already...

I think you're missing out and your life and the world would be better if you made different decisions but what does my opinion matter to you? 

Sounds like 'I'm trained such that every process should be reviewed and improved upon on a continuous basis.' Should be applied to your drop off routine :P

. When I'm just doing the nanny it depends on whether I'm going into the office or not as i can't get back walking and then go to the office as I would be late.

Crumbs!

I think we need to start at the beginning of the process.  Eliminate the rubbish. No rubbish no bin collection. 

Now there's a poster who really gets how process review should work.

The best part is no part.

Depends on your arrangement - our drive is to the side of the house

I always reverse in if I'm shifting stuff in/out of the garage, though.

Fair point, nextdoor goes on forwards so they can open the door over the wall and across our drive. Being downhill we would be unable to get out of the car without climbing out via the tailgate, making the top part of our drive utterly useless for parking modern cars.

That's a slightly larger problem to tackle. Short of a Mr Fusion Home Energy Reactor I'm not sure where to start with this.

haha, Just realised what you;re getting at. 

"When I'm just doing the nanny drop-off it depends on...."

They can drive in, then spin the car around, and drive out.

I have never seen it operated, so no idea if it is powered or not.

It seems to me an elegant solution, where reversing in because the road you are leaving is quite busy, is not ideal, but reversing out again would not be good either.

It is not a big house, but obviously it takes up a bit more space.

I think it would be ace having a turntable for my car, it would be like Thunderbirds, especially if the shrubbery leant back to allow the car to revolve.

I am getting silly now, I shall go for a walk.

Its very annoying, on our street they come at 7amso the entire street puts their bins out the night before nice and tidy on the path against the wall.

Once the bin men have been the bins are strewn all over the place on the path creating a slalom course for pedestrians and push chair users. Regularly I will come home from work to find my bin in the middle of the path right in the middle of my drive so I have to stop on the road to get out and move it, our road is a bus route and rat run so not a great place to stop.

A few years ago the bin men were on strike and a private company was drafted in for a few weeks, every bin was put back against the walls. 

You're lucky to have such good bin men. Ours recycle and redistribute the rubbish all over the road.

This version of events is unlikely as until the 21st of July this year employers could not legally draft in temporary workers to cover for striking ones

Surely the public service is the removal of your rubbish rather than arranging your back garden to your personal tastes?

The service, as it was in the 1980s and 1990s at least, was retrieval of the bin from where it was kept (behind the house in our case), emptying it and placing it back from where it was retrieved.

Again, I don't get why people seem to be so accepting of crap public services.  I'd happily pay a bit extra for the service to be delivered properly (i.e., taking it from my driveway, emptying it and putting it back there), but my strong suspicion is that the issue is caused by bin men being able to go home as soon as they've finished, thus giving an incentive to do a bad but quick job.  If they want incentives and just being paid to do their job isn't enough, then a low number of complaints would be a criterion to use.

We have foxes that do that for us so we're covered.

For as long as I can remember the service that we got required us to drop the bin at the end of our drive and pick it up after the rubbish had been collected.

I guess town dwellers eith their short little drives  are a bit soft

The worst one I find is in terraced areas, where people are required to put the bins out in the street and so they cause a horrid blight on the street scene (and block pavements) when people don't take them back in.  The back alleys in such places are *actually designed* for this purpose - so the bin men picking them up from there would be far better in terms of a pleasant living environment.

Always been impressed by the bin service in Camden particularly on their high streets .

 In 2009 the Leeds bin men went on strike for over 2 months.

The rubbish didn't pile up because contractors (in private big lorries not council ones) took over and did a far better job.

Without knowing the legal side of things I suspect there is a big difference between employing temporary workers and contracting a service out to a legitimate company. With the speed it was put in place they were probably already on the council books.

It was a real shame when things went back to normal. 

It's contracted out in MK and the service is, er, rubbish.  So I think it's about quality of management rather than whether it's directly operated or contracted.

I suggest you write a letter in no uncertain terms, using words and phrases like: outrageous, declining standards, pay the rates, slovenly. Send it to the the Daily Mail and see if they'll publish it in their letters section.

Edit: or perhaps: The Telegraph 

Have you considered asking the bin men?

