Some research announced by university today suggests that lower frequency general waste collections encourage recycling too.

Yes either would work. I am not against fortnightly bin collections.

We have fortnightly bin collections in Peterborough:

Black/grey bin for general waste one week. Green bin (recyclables) and Brown Bin (garden waste) the following week.

It's quite a good system and the council deals with sorting all the recycling as well so it's pretty easy to deal with.

The only irritation is that they don't allow kitchen/food waste in the brown bin. I personally can't see the problem with vegetable waste going in there but they don't allow that, they'll sell you a composter though (and let you buy the compost they make from the garden waste ).

There is a problem if they see something they don't like in either the green or brown bin. They won't take it until you fish out whatever they objected to (and they don't necessarily tell you what it is, just whack a big sticker on the bin telling you what goes in which bin).

In Bath we still have weekly collections of general waste (black bags), recycling (green boxes and large blue waterproof ikea-style bags for additional paper and card) and food waste (black box-things with locking lids and a "kitchen caddy" that you have to use biodegradable bags in). Garden waste is collected if you put it in brown potato-sack like bags that you buy from the council for about £1 or something each. I've a feeling we'll go to fortnightly collections at some point, but we don't have wheelie bins because of the hills (I presume), so that could be a bit of an issue as most people on our street regularly fill their recycling box and several carrier bags of additional recycling.

I'm not sure how widespread it is, but our recycling is sorted on the kerb as it goes into the truck. The only request is that overflow carrier bags only contain one type of stuff (so cardboard or glass or plastic or ... )

Back home in Rugby we have 3 wheelie bins. The black one is general waste, the green one is garden waste and food waste that is incinerated for energy, and the black one with a blue lid is for recycling. The range of recycling things recycled in Rugby is less than in Bath (no aerosols or batteries, for example), but having a big wheelie bin to fill is a bit better. The Blue and Green bins are collected every fortnight, with the black bin being collected on the same day in the weeks between (ie. also fortnightly).

It's quite good here, we leave our bins out in black bags for weekly collection, for which there doesn't seem to be any limit and the recycling is done fortnightly. You have a bag for paper and cardboard, or if the cardboard's to big for the bag you just flatten it out and leave it loose and a green box for metal and glass which is all just lumped in together, you don't even have to sort it.

That said, that's only for domestic. At my sister's pub a hundred yards away, they don't have an option to recycle and the amount of glass they chuck out dwarfs the amount from a good few houses. Their paper and cardboard is collected by a mate who does cardboard recycling, but if they didn't have him, there wouldn't be another option.

We used to recycle until our romanian neighbours moved in next door, after which our recycling boxes promptly disappeared. My mother tried to used the green garden waste bags for recyclable stuff but the binmen would just leave it on the pavement so we've stopped bothering to recycle.

Everything gets chucked into black bags, which heap into a pile on the night before collection and are taken the following day. Except for the romanians who seem to produce as much waste as the rest of the neighbours. More frustratingly, they just dump the black bags out on the street whenever they feel like it, including the same morning after collection! The council seem impotent to move or do anything.

The sooner we move out, the better.

I must say the service where I live is exemplary. Twice-weekly collections of normal rubbish and recycling. Normal waste goes into bin-liners, recyclables (paper, glass, some plastics, etc) into council-provided orange sacks. They pick it all up at once, and their new dustcarts are split down the middle for the two types of bags.

That sounds intelligent. Unfortunately, dust carts are very expensive and councils are not likely to replace them all right now!

Eventually though, I hope we'll all have sensible systems that are easy to use and that people who fail in their social responsibilities will be lynched in the streets. We have too many lazy good-for-nothings, but only one Earth.

In England at least, the majority of councils don't even own the dustcarts any more. Refuse collections has been outsourced. Try getting a private company to spend many thousands refitting their wagons to make things more convenient for residents...

Jon