Minor skirmishes have been breaking out all over East Tyrone following the introduction of two more bins, a brown and a yellow one, to add to the black, blue and orange bins already in use in most households. Several bin men admitted they don’t feel safe as house-owners wait behind hedges and trees in order to pounce if their bin is not collected whether it was meant to be or not.

The Dungannon and South Tyrone Borough Council have also come under criticism for the recent series of bins introduced which, when added to the under-the-sink bins, means all homes have 9 different bins with varying shades of colours.

Housewife Peggy Muldoon from Aughamullan explained:

“You’d nearly be happy with no bin at all. We were told not to put the stuff we’d normally put in the black into the black bin but put it in the brown bin. Now we have to put things you can’t eat into the black bin. But, like, I don’t eat teabags and I put them in the black bin yet the man refused to collect it as his bin x-ray machine said it could see a tea bag in my black bin. He says it goes in the orange bin and not the brown bin because you can’t eat it but you can suck it. The black bin is for hard things you can’t consume or nappies. Sheer madness.”

The new yellow bin as been added to homes for ‘things that you can bend but not eat, suck or break’. The blue bin is now to be used for newspapers and magazines, as long as neither exceed 78 pages when they can be placed in the black bin.

Added to the five outdoor bins, four bins (or caddies) have been given to households to place under the sink – blue, orange, green and purple. Muldoon added:

“Six people on our road had kitchen extensions in order to cater for the four under-the-sink bins. The purple one is the most confusing as it is for meat that doesn’t from from animals with four limbs. My mother is on 4 Prozac a day in case she puts out the wrong bin as the bin men have been getting angrier if the wrong bin is left out. They kicked the shit out of my brother last week for putting a pig’s trotter in the blue bin.”

Brackaville punters have a more intricate situation with two more bins for animal and human excrement.