War, political instability, dreadful govt, famine, fear, disease, pandemic, coercion, abuse, terror, murder, hatred, violence, inhumanity, Illness, poverty, hopelessness, despair, loneliness, isolation....

We have all seen it in the distance or up close....but hills, climbing, mountaineering, walking....the ultimate tonic....

And here we are complaining about where our bins are left......

Distraction technique? The entire country is in the worst state I can remember in the 56 years I've been alive.

Oh look! Public bin collections, how terrible they are, imagine what a privatised collection could do, bins quietly collected from outside your door, silently emptied, the bin sanitised, returned to your doorstep with a ribbon on…

Disgusting public sector workers and services, get rid of them all I say!

As we approach the Christmas period, may I humbly suggest that this year, you pop a £20 note in an envelope with a nice little note of how you would appreciate  your bin placing not in front of your drive, and hand it to the Driver.
I would not mention it makes it awkward as you have both a Jaguar and Range Rover, as that may have a negative impact.

Unreasonable? Not really.

Likely to accomplish anything? Not really.

Haven't most already? Our bins are collected by a Spanish company, FCC. OK, I blame Allerdale Council for making a hash of the negotiations and basically giving it to the cheapest tender with no thought to quality of service, but who negotiates the contracts in VS's private Irish idyll? Different houses in the same town/Street being collected by different firms seems inherently inefficient to me.

Someone else inquired on another thread if schools could have saved money during covid as they didn't need kitchen staff, some schools do still keep that side of things "in house" but all the Trusts I've worked for recently contract out that service to private companies on a franchise type system. 

Its distracted me from that thread on green laning…

It was a bus and they've admitted liability. Anything to add?

I'm pretty sure most people don't look at a 23 year old Range Rover and a 13 year old Jag and think, god he's loaded. 

I've also found that £20 at Christmas with a genuine smile and thanks for a year of service goes a long way in keeping friendly relations with the bin men, postie and Hermes driver.

All of whom are lovely people who work hard in all weather's for pretty s*#t money

I have just watched the refuse collectors empty our bins, and I have realised what the problem could be in your area. Yours and other peoples cars parked on the roads.
Outside our house, people do not park, so the collectors, collect the bin, and put back, pretty much where they got it.
However where you live, is it perhaps the case, that the access point to the pavement, is the clear entry to your drive, so they have to drag the bin to that point, then out into the road, so they just shove the bin back into the clear area. Seems a bit rich if this is the case, that people expect the collectors to walk miles further to get around their cars, to get at the bins they want collecting.
Just too many cars, is the problem.

Having been away for most of the last fortnight ( part work, part holiday), I checked my “to be collected from the roadside “ bin yesterday morning and decided that the small amount of rubbish that I’d accumulated wasn’t worth the effort of moving it from the yard.

When I got home, my binmen had come into the yard, emptied the bin and then replaced it !

I think the problem is actually putting the bin out in the first place. I forgot to put the bins out yesterday, meaning the bin men didn’t leave them blocking the drive. I regularly do this. 

‘Has the Bin Man Bin Mon’, Lancashire Hotpots:

youtube.com/watch?v=hVEF1EW2Dvs&

I don't understand this.

There are cars parked on my road.

Everyone places theor bin at the end of their drive the night before. On the edge of their drive so it's not in the way.

There is a clear gap to the road because people don't usually park across their own driveway.

On return, the bin men already take the bins to the gaps between cars which is also where all the drives are. 

All I'm suggesting is rather than placing the bin in the middle of the drive, place it 2m to the left or right so you can still get a car past it.

It's no more or less effort.

My local Hermes driver is rude, obnoxious, incompetent and unhelpful, so I'd not say that is universal at all.  The previous one was good though.  I think you get two types - retired people doing it in their spare time to earn a few quid for a couple more pints that week who don't care that the income from it is quite small (a bit like a kid doing a paper round) and so take the time to do it well, and those actually trying to eke a living from it who are under tremendous pressure or they don't eat.

I only put my green bin out about once every month or two, same with the glass.  The rest in MK is still bags, though.  We're apparently getting wheelies for everything soon though.

I suppose the question must be. Is the Hermes driver, a Hermes driver, because he is rude, etc.

