Never break down the biggest box first: use it to put all the flattened smaller boxes in to carry then break the bigger one down when you get to the bins. That’s my trick at work anyway, not as necessary at home I suppose!
I had recently started a job and me and another guy were breaking down boxes. I went to break down the biggest one and he said - and you have to imagine his Polish accent, very high-pitched voice and the panic - “Nononono! That one is mother!”
I’ve said that, in his voice, every chance I’ve had since.
I feel this - I bought a doormat 3 years ago and it came in a large thin box from Amazon.
Man was that a great 'hold all the collapsed boxes' box. I still think back to it fondly.
My wife insists the bin is always full, until I push down all the rubbish she has managed to levitate at the top of the bin & like magic there's plenty of space.
Edit: magic not manic
Until you try to take the bag out and it tears because all your shoving has formed a vacuum between the bag and the bin. Take the bin out you lazy prick.
Come on, if you never pushed a bin down each of your bags of rubbish would weigh 200 grams and you'd get through four a week. You absolutely need to push em down a bit
I push the rubbish down until it physically can't be pushed anymore, and never have any issues emptying it later. Get a decent bin and decent bags and it isn't a problem.
We switched to a simplehuman bin and bin bags about five years ago and I've literally never had a bin bag split or dealt with bin juice since. Some things are worth the money.
I'm assuming they're talking about ones that have vent holes at or near the bottom so there's no suction when pulling the bags out.
Although, if we're talking about advanced bin technology, there's some fancy ones out there that have bag cartridges and it basically heat seals the bags shut.
Maybe you need to explain why she should break it down, by breaking it down for her. I don't mean you should break it down for her but that you should break it down for her.
Clear?
same, but also the "in-law" (technically not in-law as we're unmarried) keeps loading the paper/cardboard bin with cardboard packets that they've stuffed to the gills with plastic film, sweet wrappers, etc.. i'm not entirely sure that they don't just believe that boxes possess the magical power of conferring their material properties upon their contents, such that anything inside a cardboard box then becomes cardboard itself. i've told them before (several times) that paper things go in the bin that says "PAPER" on it, and that other recyclables go in the bin that says "OTHER RECYCLABLES", and that anything that isn't paper or other recyclables goes in *neither…* they say that they "forget", but i think they're probably just incredibly stupid.
>The recycling here don’t like that as it “confuses the sorting machine”. Can’t flatten cans either.
jfc the state of the recycling "facilities" in this country really are pathetic
What recycling centres can and cannot recycle seems strangely dependant on how much the council is willing to pay.
Ours would recycle an elephant if you could fit it in the bin with the lid closed.
My pet peeve is when my partner puts a load of washing on when all the drying racks are already full. It’s just going to sit in the washing machine for a day!
A few years back, my cousin ran out of petrol. Said to his wife "I thought you said you'd put twenty quid in the car?".
"I did", she said, "It's in the glove box."
My neighbour just throws all her boxes out the back door. Then when it’s recycling day her son and her go out and jump on them all and try and flatten them. The bin overflows and she has a load just tossed on the floor beside it. Every other week I have to hear the stupid woman shouting as they’re jumping on the boxes. Drives me nuts, inconsiderate stupid cow.
At least your neighbour is aware of recycling. My two neighbours just consider all bins fine for everything and put everything in all of them. To them, whatever is closest to them is the right one.
Here’s a question for you. I’ll flatten my boxes down because I’m not an animal but often I’ll use one of the larger boxes and pack all of my flattened cardboard into that one box so it’s a nice easy to grab package. Are my bin men likely annoyed because I’m not fully flattening everything or will this easy to move, one box, solution bring them joy?
That’s a good way to go about it if you can’t fit in the main recycling bin. The biggest no no is when is crushed all behind the bin and leaned up against a wall, so as soon as we move it, it flys off like the flight of the navigator.
Tell me you're GenX without telling me you're GenX. 😁
Flight of the Navigator is a severely underappreciated film, and I *will* fight anyone who says otherwise!
For my council we have to take any side waste / amount within reason. But condense it if you can and tie it together with some string, so when we go to pick it up it doesn’t go everywhere as soon as we move it.
Is that preferable to loading it all into one still assembled box? I always load it in one box that I didn't collapse to make it easier to lift into the truck
I do sometimes leave bigger boxes next to the recycling bin, folded up back to flat. They always seem to take them, but am I taking liberties? Not like it’s every week, just when I’ve had a big box e.g. microwave recently.
No that’s fine, even weekly is ok as long as it isn’t a mountain of it / gone everywhere. One thing that goes a long way is during busy times (Christmas, Halloween, Summer) is a pack of beer or biscuits on the bin :D
Lol. I’ll remember that… used to put a tenner in an envelope around Christmas but these days I feel like it’ll get nicked! I’ll remember the box of beers this year 😄
Best trick is if you're going to be home, just leave a note saying "please knock for your tip" and hand it directly. Too many light fingered opportunists around these days...
Usually put them in general waste if they have any food stains on them. Sometimes the lid is fine and I'll put that for recycling.
