From October 2022 non-recyclable waste from all Mid Devon households will be collected on a three-weekly cycle. The council will provide each household with 1x wheelie bin which will hold around 3 bags of rubbish! Anything over this wheelie bin will not be taken away!

Any household that has more than 2 occupants, no matter how much recycling they do, will fill more than one bin bag a week! So what will happen to all the additional rubbish?? 

I'll just say one word - nappies! I have a family with one child and we recycle as much as possible but have, at least, 3 bin bags a fortnight, more often than not, 4! These contain nappies! If we will struggle, imagine any family with more than one child. On the Mid Devon website the response to "what will I do with my nappies and incontinence pads if my non-recyclable waste is collected every 3 weeks" is "If you double wrap the products before placing in your non-recyclable waste, this will reduce the smell dramatically."!! And do what with them??? This is the same response for animal waste!

On the subject of people who will be increasing their recycling and run out of space in their boxes the council say "If you still have extra recycling you can place the recyclable items within carrier bags". Erm, I thought the point was to reduce waste, so now you're encouraging the use of more single-use plastic??

Fly tipping is bound to increase!

To add to this, it was worked out that it would take around 6 years for the amount Mid Devon Council is claiming this will save annually to pay off the amount it is costing to introduce the scheme!

By all means, educate people on reducing their household waste. Perhaps spend time and money doing this before introducing a scheme which will see our streets turning into a cesspit!

To do more to try and stop this scheme going ahead, please write emails and letters to your local councillors and MPs. Let's make our voices heard and kick up a stink before we're actually faced with one!