Or is the Hermes driver rude, etc because he is underpaid and overworked, and many people ask too much (can you just pop it in the living room), are rude to him.

Many do 120+ drops a day, and do not have time for social niceties, a bit like the checkouts in Aldi.

Generally I find carrier drivers to be a pretty decent tribe, who work dammed hard for poor money. But then I think most people are nice.

my bins are across the road, next to each other (no car issues) and the binmen have more than once failed to collect the bin if it's not the correct one that is nearest the road. (that would involve an extra step and wheeling it around the other bin). also bottles weren't collected last week (next doors right next to it was). maybe too little to bother or remnants of jam in a jar?

Our Hermes driver was good, always polite, asked where you wanted your parcel delivered/left (front door/back door/with neighbor etc etc) and seemed to do that for all future deliveries.

One day he stopped for a chat and explained he was passing the route on to another, the reason he quoted was that there were too many "entitled" people who moaned if their delivery wasn't on time/when they wanted it - he got fed up with them.

New Hermes delivery person is a grumpy erse, and judging by the social media slating they are getting everyone else feels the same, including presumably all the people who previously moaned about the decent Heremes guy

Such is the way of things unfortunately.

PS - our bin men do a great job, we leave the bins on the pavement though and always get them from the pavement, neve had an issue, although I haven't measured whether they are within 2m of where I left them.

I think most people are.  But she (it is a she) isn't.  She's obnoxious and rude and she leaves parcels on the doorstep whether you're in or not (I could handle obnoxious and rude if she didn't do that).  She also, if busy, scans them in the van and lies about when they were delivered, they then show up the day after.

Hermes have no effective management which is why this can happen.

What with? Something fancy like a Rolls Royce or something boring like another wheelie bin? 

I remember them doing that in the 70s when being a bin-man was actually a very well paid job. Now it's marginally above minimum wage.

E

Even more boring. 
 

It was the same wheelie bin 

I guess the issue as ever is the race to the bottom.

How old are you? This has never happened in my 59 years; "putting the bins out" has always been a night before task.

Monty is too busy doing the nanny, apparently...

Probably depends on where you lived, I remember during the '80's in Shropshire, Gran being appalled at the thought of having to wheel a bin to the kerbside, because they would no longer collect from the normal place as standard, dispite being entitled to a smaller wheelie bin or an exemption. Mrs J say that at the same time in Carlisle they always had to take the bins out 

this is how rumours start

I’m glad I’m not the only one to notice that. His mornings are very busy

43.  Definitely remember it being that at my parents' current house which we moved to when I was 7.

Back when I was a young lad, one of the nin crew came round 5 minutes or so before the lorry and carried the bin out from the garden to just outside the gate, the crew would empty and return the bin back into the garden. 

This was waaaaay before wheelie bins mind, proper dustbins so they could only do one at a time

Mark

What is the difference? In the U.K. commercial waste is mostly by private contract and any experience of towns and cities across the U.K. will tell you that it is an absolute shit show.

That's exactly what they did on our road. Metal bins too. Then all the way up the steps and round the back of the house with them. The chap was called Curly and had jam-jar bottom specs.
Funny how I can remember that from 40 odd years ago and then forget why I went in the kitchen.

E

Curly Watts? Did you live in Coronation Street too? 

Can you not change the footman’s day off such that it doesn’t coincidence with bin day?

I'm surprised at the number of dislikes you have for your question.

It's not in the least bit unreasonable to expect your bin to be placed in a position that doesn't obstruct your drive (or the pavement) Write to your council, and be quite forthright. I lived in a cottage on a 40mph road, just over the brow of a hill. Invariably traffic exceeded that limit. Stopping in the road to move the bin was dangerous. Chucking the bin any old where is just lazy, incompetent and reprehensible. The pavement was narrow on my road and littered with empty bins forced pedestrians to step round them onto the road. 
It isn't difficult to do a job properly 

Take the kids to nursery in the wheelie bin, store your rubbish in the car....only needs emptying couple times a year, preferably in someone else's drive ....

Always a solution.....happy to be of help🙂

I'm going to directly message you all my problems from now on. You've only got yourself to blame.

I'll manage my staff how I see fit.

Agreed