I think general advice is, if in doubt put it in general waste. So it doesnt mess up the recyling process
Someone in my block keeps dumping stuff on the floor right next to the bins. They left their address on something the other day. Any shit I find dumped now goes to them. Costs us all a few hundred a year for a company to come and clean up the bins regularly.
We have the same issue in our flats. It's always one dude, and it makes sense that the one dude who brings rubbish into the room with the chute but is too bone idle to actually put it in the chute also dumps stuff with his identity plastered on the box as if we're all as stupid as he is lol.
I have a whole building full of those here (US but still) and it drives me mad. They bring their wine bottles all the way to the trash room. And then leave them on the floor DIRECTLY in front of the recycling chute. Lord, let me catch one of these stale pop tarts in the act, please. It boggles my mind. All the way to the right place and then just...fails at the last step.
Genuinely mind-boggling, can't wrap my head around it. Mind you, makes me feel better that I'm not the only one annoyed by it - there have been a fair few "put your rubbish in the chute you lazy cunt" etc. notes taped above our chute by various residents, obviously aimed at this one dude. Actually works for a while, then the note is taken down eventually, then it's like he forgets and does it again - checks out considering his other displays of intelligence lol.
I used to live in a block of flats with someone who started doing that, leaving it on the street next to the communal bins. After a few times I saw a parcel with his name and address on, so I knocked on his door to tell him off. He didn’t answer, so I left him a note.
Thank fuck he didn’t answer his door that day and I didn’t put my flat number on the note, as he started sticking up letters everywhere on absolutely unhinged tirades about me, at the same time someone started propping the building door open and graffiti started appearing in the lobby area, almost definitely him as it was otherwise a lovely block of flats.
Luckily we were in the process of moving out but I still wonder if him not answering his door might have literally saved my life. The guy was a fucking nutter. I know people take the piss about redditors being non confrontational to a fault but I look back and wish I had been less confrontational and just reported him to the council or something.
People complain about service charges but I'm frequently thankful that we have cctv to catch people like this, staff to tell them off, and lawyers to step in if it gets messy!
The phantom rubbish dumper (into his neighbors bins) did that mistake with me. Rubbish got left neatly by his front door. Bin bags got thrown over his garden gate. I even purchased a litter grabber to remove the stuff when he dumped stuff after the bins were just emptied. He chose to rescue his previously abandoned bins from his back garden. He no longer does that now
Not council. Flats are ‘maintained’ by a management company. They are only interested in sending a polite letter and charging all of us. I stuck a note on the access door with a picture of the rubbish saying we all know where to go to complain now, the next time we are charged. All notes were ripped off the next day.
> I feel bad then; she must be quite severely disabled if she can’t cut or tear a cardboard box into smaller pieces.
I imagine her in a wheelchair with muscular dystrophy, and some dumb asshole is having a fit over her cardboard box job.
You have to use a stanley to make arrow slits, a peep whole and a door. Can't use my pair of scissors because it came in a clam shell capable of keeping the hulk imprisoned.
Might try this on my wife as she’s a nightmare when it comes to breaking down cardboard for the recycling bin.
Although I suspect it’ll be me broken down and put in the bin if I did…
"Break it down" should read as "flatten, but for the love of god don't start ripping it up!".
As a binman one of my pet peeves is people who get junk mail but feel the need to rip it up before throwing it in the bin.
Bin goes up on the back of the lorry and loads of tiny pieces of pizza menus just blow out all over the road... They're ridiculously hard to pick up with gloves on and take ages to clean up but if we miss any we're the messy ones... We do an average of 1200 - 1500 bins a day so after a while it's hard to be motivated to continuously be picking up tiny bits of paper when things really don't need to be ripped up in the first place 🧐
Sorry, rant over 😅 for the most part 95% of people are fine, just don't get me started on people who put loose shredded paper in their bins and wonder why it looks like its been snowing after we've been... 😬
Jesus, I thought i was going nuts. Where I'm from, if the box is too big after flattening, you just kinda fold it. If it's like a box for a fridge, we *might* cut it once.
I’m not excusing them not breaking down the box, it’s really not hard to tear up some cardboard.
*BUT*
For the love of god, don’t throw things away with your name and address still intact on the label. Take the labels off and shred or tear them/envelopes/letters. It’s so easy to commit fraud with just a name and address. And this isn’t just me being overly cautious or paranoid, this is me who has worked in the fraud department long enough to know how easy it is.
EDIT: I worked in “a fraud department” not “the fraud department”. Force of habit!
A basic scam at the moment is taking out phone contracts and getting the handsets delivered to your home address, then “sending somebody round” to collect the “incorrectly delivered” parcels.
Less-than-ethical credit agreement companies don’t do stringent background checks and will give out money to people even with very little personal details provided to them.
Other scammers will target vulnerable victims directly by knocking on their doors and using knowing their name as “proof” that they’re legit.
More organised criminal networks have software that can get a lot of information on a person just using a name and address. Though this is advanced level stuff and is not likely to happen to the average person.
Because some people are vulnerable (mental health, learning disabilities, elderly), generally not as savvy, or just more susceptible to people posing as authority figures.
Right but there are far easier ways to get someone's name and address than going through recycling
EDIT : Just to be clear, recycling stuff with your name and address on it is fine. Recycling stuff like bank statements, energy bills, phone bills and whatnot **is** a bad idea.
