If you think council bin regulations in the UK are tough and confusing, residents of Christchurch, New Zealand have forked out over $50,000 this year alone from flouting local bin laws, if your bin is stolen or damaged it is free to get a replacement so long as it is reported within 24 hours, but many residents do not know this and are paying up to $132 a time for a new bin.

If you were thinking about being generous over the festive period, a home for abandoned babies is asking for residents of the East London area for donations of clothings including baby clothes to sell in a charity shop to raise funds to help take care of the babues until they are adopted and to help pay the members of staff that are currently working there.  If you are interested there are yellow wheelie bins set up around the area for the clothes.  

Derby City Council are providing their residents with recipe ideas for their christmas leftovers, the council say they are trying to help reduce the 7 million tonnes of food waste that ends up in landfill each year.  Included in their recipes is a vegetable curry, turkey spring rolls and a chocolate fondant.

Birminghams refuse collectors have been given a new job title of waste reduction and collection officer, this could mean that your bin men could soon be inspecting your wheelie bins, issuing advice on recycling and even issuing fixed penalties.  All this is down to the city having one of the worst recycling rates in the country and the council estimate that they can save £1.6 million per year if the rates increase.  

One of our stories this week features an amuising story put forward by Bromley Council who are suggesting that for christmas you could get your loved ones a new wheelie bin with a years worth of garden waste collections or even vouchers to go towards this service.

Cambridge City Council have warned residents about the pending drop of temperatures that could result in waste and recycling becoming frozen, they have said that if a bin freezes the contents can stay stuck inside or the lid can freeze shut.  In past winters, some residents have had their waste uncollected because the lids have been frozen.  

Highland council introduced a scheme a while ago where they were going to charge residents £30 for the collection of garden waste, and now they are collecting back the unwanted bins from households that do not want to pay the charge, the residents say that it would increase flytipping in the area because they feel it should be incorporated in the council tax.  

A new garden waste scheme has been launched by the Isle of Wight at a cost of £60 for the year, residents told the council they would be willing to pay for a scheme if the council provided one rather than take their waste to the local tip.

Usually it is all negative stories in our roundup of this weeks headlines, but a story has emerged from Telford that plastics manufacturer Craemer began work on their new factory, a wheelie bin manufacturer which is going to create up to 70 jobs for the area.  

Experts have said that we could save thousands of tonnes of recyclables from ending up in landfill by avoiding contaminating our waste, there are items which are hard to recycle that we actually put in our recyclables, such as pizza boxes, tissue and kitchen rolls.