Are you being unfair to binmen? Do you expect the poor delicate mites to lift things occasionally? How insensitive of you is that?

Once upon a time, binmen were big burly blokes with names like Bert Strongitharm and Fred Spitmuscle, they would cheerfully hoist your metal bin, full of all kinds of rubbish but fitted with convenient handles, onto their broad backs, carry it down the garden path and dump it in the lorry. They did not care what people put in their bins and neither did the councils.
Then came the plague of politicians with comedy accents (Thatcher) and comedy ears (Blair) who talked of change, modernisation and moving forward to meet the future. And suddenly collections of rubbish changed from regular as clockwork to “we’ll shift it when we shift it OK?”
Suddenly binmen were not moving forward to meet anything, especially the bin wagon.
Part of the problem was that councils modernised by switching from nice round bins with convenient handles to wheelie bins that were square, tall and handleless, a shape that can only easily be lifted by a deformed giant.
The councils however spent lots of our money on lorries fitted with lifting gearxxx sorry strike that, the councils spend loads of money contracting out refuse collection services to expensive private companies who hired cheap lorries from refusetrucksRus.com. Then they contracted out the administration of refuse collection to penpushersRus.com. Then they went crazy for recycling, contracting out the supervision of rubbish sorting to jobsworthsRus.com.
And then they contracted out the messy, heavy lifting part of the job to volunteer labour. Us. No matter who we were, we have been tasked with lifting two plastic containers, one for: week1 - glass; week 2 – tins ; the other for: week1 – paper and card ; week 2 – plastics.

Paper and glass care heavy, wheelie bins are tall, it’s a difficult lift for an average sized man. For a little old lady its impossible. but little old lady or big burly bloke you volunteer to do the lifting and carry your rubbish in its correct containers to the edge of the pavement so the domestic waste recycling operatives can get the lifting gear on it without having to strain themselves.

But who is to blame for the problem. Is it the bolshie binpersons and their bloody minded union leaders? No!
Is it the designers who created such awkward receptacles? No!
Is it the local authority managers who introduced these systems without thinking them through? No!
Well is it Henry the mild mannered janitor – dammit how did Hong Kong Fooey get into this blog? No, the responsible party is YOU the punter.

If you are not willing to lift your impossibly awkward containers full of heavy rubbish for the convenience of the binpersons you don’t deserve to have a nice environment. And if you put rubbish in the wrong colour bin, or do not put the lid down properly, or do not leave your bin close enough to the edge of the kerb, you deserve to be hit with a heavy fine. And the council’s jobsworth army of inspectors will make sure you are.

Being small, old, ill or disabled is no excuse. Some people have the attitude that public services exist for the benefit of the citizen. Such anarchistic and sociopathic ideas must be stamped out.