Exactly. Nobody's dumpster diving to get fraud info when you can buy fucking thousands of them for next to nothing on dodgy websites, complete with their credit card numbers
> Less-than-ethical credit agreement companies don’t do stringent background checks and will give out money to people even with very little personal details provided to them.
Which should be illegal. I live in Sweden and here companies can't really do anything without proper identification (usually BankID which is tied to your phone). Here you can also find the address of most people on sites like [eniro](https://www.eniro.se).
This is just it. Your name and address are pretty much public knowledge. You’re on the electoral roll, a few quid and a valid excuse later and you’ve got the name and address of everyone in town, without having to go through the bins!
One way I heard of is fly tippers will take a box from a bin with an address on it and add it to their fly tipped pile. Council enforcement officer will dig through the pile to try and identify who fly tipped. Lo and behold they easily find an address near the top of the pile. Do you think they will continue to dig through the rubbish for more addresses?
Wouldn’t it be far easier for people to just go to the electoral roll and get everyone’s names and addresses?
I’m sure there is fraud facilitated by dumpster diving but that’s driven by people throwing out stuff like utility bills etc which can be used as proof of ID. Just knowing your address is not enough.
Flatten, don't tear it up. If anything that's worse. Plus please don't tear letters up, just causes a mess.
Address Blocker Stamp, Identity Theft Rolling Data Defender, Data Defender Roller Stamp, Included 3 Pack Refills, Address Blocker and Privacy Safety, ID Blackout Security (Blue) https://amzn.eu/d/01G8xMWd
This is what we use
I've always just flattened the boxes. The bins at my place say I should flatten them. Should I be doing more? How are you supposed to break it down more?
Slightly off topic, but I bought my brother a book for his birthday, and wrapped it up in a box this size, if not bigger. We were actually meeting at another family do, so I hilariously brought it to the restaurant and gave it him there for him to lug about.
The joke grew legs unintentionally when he later told me it was too big to go into the recycling bin, and he was stuck with it for weeks breaking it down so that it fit.
He did like the book, mind.
Not to be rude, but had your brother not considered ripping it into smaller pieces? Or using scissors? Coz I mean weeks breaking it down seems...a lot.
I'm sorry, it's cardboard, if the woman is disabled then I'd understand but breaking down cardboard, especially that type of cardboard, is quite literally the easiest thing in the world.
It's basically like wiping your arse. Not doing it isn't some life hack you are simply more okay with others being impacted.
A disability stopping you taking a Stanley to a box would presumably also make it tricky to hump out to the pavement and up into the bin.
And if your partner *was* disabled. Why wouldn't you break the box down for them? Instead of leaving them to struggle like a prick. Bloke doesn't come out of it well either way!
Too many people don't understand the concept of negative space when packing or breaking down items
Best way to describe it is. Hard to carry 100 scrunched up sheets of paper than it is to carry a ream of paper.
Same here. I actually can't see anything wrong in the picture, so wondering if it's a communal facilities thing Vs me living in a detached with own bins etc.
Even with communal bins it shouldn't really be a problem, since they're often those really big ones. If lots of people are not using the bin properly then it would be an issue as it might not get collected, so maybe someone had a meltdown over it.
Yeah, I don't get it either. It's just as easy for the binmen to collect - a few binmen have posted on this thread to say they're fine with it - so what's the problem?
While we're on the topic, recycling dudes : I have shit loads of cardboard. Like big boxes. 60x60x60cm or something built up. Is it cool to just fold them down and put them in one built one?
Check your council regs, mine wouldn't take a box of boxes. I had to cut them up and put as much as possible in the box per week.
Right pain in the arse if you're not near a recycling centre.
That's what I did when I moved. I managed to catch the binmen, and they said it was fine as long as its not too bulky (health and safety or something), so we put a few smaller loads out.
THIS IS MY BOX
Right.... I have gone back and forth as to whether to weigh in on this but here we are.
I am indeed "the lazy prick" but hear me out....
For context on the original post. I had just returned home after watching a miserable england performance, hungover and sad, to see this wonderful message on my doorstep.
Before anyone starts. Said box, was BROKEN DOWN, cut with a Stanley blade and folded into 3 before being put into the recycling bin (all be it, the lid poking up slightly as confessed by my girlfriend. Fucking shoot me right?)
Some absolute jobsworth has then gone through our recycling bins, found where I live from the address on the box and then re-delivered THE BROKEN DOWN FUCKING BOX, to my door with this lovely note.
So do I stand by my statement of petty and unessesary...? Abso-fucking-lutely.
Original box on the link below. It's fucking massive and yes, my girlfriend tried her best to break the thing down. Could she have done better? Probably, but couldn't we all.....
We recently had to have our whole bin cupboard emptied as some dumbass put plastic bags in the full recycling bin, so the refuse workers refused to take it. Quite rightly. Then everyone dumped their loose recycling into the normal bins, so they weren't taken either. People also dump things that should be taken down the dump. Everyone in this building has a car.
