Resident Places Bin At Kerb Six Days Early To Clarify Neighbour's Complaint
A recycling bin placed on the pavement of a residential cul-de-sac six days before its scheduled collection was intended, its owner says, to settle a disagreement about the meaning of the word "early".
News Intro
A recycling bin placed at the kerb of a residential cul-de-sac on the evening of Tuesday September 22 remained on the pavement for a week before its scheduled collection, in what its owner has described as a demonstration intended for one neighbour.
The bin was presented at 7.14pm, six evenings earlier than the local council's collection guidance permits. The guidance asks residents not to put bins out before 6pm on the evening before collection day.
The resident, a retired weights and measures inspector who has lived on the close for nineteen years, said the timing had been chosen with care. A message posted to the street's group chat a week earlier had described his bin as being out "too early again". On that occasion it had been put out at 7.14pm the evening before collection, which the guidance allows.
The bin was not emptied when the collection crew arrived on Tuesday September 29. It remains at the kerb.
The Resident's Account
I put my recycling out six days early so my neighbour could see what early looks like
I'll keep this factual because there's been a lot of opinion in the group and not much fact.
On Monday 14th I put the blue bin out at 7.14pm. I know the time because I'd just come in from the car. The council website says not before 6pm the evening before. I was an hour and fourteen minutes inside that. At 6.52 the next morning number 6 posted in the group: "Bins out too early AGAIN at 11. Some of us have to look at them."
I replied with the link to the council page. Nobody responded to the link.
Now, I spent forty years measuring things for a living. If you tell a client a wall is too long, you'd better be able to say by how much. "Too early" has to mean something. If 7.14pm the night before is too early, then what do you call it when somebody actually puts a bin out early?
So I showed them.
The grey bin went the following Tuesday and I brought it in at lunchtime. At 7.14pm that evening I put the blue bin out, six nights before it was allowed out. Same minute. I put out the bin that was due and nothing else, because the point was the timing, not the bin. I didn't put a note on it. A note would have been petty. I put one photograph in the group with the words "For reference" and left it at that.
I'll go through the week because people have been leaving bits out.
Wednesday, number 6 replied "Very mature." There were about thirty messages after that, most of them not about me. Ray at number 2 put his blue bin out as well, and so did the couple at 15, because they thought they'd got the week wrong. I can't be responsible for other people not reading the calendar.
Friday a man from the council came and put an advisory tag on the handle. I've kept it. The word on it is "advisory". I'd ask people to note that it was the council who came, not number 6, and that the council, who are the proper authority, did not take the bin away.
Saturday it was windy and the bin went over in the night. Some of the recycling went down the close. I was made aware at 8.30 by a photograph in the group and it was all picked up by ten past nine. Bins go over on bin night as well. Nobody posts about that.
Sunday Mr Okafor at number 4 said he'd gone round by the road on his scooter because the bin was by the dropped kerb. I said I was sorry and that it would only be another day and a half, and he said that was fine.
At 6pm on the Monday the bin became compliant. I went out and had a look at it.
Then on Tuesday the crew didn't take it. They put a red tag on it for contamination. When I opened the lid there was a black bag in there, a pizza box and a seat cushion off a garden chair, none of which are mine. Somebody used my bin while it was on the pavement. I've asked the council to look at it again, and until they do I'm not taking it in, because taking it in would be accepting the tag.
There were two weeks earlier in the year when the old calendar caught me out, and the council has since changed the calendar because a lot of people found it confusing. That's been dealt with. It isn't what this is about.
What this is about is that 7.14pm the night before is not early. Everybody on this close now knows what early looks like.
What The Council Says
A spokesperson for the council confirmed that an officer had visited the close on Friday September 25 following a report made through its online form, and that an advisory tag had been attached to a bin "presented significantly ahead of the collection window". Advisory tags carry no penalty.
The council confirmed that the same bin was not emptied on Tuesday September 29 because it contained general waste. Crews do not empty recycling bins found to contain general waste, regardless of who put it there.
Asked why the guidance specifies 6pm, the spokesperson said bins left on the pavement outside the collection window "tend to attract additional waste".
The next blue-bin collection on the close is Tuesday October 13.
Expert Analysis
A demonstration of this kind only works if the other person agrees to be shown something. He wanted his neighbour to look at the bin and conclude she had used the word unfairly. What she saw was a bin outside his house for a week, which is what she had complained about. Neither of them has moved, and in the meantime two other households have got their collection day wrong.
A View From The Platform
On the railway a train standing at a platform six days before its booked departure is not running early. It's an obstruction, and it would be moved to a siding.
Residents Respond
Lorraine · Number 6 · 58 reactions · 2 days ago
I said "again" because it was again. It was out seven days in March and seven days in May. I've got photos of both. I'm not getting into it on here.
Ray · Number 2 · 34 reactions · 2 days ago
I put mine out on the Wednesday as well because I thought I'd got the week wrong. Nobody said it was a demonstration.
Steve · Lives on the close · 22 reactions · 2 days ago
He's right about the 6pm thing though, it is on the website. Seven fifteen the night before is fine. I don't know why that bit got lost.
Dev · Number 9 · 19 reactions · 1 day ago
The black bag was mine, sorry. I was clearing the shed and the lid was already up from the wind. I didn't realise it was a recycling bin, they all look the same in the dark.
Emmanuel · Number 4 · 41 reactions · 1 day ago
It's fine. It's only the corner by the dropped kerb that's a problem. I just go round.
Janet · Lives nearby · 6 reactions · 1 day ago
Does anyone know if the garden waste is still every other Thursday after November or does it stop?
Pauline · Group admin · 27 reactions · 20 hours ago
Can we please keep bin discussion to the bin thread. Also whoever's blue bin is still outside 15, it isn't blue week.
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Update
The resident has confirmed that the council reviewed the contamination tag and upheld it.
He said the bin will remain where it is until the next collection on October 13, and that it should not be described as early. It was due on September 29. If anything, he said, it is now late.
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