Even if you’ve never been anywhere near it, the Mumsnet message board is legendary. Since it launched in 2000, it has changed the vernacular – “am I being unreasonable?” is not just a question, it’s a shorthand for the type of person who asks it – and introduced us to the penis beaker (one maverick husband’s postcoital hygiene regime, made infamous). It’s a screenshot of society, a cultural thermometer; if it’s happening on Mumsnet, it’s big news. And one of the most popular recent threads is about bins.
The post that kicked it off was written by a woman who lived opposite an empty house where tenants had moved out. The landlord popped round late at night to drag the bins out for collection, and the next morning, at 6.45am, she could hear the lorry approaching. The coast was clear, and she still had a backlog of rubbish from Christmas. Deciding it was a victimless crime, she slipped one of her bags in their bin, which easily had room. Enterprising? Without a doubt. Moral, though?
The woman’s husband decreed definitely not, and was appalled by her “embarrassing” actions. Mumsnetters in their hundreds debated back and forth, eventually deciding that she was NBU (not being unreasonable), but more importantly proving that, as a nation, us Brits are obsessed with our bins. The etiquette. The schedule – often so confusing that one resident ends up inadvertently becoming the “binfluencer” everybody copies. We take pride in our bin, mark it with stickers matching our door number to make sure we get it back, even though it couldn’t otherwise be picked out of a particularly dull lineup.
Our refuse receptacles’ reach is incredible; they’re the new great leveller. James Corden is now doubling down in a dispute with his neighbours and local council about paving he laid over his front garden without permission. While at first we might roll our eyes at the seeming entitlement and audacity – his £11.5m mansion is in a strict conservation area – he is instantly transformed into relatable everyman once we discover he only laid the slabs to make it easier to roll his bins out. Who’s BU now?
• Polly Hudson is a freelance writer