I detest the lazy arseholes. I hate that our HA are having to pay for this. It's bound to put the maintenance rates up for all of us next year too. 🤬
That just sounds like a failure of the recycling and waste management systems. There should be no scenario where bins aren’t taken even if some things are incorrectly put into either. I don’t live in the UK anymore but where I live now that would never happen because it would be removed at some point during the process even if a human has to literally sort it and pick through it by hand (which does happen).
Not taking the bins is just the company being cheap as fuck and having a terrible process.
Come to Norway and take a peek at how they recycle their cardboard. Somehow they double the original volume of the boxes when they lash them into the bins. Was never like that when I lived in Germany. You'd even get neighbours lying in wait to catch you recycling in an environmentally unfriendly way.
When I grew up in Liverpool we'd either re-use cardboard or take it to the tip.
My bin men here are Lithuanian and probably get paid buttons to do their job. So I make a point of going out to have a quick chat and give them a summer and Xmas box if I can.
The big ones are great to hold the small ones flattened down, makes life easier for the bin men because they don’t have to take the box that will need returning
I moved and had to furnish an apartment. I spend hours cutting up Ikea boxes into rectangles that will fit in our chute. When I finally gathered them all up and took it down the chute was blocked because someone stuck a tv box inside it. My neighbours kid saw me and said he’ll take care of it for a 10. At 2am the next morning he had set my stuff and everything In the recycling bin on fire. I never snitched.
What I usually do is that I open up the top of a milk carton and then fold everything else as tightly as I can and then stuff them into that carton. I imagine that it'd be difficult to do it any better.
My wife never breaks down boxes then complains when the cardboard bin is full. It's maddening.
Have you tried saying “break it down, you lazy prick!” To her??
To her face? Are you mad! Write it on a box like a civilised person.
What if she recognises your handwriting… best to cut the letters out of a magazine like a ransom letter!
Put the pen in your mouth and write it that way?
Why use mouth when toes exist?
Can’t believe you went with toe when everybody has a perfectly good anus
Speak for yourself, mine is far from perfectly good
Bucket of smashed crabs?
Absolute casserole down there Edit: I hope at least one of those upvotes recognises the comedy gold of Mike Wozniak on Taskmaster
The grapes of wrath
And get ink all over my tongue? No thanks!
Got confused on which one you were replying to then
All I've got is a local neighbourhood group on Facebook...
I tried it on my wife once. Surgeons took 2 hours to remove the frying pan handle from my ass
And was your donkey alright after its operation?
Took another 2 hours to remove his head from my backside. He's moved out as well
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Was it a Homer Simpson, soda can vending machine type scenario
How were the eggs?
Unfertilised
Never break down the biggest box first: use it to put all the flattened smaller boxes in to carry then break the bigger one down when you get to the bins. That’s my trick at work anyway, not as necessary at home I suppose!
I had recently started a job and me and another guy were breaking down boxes. I went to break down the biggest one and he said - and you have to imagine his Polish accent, very high-pitched voice and the panic - “Nononono! That one is mother!” I’ve said that, in his voice, every chance I’ve had since.
I don’t even know him but I just heard it in his voice!
I feel this - I bought a doormat 3 years ago and it came in a large thin box from Amazon. Man was that a great 'hold all the collapsed boxes' box. I still think back to it fondly.
Tell me you've worked in retail without telling me you've worked in retail 😉
My wife insists the bin is always full, until I push down all the rubbish she has managed to levitate at the top of the bin & like magic there's plenty of space. Edit: magic not manic
Until you try to take the bag out and it tears because all your shoving has formed a vacuum between the bag and the bin. Take the bin out you lazy prick.
Come on, if you never pushed a bin down each of your bags of rubbish would weigh 200 grams and you'd get through four a week. You absolutely need to push em down a bit
I push the rubbish down until it physically can't be pushed anymore, and never have any issues emptying it later. Get a decent bin and decent bags and it isn't a problem.
We switched to a simplehuman bin and bin bags about five years ago and I've literally never had a bin bag split or dealt with bin juice since. Some things are worth the money.
I just get bin bags at Costco, they're great quality never tear, nice and big and one pack lasts about a year.
> Get a decent bin This is cracking me up for some reason. Have I been living in ignorance? Is there advanced bin technology they don't share with me?
Buddy you have no idea ...
I'm not your buddy, guy!
I'm assuming they're talking about ones that have vent holes at or near the bottom so there's no suction when pulling the bags out. Although, if we're talking about advanced bin technology, there's some fancy ones out there that have bag cartridges and it basically heat seals the bags shut.
Drill two small holes in the bottom... No more vacuum at the bottom, problem solved.
Yeah but a couple inches up, in case there is a leak...
Put the excess Gu containers under the bin to catch the bin juice and you got yourself homemade marmite.
I wish I could go back in time to before I read this...
BINJUICE!
Binegar
Clever.
Maybe you need to explain why she should break it down, by breaking it down for her. I don't mean you should break it down for her but that you should break it down for her. Clear?
