“Is this illegal?”: Mum sparks debate over divisive rubbish bin tactic
A mother has reignited an age-old debate over neighbourhood etiquette, asking whether it is "illegal or frowned upon” to add rubbish to a neighbour’s wheelie bin if yours is completely full.
Brooke Bliss, who lives on the NSW Mid North Coast, said that in her area bins were only collected once a fortnight and her outside bins fill up very quickly as a family of five.
Often left with overflowing rubbish by the time collection day rolls around, Bliss admitted that she waits till the "dead of night" on the day before the bins are emptied and tosses a couple of bags of general waste into neighbours' bins.
“Is this illegal or frowned upon?” the creator asked her followers in a video online.
The mother-of-three explained to Yahoo News Australia, “It’s actually super stressful, especially when you have young children… the bins fill up quite quickly.”
“I find that my bin is full maybe like the fourth day after it’s just been collected and there’s still another eight or so days to go.”
She added that she had “the most lovely neighbours” who would never have an issue with it, but she’d heard of other people being told not to do that by other residents.
“I mean, if your neighbours aren’t letting you do that even if they have room in their bin, you then have the rubbish lying around your property because you have nowhere else to put it," Bliss added.
Many fellow Aussies commenting on her video said they also sneak rubbish into their neighbours' bins and that once they were on the kerb they were fair game, with one adding, "as long as you're not putting rubbish in recycling or garden waste".
“Both our neighbours know we do this to them,” one wrote, while another said, “I do it in broad daylight.” With a third adding, "everyone does this".
While there are technically no laws against using your neighbours' bin, trespassing could be an issue unless you wait until the bin is on council land.
A spokesman for Bliss's local council said that the move is generally frowned upon unless there is an agreement among neighbours.
Image credits: Instagram / Shutterstock