Rubbish, Bins, Trash, and Does increasing population density actually make sense in the eyes of local town planning?

Every Monday, I take the bins and place them on the curb. At some point on Tuesday, a person in a large truck trundles along, stopping every so often. They collect the bins with a large mechanical armature and the tattered remains of marketing, packaging, and disposable, non-repairable consumer goods are crushed and compressed until the truck can have no more.

There's a certain ettiquette, however, that you must follow in order to keep the rubbish person in a contented mood, lest they unleash the destructive power of sticky, printed labels.

You see, in order for a bin to be collected, strict, specific, and clear instructions must be followed. Individual bins must be at least 30cm (a foot for you imperials) apart, and one metre away from driveways, letterboxes, or other such things.

The issue is, in many Australian streets, there's a new kid on the block. Well, several new kids on the block. It is called subdivisions. This is where the local government authority allows an existing lot to be split in twain (or more) to enable more structures, more residents, more rates, more waste.

So, if you have a rather large allotment that is subdivided, and of typical depth, you end up with a mathematical problem.

The area in which I live is full of "gated" communities, and this leads to many subdivisions that have a narrow street frontage, and an enormous amount of "bins".

As a result, in some cases, there is not enough street space, come rubbish day to correctly place bins, as per the garbage collector's specifications. Why are local governments continuing to approve such incompatible developments?

Let's take a case study. At a rough count, the below complex has forty-six dwellings. On a bin day, each residence has 2 bins to place outside. That's 92 bins. This means, that a linear distance of (just the gaps) 27.3 metres is required to place bins. But... what of the width of the bins themselves?

They are each about 55cm in width. This means that 50.6 metres of wall to wall bins would be required.

That's a total of 77.9 metres of required "curb side real-estate on bin day."

The above allotment has 150 metres of frontage, 28 metres of which are a driveway opening, leaving 44 metres of space available.This case study passes the test. Good work, local government planners and approvers, you did a good job!

Here's another multi-dwelling site on a smaller allotment of land. This one has seven residences, and to be generous, let's say, 38 metres of frontage. The town planning laws indicate that a driveway should be at least 6 meters wide for such dwellings to allow a car to exit and enter at the same time.

Thirty two metres of space. Fourteen bins. 11.6 metres. Another pass! But this one is interesting, as there is sixteen metres of space on either side of the driveway. It's also across the road from that forty-six bin behemoth division.

Another case study:

Twenty two dwellings, 44 metres, minus 6, again, for the driveway. 38 metres to play with. 12.9 metres of "bin-gap". 12.1 metres of bins. Twenty five meters are required in total.

Another pass for town planners, and I've looked at three different dwellings in the area.

Why on Earth is the first option on the bin sticker?

People are lazy. They place bins so close to another that the garbage collector can't collect them due to the limited metal armature on their bin. The bigger problem, in my opinion, is how on Earth are people generated so many cubic metres of garbage each and every week to necessitate this service.

Compost. Buy products with less packaging. Recycle. Re-use. Don't contribute to landfill.