Is it just ME?

Are you obsessed with bin etiquette, too?

EVERY Friday I walk down my narrow street and curse. Wheelie bins lined up outside the houses make it impossible to pass. Refuse collection day isn’t until Monday, so who are these thoughtless road-blockers who leave their bins out for days? Don’t they understand basic bin etiquette?

Bins are the hot topic this summer. Figures show the number of households enjoying weekly bin collections has plummeted by a third since 2010. No wonder tempers have flared.

Then there are the bin thieves. Many of us are reduced to underhand tactics to defeat them. We’ll paint our names and house numbers in huge letters on the side of the bin to stop them going rogue (I’ve already re-ordered both my bins twice). Even something as virtuous as recycling can become a battle of wills. You lurk by the front door waiting till the bin men have been — then dart out with washed-out bottles and neatly folded cardboard to fill the communal bin before your rivals can squeeze you out.

Friends tease me about my bin obsession, but I’m on a mission to find better — and less smelly — bins. I pore over gardening catalogues full of screens and planters which hide your bins from the street and add colour to your garden.

I’ve discovered you can even wrap the things in plastic printed with autumnal leaves or spring greenery. I’m tempted to camouflage mine in such style.

To paraphrase William Morris: ‘Have nothing inside — or outside — your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.’ And that includes the bins.

You dart out with lovingly washed bottles and neatly folded cardboard to fill the bin before your rivals