The 'six feet in the garden' bin rule, and what it means for a business

The rule the TikTok is talking about

A refuse collector on TikTok, posting as @theno1.binman, told households that bins left more than "six feet into your garden" may not be emptied. The clip, covered by Surrey Live, is about domestic collections. Commercial waste works differently, but the underlying point is the same. If the crew cannot reach the container quickly and safely, the bin does not get lifted that day.

What changes when you are a business

A household missing a collection loses a week. A restaurant, a nursery, an office or a light industrial unit missing a collection loses storage space, risks a health inspection issue and, in food heavy sites, invites pests. The commercial contract does not carry the domestic option the binman mentioned in the video, an "assistant collection where we agree where we get it from and return it to". That is a household scheme run by councils. Commercial customers need the access designed into the service from the start.

Where business collections actually fail

On commercial rounds, a missed lift is far more often down to access than to the wrong bag in the wrong bin. Presentation. Timing. A locked yard gate the crew cannot get through. A skip parked in front of the wheelie bins. A delivery lorry blocking the loading bay when the round arrives. A bin dragged inside a shared corridor overnight because the neighbour complained about the smell, then forgotten by the manager who is not on shift the next morning. All of them are fixable, and none of them is a contamination problem.

The article notes, correctly, that "bins should generally be put out either on the evening before collection day or very early on the morning itself, as crews frequently begin their rounds early and will not double back". Commercial rounds often start earlier still. If the crew arrives before your team is on site, a bin sitting inside the building is a bin that is not going anywhere.

What to fix

• Walk your collection point at the time the crew arrives, not at the time you open. If you cannot see the bin from the road, neither can they.
• Check the gate. If it needs a code, the driver needs the code in writing on the round sheet, not memorised by the crew on shift.
• Move parking. A parked car in the wrong bay can block a full lift and, on a tight round, the driver will not wait.
• Confirm the bin lid closes. Overfilled bins are a frequent reason a crew refuses a lift, and the reason the article gives for households too.
• Photograph the presentation point, so the manager on duty knows what correct looks like without ringing the yard.

FJL's own numbers

We run about 190,000 collections a year across West London, Surrey and the Thames Valley, moving roughly 10,000 tonnes of commercial waste with 100 per cent diversion from landfill. Every lift starts with a driver being able to reach the bin. The rule in the TikTok applies to households, but for a commercial site the cost of an ignored container is not a bin left until next week. It is a bin blocking a fire exit, a kitchen doorway on a Friday afternoon, or a loading bay on the busiest delivery of the month. Fix the access and the collection follows.