Ben's Battle for a Bigger Blue Bin

This following is my written submission to Derby City Council applying for a bigger blue [recycling] bin.  

Hello,
    I currently live in a terraced house that has been converted into two flats. I live upstairs with my flatmate while a girl/woman/female occupies the flat below. The problem is that we’re basically two different households producing too much waste to fit our bins.

You see, the major problem is down to the fact that me and my flatmate/spiritual adviser/life-partner drink large quantise of alcohol; some say it’s a stigma from our university days, I personally think we’re unwilling to accept reality and do whatever we can to avoid it. We also have girlfriends and when they come over we have to ply them with enough alcohol to find us sexually attractive. The girl downstairs also likes the occasional two-day drinking binge too, taking all this into account you can begin to paint a mental picture of how much recyclable waste we are creating!

If you can’t, I’ll tell you; it’s loads. Right this instant [Wednesday 19th Sept] our blue bin is maxed out and won’t be emptied until Tuesday [25th Sept] and I have a massive bag of bottles and cans in my kitchen. This is our catch 22, although in the eyes of most we’d simply be lazy, beer drinking weirdoes, we do quite like doing our part for the environment but when our blue bin is full where should we put our recycling? In the black bin? No, of course not, that then goes about creating a situation in which the black bin is constantly full and we have black bin bags filled with rubbish all over our flat. I understand that there are recycling centres in this wonderful city we inhabit but without a car I’m unable to reach them and while I do care for the environment I don’t want to be that guy that gets on the bus with massive bags of recycling!

The main tactic I’ve been employing recently to combat this problem is hoisting myself in the bin and stomping down tin cans and glass bottles in the hope of creating more room for the same. Yet when I attempted this last week I banged my knee on the brick wall and it really, really, really hurt. I had to come inside instantly and have a little lie down as I thought I was going to throw up.  

All of this fighting a loosing battle against the amount of waste we produce and physical injuries on myself has made to turn to you for help in the matter.