Town Mouse on fly-tipping
Twice weekly collections in Kensington & Chelsea are insufficient -- why can't we have large holding bins on street corners in the city?


Sorry to say, but it's all rubbish. This week, new figures came out for the cost of clearing up fly-tipping in London: an increase of £3 million from the previous year to £19,785,484, with 588,432 incidents dealt with by local authorities. My own borough, Kensington & Chelsea, had the second-highest bill of £2.5 million.
This is because there are almost no wheelie bins in the borough, few gardens to hold a bin and rubbish is collected just twice a week. I know this sounds like a luxury to those in the countryside, where once a week is the norm. But if you live in a small town flat, a bin full of a fridge clearout or a dinner party's leftovers sits there getting warmer and smellier until the next collection day. No wonder there are ongoing problems with mice infestations. Why can there not be large holding bins (like the big recycling bins that supermarkets have in the car parks) where we can at least dump rubbish if we can't wait until the garbage truck comes round again? This would greatly lessen the temptation to put household rubbish in street bins or even contribute to the escalating fly-tipping.
Sign up for the Country Life Newsletter
Exquisite houses, the beauty of Nature, and how to get the most from your life, straight to your inbox.
Country Life is unlike any other magazine: the only glossy weekly on the newsstand and the only magazine that has been guest-edited by HRH The King not once, but twice. It is a celebration of modern rural life and all its diverse joys and pleasures — that was first published in Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee year. Our eclectic mixture of witty and informative content — from the most up-to-date property news and commentary and a coveted glimpse inside some of the UK's best houses and gardens, to gardening, the arts and interior design, written by experts in their field — still cannot be found in print or online, anywhere else.
-
Chelsea Flower Show 2025: What else to do in SW3 if you're coming to the world's greatest flower show
There's more to Chelsea than just the Flower Show so we've rounded up some of the best places to eat, stay and shop.
-
Uniquely unique? The Yorkshire grain silos transformed into a home that's a symphony in glass, steel and curves
Amid the beautiful countryside of North Yorkshire, on the edge of the Castle Howard Estate, The Silos is a property for which the word 'house' simply doesn't cut it. And that's not the only way in which it's made us throw out the dictionary.