Why are British people so obsessed with bins? | Polly Hudson

"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."

"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."

"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."

Mumsnet functions as a cultural thermometer and source of viral vernacular, shaping public conversations and shorthand expressions. A recent bin-related thread began with a neighbour slipping rubbish into an empty house's bin, prompting a large online debate about whether the action was unreasonable. The thread revealed a national preoccupation with bin etiquette, collection schedules and ownership rituals. Households mark bins with stickers and follow informal rules, creating 'binfluencers' who set local norms. Waste presentation and small neighbour disputes can become emblematic of social values and even recast public figures involved in local disputes as relatable.

Read at www.theguardian.com