Confused by the new Argyll and Bute bin collections? Use this handy guide!

Is this week pink, blue, green, grey or yellow?

With cutbacks in wheelie bin collections coming into force for Kilcreggan next week, we’ve prepared this handy guide for the best way to manage the new regime so nappies and other nasties don’t cause a stink.

Up until now, all we’ve had to worry about is alternating recycling bins with everything else, and whether it’s time yet for the tinkling monthly embarrassment of all those bottles (of olive oil, honest).

The new system might look a bit intimidating at first, but just follow this week-by-week guide and you can’t go wrong! *

• Week commencing October 31: This week there won’t be any bin collections at all, apart from the wee green food thing – phew! There’s nothing to worry about, so just sit back and be grateful that the food waste is being collected in this area – unlike in other parts of Argyll and Bute, where they’ve never had such a thing and are coming to dread the mouldering smell of their big green bin.
• W/C November 7: It’s pink! That means both the green general bin and the blue recycling one must be ready for collection by 7am – we still don’t know when they’ll be emptied, but it might not be until 10pm; keep your fingers crossed that yours won’t be among the bins that have to block pavements for 15 hours.
• November 14: No collections, again. Take some of the horrible stuff that would normally go in your green bin on a trip in very tightly sealed sacks to the dump in Helensburgh – it’s the place to be seen nowadays, apart of course from the deli counter in Waitrose.
• November 21: A yellow week, so it’s recycling a go-go, with both blue and black bins taking their turn. Try to ignore the bulging lid of your green bin as you walk past it, and buy a seriously strong air freshener spray. After it’s run out, dump it in a litter bin on the street or take it into work and quietly ditch it in the boss’s office – anything, in fact, rather than taking up space in the green bin.
• November 28: It’s green, which with unusual simplicity means the bin of that colour is collected, for the first time in three weeks. You’re not allowed to squash things down in the bin or put out any extra sacks, so take rubbish that won’t fit to the dump in Helensburgh again; while there you could start some festive shopping – only one more green collection until the big day!
• December 5: Dark blue – recycling, which is good since you’ve just taken delivery of a multi-fuel burner which came with a lot of packaging. If it can’t be recycled, try burning it! Write a quick note to Santa with last-minute present requests – a garden incinerator and 500 black bags.
• December 12: No collections again, so time for another trip to the dump – except the queue to get in there goes halfway down Sinclair Street. Try West Dunbartonshire Council’s dump in Dumbarton instead, which you’ll find is mostly patronised by people from Helensburgh nowadays.
• December 19: Grey, so it’s all three bins at once, hopefully not on the pavement for 15 hours. Leave a gift for those binmen who haven’t lost their job as part of all this – it isn’t their fault, their working hours have become much longer and they’ve probably taken a lot of flak, unfairly.
• December 26: No collections at all this week, while January 2 is described as ‘festive collections’: the council still doesn’t know what will happen then, so check its website nearer the time; meanwhile prepare some tinsel and baubles to adorn all four bins, just in case.

• Unless you live somewhere other than Kilcreggan, in which case your collection details may well be different. Sorry.