What if the bin lorry stopped coming?

Can you remember the sound of the bin lorry on bin day? You might hear its engine rumble and its beeper go beep, beep, beep as it backs down your street. The bin crew wheel each bin to the back and press a lever, so the lorry lifts the bin up and tips all the rubbish inside.

Then the lorry drives away, and your street is clear again. But what if one week the bin lorry stopped coming, and the next week too, and the week after that? What would happen to all our rubbish?

First, the bins would fill right up. Every family throws things away each day, like banana peels, yoghurt pots and empty packets. In about a week a family's bin is full to the lid, because the rubbish keeps coming even when the lorry does not.

Next, people would put their full bags beside the bins, because there is nowhere else for them to go. Soon the bags would stack up along the pavement in a lumpy line down the whole street. Children and grown-ups would have to squeeze past them to walk to school or the shops.

Inside those bags, tiny living things would get busy. They are called bacteria, which means living things far too small to see that feed on old food. Bacteria eat the scraps of food and make them rot, turning them soft, slimy and stinky.

The more days pass, the more the bacteria eat, and the stronger the smell grows, most of all on a warm day. Soon the whole street would smell like old fish and sour milk. Now, what do you think a big pile of smelly food on the street might bring along?

It would bring pests, which means animals that come into the places where people live and cause trouble. Rats, mice and flies can smell rotting food from far away, so they follow the stink to the piles. The rats nibble holes in the bags, and rubbish spills out across the pavement.

The pests do not stay by the bins. They scurry and buzz to doorsteps, gardens and kitchen windows, carrying bacteria from the rubbish on their feet and fur. Some of these bacteria can make people ill, with a sore tummy or a fever.

That is why the bin crew's work matters so much. Each time they take the rubbish away, they take away the food that the bacteria and the pests were waiting for, before the smell and the trouble can start.

Let's remember two words, bacteria and pests. If the bin lorry stopped coming, the rubbish from every home would pile up in the streets, bacteria would make it rot and stink, and pests would carry those bacteria to people and make some of them ill.

Now you know how much your whole street needs bin day. Next time the lorry rumbles by, you might give the bin crew a big, friendly wave.