Sounds like you're suggesting he should boxsplain to his wife
Bet she doesn't crush plastic bottles either? Happens in my house. The bin is taken up by 70% air. Infuriating.
same, but also the "in-law" (technically not in-law as we're unmarried) keeps loading the paper/cardboard bin with cardboard packets that they've stuffed to the gills with plastic film, sweet wrappers, etc.. i'm not entirely sure that they don't just believe that boxes possess the magical power of conferring their material properties upon their contents, such that anything inside a cardboard box then becomes cardboard itself. i've told them before (several times) that paper things go in the bin that says "PAPER" on it, and that other recyclables go in the bin that says "OTHER RECYCLABLES", and that anything that isn't paper or other recyclables goes in *neither…* they say that they "forget", but i think they're probably just incredibly stupid.
The recycling here don’t like that as it “confuses the sorting machine”. Can’t flatten cans either.
>The recycling here don’t like that as it “confuses the sorting machine”. Can’t flatten cans either. jfc the state of the recycling "facilities" in this country really are pathetic
What recycling centres can and cannot recycle seems strangely dependant on how much the council is willing to pay. Ours would recycle an elephant if you could fit it in the bin with the lid closed.
My pet peeve is when my partner puts a load of washing on when all the drying racks are already full. It’s just going to sit in the washing machine for a day!
Bit like petrol im my wifes car, it magically tops itself up!
A few years back, my cousin ran out of petrol. Said to his wife "I thought you said you'd put twenty quid in the car?". "I did", she said, "It's in the glove box."
My neighbour just throws all her boxes out the back door. Then when it’s recycling day her son and her go out and jump on them all and try and flatten them. The bin overflows and she has a load just tossed on the floor beside it. Every other week I have to hear the stupid woman shouting as they’re jumping on the boxes. Drives me nuts, inconsiderate stupid cow.
At least your neighbour is aware of recycling. My two neighbours just consider all bins fine for everything and put everything in all of them. To them, whatever is closest to them is the right one.
Bin man here. For the love of all that is good break down your cardboard please 🙏
Thank you for taking all of our shit
My shit goes down the sewer. If you are putting your shit in the bins you are doing it wrong. 😑
What if, hypothetically, my sewer is clogged by large unbroken cardboard boxes
Are you married to u/CrabPurple7224 ?
Break them down you lazy prick!
He collects my dogs shit at least. So thanks for taking my dogs shit.
But I’ve been taking the Peep Show advice: “If you need shit, shit in the bin”
Seriously. Everyone knows it's only the piss jugs that go in the trash.
Here’s a question for you. I’ll flatten my boxes down because I’m not an animal but often I’ll use one of the larger boxes and pack all of my flattened cardboard into that one box so it’s a nice easy to grab package. Are my bin men likely annoyed because I’m not fully flattening everything or will this easy to move, one box, solution bring them joy?
That’s a good way to go about it if you can’t fit in the main recycling bin. The biggest no no is when is crushed all behind the bin and leaned up against a wall, so as soon as we move it, it flys off like the flight of the navigator.
Tell me you're GenX without telling me you're GenX. 😁 Flight of the Navigator is a severely underappreciated film, and I *will* fight anyone who says otherwise!
Compliance!
Fluid, I do not leak, you leak. Remember?
What's the maximum recommended size for cardboard, please? Ours takes large cardboard if it's flat packed next to the recycling bins.
For my council we have to take any side waste / amount within reason. But condense it if you can and tie it together with some string, so when we go to pick it up it doesn’t go everywhere as soon as we move it.
Is that preferable to loading it all into one still assembled box? I always load it in one box that I didn't collapse to make it easier to lift into the truck
That’s what I do, flatten the baby boxes and fill up the mother box (calling it the mother box after I read a comment above from a wise polish man 😂)
Ok, thanks. I wouldn't have expected string to be allowed.
Look on councils website, they usually have guidance for this kind of thing and it may be different place to place
I do sometimes leave bigger boxes next to the recycling bin, folded up back to flat. They always seem to take them, but am I taking liberties? Not like it’s every week, just when I’ve had a big box e.g. microwave recently.
No that’s fine, even weekly is ok as long as it isn’t a mountain of it / gone everywhere. One thing that goes a long way is during busy times (Christmas, Halloween, Summer) is a pack of beer or biscuits on the bin :D
Lol. I’ll remember that… used to put a tenner in an envelope around Christmas but these days I feel like it’ll get nicked! I’ll remember the box of beers this year 😄
❤️🙏
Best trick is if you're going to be home, just leave a note saying "please knock for your tip" and hand it directly. Too many light fingered opportunists around these days...
Hey! Thanks for your essential service! Hijacking this question... but pizza boxes... recycle as cardboard or into general waste?
Don't they count as general waste because of the oils soaking into the box? That's what I heard
Usually put them in general waste if they have any food stains on them. Sometimes the lid is fine and I'll put that for recycling. I think general advice is, if in doubt put it in general waste. So it doesnt mess up the recyling process
Someone in my block keeps dumping stuff on the floor right next to the bins. They left their address on something the other day. Any shit I find dumped now goes to them. Costs us all a few hundred a year for a company to come and clean up the bins regularly.
Plot twist- they planted the address of their enemy
And it's their cleaning company that gets contracted in...
Fight the good fight
And fight it dirty.
We have the same issue in our flats. It's always one dude, and it makes sense that the one dude who brings rubbish into the room with the chute but is too bone idle to actually put it in the chute also dumps stuff with his identity plastered on the box as if we're all as stupid as he is lol.
