Bin Weight Charge Seems Impossible

ShaShaBear

As the title says, our waste bin lift of two weeks ago incurred the first ever charge for being too heavy. According to them, it weighed a staggering 101kg. Its a bog standard 240L bin and we use our recycling bin as well (which gets lifted on alternative weeks). The highest weight next to this is 55kg, which is what it weighed yesterday morning. It was actually overflowing and the lid wouldn't shut.
Is there any way we can contest this? It's not so much about the money as the principle - I did call and the lady stated it was right and that was that, offered no explanation as to how we managed to squeeze an extra 50kg of rubbish into what would have been an already packed bin.

guil

It's quiet common for bins to be that heavy believe it or not, I've seen them much heavier.

loyatemu

I don't trust the truck scales - they had our recycling bin listed as 50kg one week - there is no way a bin full of cardboard and plastic could weigh that much, it's generally less than 20kg. There's no method for joe public to verify the weights either.

Wanderer78

loyatemu wrote:

I don't trust the truck scales - they had our recycling bin listed as 50kg one week - there is no way a bin full of cardboard and plastic could weigh that much, it's generally less than 20kg. There's no method for joe public to verify the weights either.

Self regulation, works very well in reality, but who's reality is the question!

ShaShaBear

guil wrote: »

It's quiet common for bins to be that heavy believe it or not, I've seen them much heavier.

It's not common for ours though. When it is so full that the lid won't close, it weighs 55kg. So how on earth could it ever weigh double that with no physical room for anything else?

The Royal Scam

Any pay by weight or volume systems in Ireland are checked by Legal Metrology. This is the little sticker you will spot on you fuel pump when you fill up.

I spotted this article on it ,

http://thorntons-recycling.ie/nsai-legal-metrology-inspectors-bin-weighing-machines/


and Legal Metrology Website is


https://www.nsai.ie/LegalMetrology.aspx

ButtersSuki

Our bins are normally in the 30-35KG bracket. Last week we were told it was 78KG. Were told next time we'd be charged. I honestly can't see how it was anywhere near that as we boringly predictable in our shopping and waste etc. It certainly didn't feel twice as heavy as I pulled it out from the rear of the house to the collection point that morning. But how do you challenge it?

the_pen_turner

check to see if the lid is cracked or leaking. water getting in will add a lot of weight. snow too

fleet

1 liter of water is 1kg, so yeah, with all the rain recently I wouldn't be surprised if there was some seepage.

ShaShaBear

fleet wrote: »

1 liter of water is 1kg, so yeah, with all the rain recently I wouldn't be surprised if there was some seepage.

Impossible for rain to get in where we keep them before a lift so that's not it

Jellybaby1

Or it could be the same thing that happened to us once. After my husband had put the bin out I found more stuff to throw out. When I went out and opened the bin someone had put a pile of old clothes in our bin. It can happen that your bin may have been used by a 'passer-by'. This is why I hate having to pay bin charges.

Alanstrainor

fleet wrote: »

1 liter of water is 1kg, so yeah, with all the rain recently I wouldn't be surprised if there was some seepage.

It might be worth drilling a hole in the bottom...

ShaShaBear

Jellybaby1 wrote: »

Or it could be the same thing that happened to us once. After my husband had put the bin out I found more stuff to throw out. When I went out and opened the bin someone had put a pile of old clothes in our bin. It can happen that your bin may have been used by a 'passer-by'. This is why I hate having to pay bin charges.

While I did consider someone had put something in It, our crowd won't take extra bags or bins with the lid open. There wouldn't have been enough space for 50kg worth of clothes

L1011

Checked the weight logs for my bin, which is still sort of pay per year so it doesn't matter as much. The exact same figure turns up multiple times, down to the amounts after the decimal.

Suspect the scales are absolutely crap on the lorries they use.

coylemj

Alanstrainor wrote: »

It might be worth drilling a hole in the bottom...

I thought of that a while ago but if you throw any meat scraps in the bin, there's going to be some seepage of juices which might attract vermin. And lead to nasty smells in your back yard.

Not to mention what could happen if you have to haul the bin through the house the night before it's collected...

Kuva

At 31KG heavier than my heaviest ever lift, 101KG is not possible.

beechwood55

I queried a brown bin lift about a year ago. It was totally off the wall. Greyhound refused to entertain me.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

guil

Kuva wrote: »

At 31KG heavier than my heaviest ever lift, 101KG is not possible.

Of course it's possible. I've regularly seen bins over 125kg.

beechwood55

.

L1011

guil wrote: »

Of course it's possible. I've regularly seen bins over 125kg.

