Victoria Meldrew shouting in the road again.

Hard lines,Ams. I suppose that you are lucky in having such 'user friendly' bin men but it is upsetting when they take too great an initiative. Our bin men are pretty good in that they will pick up a little extra by the bin but they won't go any distance for it.

How awful Annette !
It reminds me of the time before I moved - I put lots of plants in my father's garden to keep them safe until my new garden was ready. Then one day my father told me to go and see the beans a kind neighbour had planted for him. There were two lovely rows of kidney beans where my plants had been. I asked my father where my plants were and he said he didn't know. It turned out the idiot who planted the beans had taken them all to the recycling tip !!

oh Hywel....I understand your hurt, it is a good job our hobby is a renewable source.

they did exactly the same to my collection !It all went in one van and when i challenged him he said be grateful that he was collecting the garden waste!!

Lucky you lot, they dont even take our bin!

The binmen at the tip that my parents used to use, had an entire garden planted out around their 'office' which was made out of shrubs, plants, planters etc that people had dumped - maybe there is a conspiracy!!!!!!!!

Oh dear, Ams, such a shame when you had taken the trouble the collect and save the leaves - very frustrating. But bin men do have hearts - I took a load of garden refuse to the main tip some time ago and as I emptied it out a frog jumped out (thank goodness!). It took 3 or 4 bin men and myself some considerable time to catch the poor little thing, stopping cars moving in case he was run over, crawling under vehicles, etc! It must have been a funny site but save it they did and one carried it very gently to a large field outside the gates and released it to safety :)

That,s a nice story Gee .

I remember once when I was out of action with a bad back my hubby had forgotten to take the wheelie bin 200 yds up the drive where the dustmen pick it up , I managed to get out and went up to ask them if they could possibly get it and empty it for me , he looked at me as though I was from another planet and said , " I can,t do that " and threw me a black plastic bin liner to last me another fortnight .. perhaps we are kinder to animals than humans !

Bad luck about the compost Ams :o(

Oh Amy, he will need the help of others one day, I would always help if asked.
Well done Gee, that frog may have 500,000 babies by now.
Ducky, I like the idea of someone saving our plants.
Olblueyes, why don't they take your bin?

That reminds me, the binmen didn't take our greenwaste /food waste bin this week. I meant to check if it was just ours they missed.
I think you'll have to tell your bin men to leaf your sacks alone in future. Sorry, a very poor attempt at a joke.
I can't beleive they get your bin from your garden. If ours is half inch inside our drive way, they won't take it!

Well, it gave me a laugh, Ams. I was feeling a bit down and up this popped - as they say 'you couldn't make it up',

Hi Ams,
Its not just my bin they dont take they leave all the bins in the street, so people leave them out for days just in case they decide to come again, very unsightly.
I dont mind realy with the council tax being such a bargain anyway!

when we got the wheelie bins the men were told if it wasnt on the kerb edge facing the right way, handle to the road, they had to leave it un emptied. thankfully they are not that much of a jobs worth but they are not allowed to come down the drive to take the bin if it isnt on the road edge. but the other day i was so surprised, garden bin was emptied and they waited while i refilled it from refuse sacks. they cant empty the sacks for me. not allowed.
sad about the leaf mould though

Oh Ams....so sorry about your lovely leaf mould. Our garbage men will no longer pick up garden refuse. They are encouraging people to have a compost pile or the other option is to take it up to the city compost pile yourself. I don't mind at all as I compost everything anyway.
As of last year our garbage cans had to be rented from the city as they all had to be of a certain size and shape. This is due to the City getting new garbage trucks which allow the bins to be emptied by automatic forks on the trucks. Now the garbage men no longer have to touch the garbage or the bins at all. However, now everyone is stuck with a couple of old garbage cans that they no longer have a use for.....creating more refuse.

Bless them where would we be without them ????????

....roll on next autumn, start over again.

They stole your gold! leaf mold is a priceless commodity!
Don't blame you for being upset...Like Gilli our municipality encourages composting even to the point of having the black heavy plastic bins available for a nominal fee. I rarely use the one I have~ it's too small! I compost EVERYTHING...even weeds...but the weeds get a special bin...but I've improved the soil in my garden 100% with compost made at home! I bought bait worms to put them in my compost heaps...they really do a good job of breaking down the organic waste...and they keep things cool...so you don't get all lot of heating up. They will turn over a lot of compost in a very short time!
I guess that if a person isn't into composting it's a good thing that they have municipal composting facilities...sure improves the smell of the landfill!!

Lori, I am so glad some people understand my hurt, I am quite religious about composting and recycling but I can see why my Bin Man thought I was crazy.

Hi you are not crazy! We compost everything here, including left over kill (rats etc) from the cat, dead chicks the lot. OK so they go on a long term compost, but I do know where you are coming from.
A long time ago (fomer life) I was teaching science at the ill fated Quantock School, a boarding school mainly for forces kids and Hong Kong Poilce and government kids. (no longer a school) I kept a black bag of compost filled with growing potatos under the front of my car. It was just by the fence of a disused quadrangle. The idea was to take it over the driveway to the lab to use in lessons. Had to go out on a training sesson so took car out. The Heads son knew what was in the sack, and he was in charge of the area. However when I got back, my experiment, and potatoes had all gone. (Probably ended up in his garden!)

So the moral is - don't use a black bag. Find a local council scheme that sells off cheap compost bins, or go on eBay sometimes if you are local they go for 99p. Place in garden and LABEL it!

If only I'd managed to carry that bag to the science lab. However going into your garden was a bit extreme - hope you complained to the council! You never know if they have a composting scheme they might give you a couple of bags! Bye for now.

Hello Oddbit, glad we have another Compostite in the fold. Being a screamish vegetarian I cannot go to dead animals! My back garden is too small for bibs and bobs so I have to leave collected leaf bags tidily in the front garden. This year I am going to make bags out of fine netting so the contents is visible and pin them to the ground.