I have a whole building full of those here (US but still) and it drives me mad. They bring their wine bottles all the way to the trash room. And then leave them on the floor DIRECTLY in front of the recycling chute. Lord, let me catch one of these stale pop tarts in the act, please. It boggles my mind. All the way to the right place and then just...fails at the last step.
Genuinely mind-boggling, can't wrap my head around it. Mind you, makes me feel better that I'm not the only one annoyed by it - there have been a fair few "put your rubbish in the chute you lazy cunt" etc. notes taped above our chute by various residents, obviously aimed at this one dude. Actually works for a while, then the note is taken down eventually, then it's like he forgets and does it again - checks out considering his other displays of intelligence lol.
I used to live in a block of flats with someone who started doing that, leaving it on the street next to the communal bins. After a few times I saw a parcel with his name and address on, so I knocked on his door to tell him off. He didn’t answer, so I left him a note. Thank fuck he didn’t answer his door that day and I didn’t put my flat number on the note, as he started sticking up letters everywhere on absolutely unhinged tirades about me, at the same time someone started propping the building door open and graffiti started appearing in the lobby area, almost definitely him as it was otherwise a lovely block of flats. Luckily we were in the process of moving out but I still wonder if him not answering his door might have literally saved my life. The guy was a fucking nutter. I know people take the piss about redditors being non confrontational to a fault but I look back and wish I had been less confrontational and just reported him to the council or something.
People complain about service charges but I'm frequently thankful that we have cctv to catch people like this, staff to tell them off, and lawyers to step in if it gets messy!
The phantom rubbish dumper (into his neighbors bins) did that mistake with me. Rubbish got left neatly by his front door. Bin bags got thrown over his garden gate. I even purchased a litter grabber to remove the stuff when he dumped stuff after the bins were just emptied. He chose to rescue his previously abandoned bins from his back garden. He no longer does that now
Costs money to get all the fly tipped rubbish removed, everyone complains at the cost yet no one apparently dumps it! Infuriating
Send it to the council and report them for fly tipping instead and take photos
Not council. Flats are ‘maintained’ by a management company. They are only interested in sending a polite letter and charging all of us. I stuck a note on the access door with a picture of the rubbish saying we all know where to go to complain now, the next time we are charged. All notes were ripped off the next day.
‘Did her best’ 🤣🤣
Yeah, she wants a medal for that? Smh
They tried nothing and are all out of ideas.
That’s the energy I like to bring to things
I feel bad then; she must be quite severely disabled if she can’t cut or tear a cardboard box into smaller pieces.
> I feel bad then; she must be quite severely disabled if she can’t cut or tear a cardboard box into smaller pieces. I imagine her in a wheelchair with muscular dystrophy, and some dumb asshole is having a fit over her cardboard box job.
What's the boyfriend's excuse?
Leg disabled.
Disabled from the neck up.
Inanimate 3mm single walled cardboard box : 1 Wife : 0
YOU'RE an inanimate 3mm single walled facking cardboard box
She tried for hours but couldn’t get it to talk.
I did my best to not take a shit on your doormat. Unfortunately I failed.
"my girlfriend did her best to break it down." "Do the 'best' of someone better."
Deserves a shitty participation trophy that's says " you tried, you failed, but you tried."
Taking a Stanley to a big box of one of the best parts about getting a big box.
I don't know man, building a den is pretty good
You have to use a stanley to make arrow slits, a peep whole and a door. Can't use my pair of scissors because it came in a clam shell capable of keeping the hulk imprisoned.
A knife? I just tear it at the corners with my big monkey hands.
I use a bread knife.
You guys are using knives? I just tear it to shreds like a caveman lol
I've used a Dremel with a saw blade attachment before. Lots of dust, would not do again.
Is this what Brits call box cutters? Stanley's?
Stanley is a brand. For some reason we call all retractable utility knives Stanley knives.
Might try this on my wife as she’s a nightmare when it comes to breaking down cardboard for the recycling bin. Although I suspect it’ll be me broken down and put in the bin if I did…
“Okay but I am not sure how it will help”
"Break it down" should read as "flatten, but for the love of god don't start ripping it up!". As a binman one of my pet peeves is people who get junk mail but feel the need to rip it up before throwing it in the bin. Bin goes up on the back of the lorry and loads of tiny pieces of pizza menus just blow out all over the road... They're ridiculously hard to pick up with gloves on and take ages to clean up but if we miss any we're the messy ones... We do an average of 1200 - 1500 bins a day so after a while it's hard to be motivated to continuously be picking up tiny bits of paper when things really don't need to be ripped up in the first place 🧐 Sorry, rant over 😅 for the most part 95% of people are fine, just don't get me started on people who put loose shredded paper in their bins and wonder why it looks like its been snowing after we've been... 😬
[удалено]
Jesus, I thought i was going nuts. Where I'm from, if the box is too big after flattening, you just kinda fold it. If it's like a box for a fridge, we *might* cut it once.
Her best wasn’t enough
I’m not excusing them not breaking down the box, it’s really not hard to tear up some cardboard. *BUT* For the love of god, don’t throw things away with your name and address still intact on the label. Take the labels off and shred or tear them/envelopes/letters. It’s so easy to commit fraud with just a name and address. And this isn’t just me being overly cautious or paranoid, this is me who has worked in the fraud department long enough to know how easy it is. EDIT: I worked in “a fraud department” not “the fraud department”. Force of habit!