If its using the same on-truck gear as my supplier, I'd question if it was even vaguely close.

If I get forced to do full by weight charging I'm going to buy a old fashioned mechanical scales to check my own weekly; as the current suppliers figures are clearly fake. You don't get the same weight, down to the the decimals, multiple weeks. Once maybe, not five times a year.

If I was being charged by weight I'd have got the NSAI/Legal Metrology in already. But I'm not.

guil

When the helpers emptying the bins are struggling to get the bins on the back of the truck it's obvious it's very heavy. The total weights tally with the weighbridge.

L1011

Its clearly possible to put that much in a bin, but when you are given clear nonsense figures by an apparently reputable supplier doubts creep in.

The probability that my bins would be the same weight down to decimal places multiple times a year would be similar to naming the National winner every year for a century.

I now have every reason to doubt the validity to the on-truck scales and nothing to suggest they're valid. I know they're bollox with the rather large supplier I use.

Corca Baiscinn

coylemj wrote: »

I thought of that a while ago but if you throw any meat scraps in the bin, there's going to be some seepage of juices which might attract vermin. And lead to nasty smells in your back yard.

Not to mention what could happen if you have to haul the bin through the house the night before it's collected...

Does your area not have a separate compost collection for food waste yet?

This is an interesting thread, must look up my bin weights. I do know the recycling weight can vary a lot, eg a big number of newspapers weigh heavily whereas plastic waste doesn't

L1011

Corca Baiscinn wrote: »

Does your area not have a separate compost collection for food waste yet?

This is an interesting thread, must look up my bin weights. I do know the recycling weight can vary a lot, eg a big number of newspapers weigh heavily whereas plastic waste doesn't

Compost bins and moisture levels therein have come up here before - mainly someone using residual heat from their oven to dehydrate their compostable waste (teabags) before it went out - so not costing them any more in power but possibly saving a relatively small amount in bin weight.

I long for the days of municipal waste collection to come back....

Damien360

guil wrote: »

When the helpers emptying the bins are struggling to get the bins on the back of the truck it's obvious it's very heavy. The total weights tally with the weighbridge.

I just checked my weights and the biggest is 40kg and that was a very heavy bin. Typical under 30kg. I wouldn't have thought that 110kg was physically possible to move even with the wheels. The risk of it tipping would be big.

Organic waste normal 20kg (small lawn front and back), recycling 7 to 8kg max, waste 28, 22, 40, 28kg. The reg of the truck is listed in each case and it's 5 trucks for 10 lifts on the page listed.

fritzelly

Damien360 wrote: »

I wouldn't have thought that 110kg was physically possible to move even with the wheels. The risk of it tipping would be big.

Not at all, local coal man carries a bag of coal (40kg) over his back when delivering, 3 of them on wheels would be easy

bobgaf

As stated above, 40 kg would be a heavy bin. You could not hit 110 kg unless your bin is filled with builder's rubble or similar. You could not hit 110 kg with normal domestic waste. If the bin really weighed 110 kg, whoever wheeled it out would have remembered that. Many people would find that load impossible. As advised above, contact NSAI.

rubadub

Kuva wrote: »

At 31KG heavier than my heaviest ever lift, 101KG is not possible.

well better call the guinness book of records or NASA or someone, because I have done the "impossible" several times.

Be a good question for a bunch of 10 year olds, explain how can you fit items weighing more than 101kg into a bin with volume of 240L. Bit too easy for them though.

The Royal Scam

Damien360 wrote: »

I just checked my weights and the biggest is 40kg and that was a very heavy bin. Typical under 30kg. I wouldn't have thought that 110kg was physically possible to move even with the wheels. The risk of it tipping would be big.

I would have to agree with this to a point. I worked calibrating scales from 5g up to 30 tonne for the last 15 yrs so I have a good feeling for pulling big weights. I would regulary pull a tonne unaided but slowly on a pallet truck but our standard box of weights was 240kg and it was not easy to just drag it around on the 4 wheels. If you were tipping a bin to pull on 2 wheels you would really struggle to stop it falling over.
I only was thinking about this thread when I was bringing out my bins last week. I reckon my bin was actually heavy enough last week. Between 50 to 60kg. I struggled a small bit on an incline in the garden. The OP would really struggle if the amount that was claimed was actually in his bin.

ct5amr2ig1nfhp

We average 80kgs a bin and we've received a few warnings that the max weight of the bin is 40kgs. The bin is always full when put out for collection, as I refuse to put out a bin that's only half full to keep it at 40kg. I would guess that 75% of the bin is nappies btw.

What on earth is going into the bin to bring it above 130kgs?