12,000 homes in the Antrim and Newtownabbey areas of Northern Ireland have received a new wheelie box, with the aim to encourage people to recycle more at home, it consists of 3 boxes and comes with wheels and a handle.  They have also received a smaller bin to reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill.

Greenpeace recently presented a petition to Parliament in New Zealand calling on the government to ban the use of single-use plastic bags.  It is estimated that residents of New Zealand use 1.6 billion plastics bags each year which is bad for the environment.  Greenpeace have been advising on how people can avoid the use of plastics bags.

This months wheelie bin headlines include stories from residents in Tendring calling for a change in recycling to help tackle the impact plastic is having on the environment, a pensioner from Oban has barricaded his home with wheelie bins to stop vans from parking there and residents in Newark could be receiving smaller bins for their household waste.

Wheelie bins are used on a daily basis, whether it be at home or in the workplace, but do you know how they are made?  Wheelie bins are made using injection mouldings, making the plastics bins very durable and resistant to most damage.  

Do you think being a refuse collector is a dangerous job?  Bradford Council had to pay over £1 million to an employee who had his leg crushed by a lorry while bins were being emptied, this is just one of 17 incidents involving refuse collections and wheelie bins.  There are a number of health risks involved on being a refuse collector.  

Stories this week include a social media backash from residents in Renfrewshire about cold weather collections, 28000 residents in Liverpool do not have wheelie bins and instead are given bags and finally waste management in Bristol have reported there have been a number of bins going missing from outside homes and have said they have had more than 650 requests for new bins in 4 weeks.

Durham residents have complained to the local council about the amount of rubbish piling up around wheelie bins close to their homes in the Lambton area, bin reductions have been reduced to once per fortnight  but with so many homes having multiple occupancies and not enough bins to cover.  

Colchester Council scrapped weekly general waste collections last year and since then they have found an increase in fly-tipping and found more people are being forced to go the local tip, despite all this recycling rates have gone up.  

Stories that have appeared in January include Conwy Council in North Wales introducing monthly bin collections, a Tesco Superstore in Stroud may have their recycling area withdrawn due to business and others are flytipping in the containers and wheelie bin manufacturers in Australia heading to court over the use of some confidential drawings.

A food waste trial run by the Bristol Waste Company aiming to get people thinking about how they could reduce their weekly food waste, Bristol families throw away on average £60 worth of food every month and the energy alone generated from food waste could actually power the city.