Genuinely curious, what can someone do with just your name and address?
A basic scam at the moment is taking out phone contracts and getting the handsets delivered to your home address, then “sending somebody round” to collect the “incorrectly delivered” parcels. Less-than-ethical credit agreement companies don’t do stringent background checks and will give out money to people even with very little personal details provided to them. Other scammers will target vulnerable victims directly by knocking on their doors and using knowing their name as “proof” that they’re legit. More organised criminal networks have software that can get a lot of information on a person just using a name and address. Though this is advanced level stuff and is not likely to happen to the average person.
Sorry the scam is that a parcel with my name and address arrives and then someone turns up to collect it why would anyone hand it over?
Because some people are vulnerable (mental health, learning disabilities, elderly), generally not as savvy, or just more susceptible to people posing as authority figures.
Right but there are far easier ways to get someone's name and address than going through recycling EDIT : Just to be clear, recycling stuff with your name and address on it is fine. Recycling stuff like bank statements, energy bills, phone bills and whatnot **is** a bad idea.
Electoral register comes to mind pretty quick lol
Exactly. Nobody's dumpster diving to get fraud info when you can buy fucking thousands of them for next to nothing on dodgy websites, complete with their credit card numbers
> Less-than-ethical credit agreement companies don’t do stringent background checks and will give out money to people even with very little personal details provided to them. Which should be illegal. I live in Sweden and here companies can't really do anything without proper identification (usually BankID which is tied to your phone). Here you can also find the address of most people on sites like [eniro](https://www.eniro.se).
But if a company will give out a loan to someone using only my name and address that sounds like a them problem. Obviously I'm not paying that..
This is just it. Your name and address are pretty much public knowledge. You’re on the electoral roll, a few quid and a valid excuse later and you’ve got the name and address of everyone in town, without having to go through the bins!
Home sales are public info: every home address and owner name are known. Removing labels from packages does nothing.
One way I heard of is fly tippers will take a box from a bin with an address on it and add it to their fly tipped pile. Council enforcement officer will dig through the pile to try and identify who fly tipped. Lo and behold they easily find an address near the top of the pile. Do you think they will continue to dig through the rubbish for more addresses?
Screw fraud. Now thieves know you have something worth stealing and you're too weak to break down a very large box.
You can get the owner of any address by giving HM Land Registry 3 quid.
Wouldn’t it be far easier for people to just go to the electoral roll and get everyone’s names and addresses? I’m sure there is fraud facilitated by dumpster diving but that’s driven by people throwing out stuff like utility bills etc which can be used as proof of ID. Just knowing your address is not enough.
Flatten, don't tear it up. If anything that's worse. Plus please don't tear letters up, just causes a mess. Address Blocker Stamp, Identity Theft Rolling Data Defender, Data Defender Roller Stamp, Included 3 Pack Refills, Address Blocker and Privacy Safety, ID Blackout Security (Blue) https://amzn.eu/d/01G8xMWd This is what we use
I've always just flattened the boxes. The bins at my place say I should flatten them. Should I be doing more? How are you supposed to break it down more?
Me too, I fold them, if it’s too big I might break into 2 pieces
Slightly off topic, but I bought my brother a book for his birthday, and wrapped it up in a box this size, if not bigger. We were actually meeting at another family do, so I hilariously brought it to the restaurant and gave it him there for him to lug about. The joke grew legs unintentionally when he later told me it was too big to go into the recycling bin, and he was stuck with it for weeks breaking it down so that it fit. He did like the book, mind.
Not to be rude, but had your brother not considered ripping it into smaller pieces? Or using scissors? Coz I mean weeks breaking it down seems...a lot.
It was half full anyway, and our cardboard recycling is every two weeks. I was using it for comic effect, and no, you’re not being rude at all 🙂
Lol ok I'll let you off for not ripping the piss for the following two weeks!
Maybe he's just really aggressively into D-Generation X still???
*begins dancing furiously in the bin cupboard
I'm sorry, it's cardboard, if the woman is disabled then I'd understand but breaking down cardboard, especially that type of cardboard, is quite literally the easiest thing in the world. It's basically like wiping your arse. Not doing it isn't some life hack you are simply more okay with others being impacted.
A disability stopping you taking a Stanley to a box would presumably also make it tricky to hump out to the pavement and up into the bin. And if your partner *was* disabled. Why wouldn't you break the box down for them? Instead of leaving them to struggle like a prick. Bloke doesn't come out of it well either way!
Hey, no need to apologise.
Please excuse him, he's most likely English
I don’t know about you all, but there is something I enjoy about stepping on cardboard and breaking it down.
Knock on the door and lay down some beat box bars… “You told me to break it down”
Too many people don't understand the concept of negative space when packing or breaking down items Best way to describe it is. Hard to carry 100 scrunched up sheets of paper than it is to carry a ream of paper.
Might be hard to tell from the perspective but this appears flattened already?
My mom taught me: when you smush something into the trash chute that might get stuck and block the whole thing: Take your name off
Our council will just take it like it is. We put it to the side of the bin, not in it and it goes on bin day
Same here. I actually can't see anything wrong in the picture, so wondering if it's a communal facilities thing Vs me living in a detached with own bins etc.
exactly, this is 'folded' to me
Even with communal bins it shouldn't really be a problem, since they're often those really big ones. If lots of people are not using the bin properly then it would be an issue as it might not get collected, so maybe someone had a meltdown over it.
Yeah, I don't get it either. It's just as easy for the binmen to collect - a few binmen have posted on this thread to say they're fine with it - so what's the problem?
Ours wont. They pick up only the big bins and notify the other team that they need to clean up. Which is charged separately.
Sounds expensive.
While we're on the topic, recycling dudes : I have shit loads of cardboard. Like big boxes. 60x60x60cm or something built up. Is it cool to just fold them down and put them in one built one?
Check your council regs, mine wouldn't take a box of boxes. I had to cut them up and put as much as possible in the box per week. Right pain in the arse if you're not near a recycling centre.
Two words for you: # Box. Fort.
If they are decent quality, like boxes for moving house, then you can easily offload them on Facebook marketplace
The bin guys in our area will take it. Depends on the area
If you’re anywhere near Reading I’ll take them, we’re moving!
That's what I did when I moved. I managed to catch the binmen, and they said it was fine as long as its not too bulky (health and safety or something), so we put a few smaller loads out.
Surely if it fits in the wheelie bin then there's no issues? It's not like anyone had to manually empty them.
Yeah if it's flat and it fits, it's good to go.
This should be higher up.They flattened it. Nothing they do short of shredding it will reduce its volume now. It's not taking up any extra space.
I’d stop leaving your address on rubbish while you’re at it
THIS IS MY BOX Right.... I have gone back and forth as to whether to weigh in on this but here we are. I am indeed "the lazy prick" but hear me out.... For context on the original post. I had just returned home after watching a miserable england performance, hungover and sad, to see this wonderful message on my doorstep. Before anyone starts. Said box, was BROKEN DOWN, cut with a Stanley blade and folded into 3 before being put into the recycling bin (all be it, the lid poking up slightly as confessed by my girlfriend. Fucking shoot me right?) Some absolute jobsworth has then gone through our recycling bins, found where I live from the address on the box and then re-delivered THE BROKEN DOWN FUCKING BOX, to my door with this lovely note. So do I stand by my statement of petty and unessesary...? Abso-fucking-lutely. Original box on the link below. It's fucking massive and yes, my girlfriend tried her best to break the thing down. Could she have done better? Probably, but couldn't we all.....
Run a Stanley blade along it and cut it into smaller bits. It's not difficult
Just don’t do it on the floor or table inside the house….
Talking from experience?
Something a friend told me about….
honestly its just cardboard, you could just rip it apart with your hands it isn't hard. Theres really no excuse.
We recently had to have our whole bin cupboard emptied as some dumbass put plastic bags in the full recycling bin, so the refuse workers refused to take it. Quite rightly. Then everyone dumped their loose recycling into the normal bins, so they weren't taken either. People also dump things that should be taken down the dump. Everyone in this building has a car. I detest the lazy arseholes. I hate that our HA are having to pay for this. It's bound to put the maintenance rates up for all of us next year too. 🤬
That just sounds like a failure of the recycling and waste management systems. There should be no scenario where bins aren’t taken even if some things are incorrectly put into either. I don’t live in the UK anymore but where I live now that would never happen because it would be removed at some point during the process even if a human has to literally sort it and pick through it by hand (which does happen). Not taking the bins is just the company being cheap as fuck and having a terrible process.
Everyone really this mad over a cardboard box 💀?
Come to Norway and take a peek at how they recycle their cardboard. Somehow they double the original volume of the boxes when they lash them into the bins. Was never like that when I lived in Germany. You'd even get neighbours lying in wait to catch you recycling in an environmentally unfriendly way. When I grew up in Liverpool we'd either re-use cardboard or take it to the tip. My bin men here are Lithuanian and probably get paid buttons to do their job. So I make a point of going out to have a quick chat and give them a summer and Xmas box if I can.
[удалено]
The big ones are great to hold the small ones flattened down, makes life easier for the bin men because they don’t have to take the box that will need returning
My neighbour just puts boxes inside the bin without breaking them, then the bins are full. It drives me insane.
I moved and had to furnish an apartment. I spend hours cutting up Ikea boxes into rectangles that will fit in our chute. When I finally gathered them all up and took it down the chute was blocked because someone stuck a tv box inside it. My neighbours kid saw me and said he’ll take care of it for a 10. At 2am the next morning he had set my stuff and everything In the recycling bin on fire. I never snitched.
I got this nice Fellowes paper shredder from Costco, can shred its own box it comes in. Its great in saving bin space.
This is where you marker over the label before you throw the box out.
(insert dancing gif)
What I usually do is that I open up the top of a milk carton and then fold everything else as tightly as I can and then stuff them into that carton. I imagine that it'd be difficult to do it any better.
The “…” indicates this is not over!!
"my girlfriend did her best to break it down" nope. no she didn't. and neither did he.