At present, in 24290, Dordogne, it is a matter of taking rubbish and recyclables to a roadside ‘skip’ 2 km in one direction or 1 Km in the other, although glass is not accepted at these and is an extra 2 and 1 km respectively. I do not find this a problem, the refuse is taken, on an opportunity basis, by car, almost never requiring a special journey. What I dread, my house being a second home, is wheelie bins or other kerbside collection. While OK when I am in residence, a nightmare if the collection is a week after I have returned to UK. I would not want to leave a wheelie bin out ( which during Covid, might had been for six months +) and I do not like imposing on neighbours, the nearest of whom is 400 m away. One could imagine how a black bag full of kitchen waste might ferment in the current weather!
Where is the lever and how does it work please?
If you put your foot on the opening bar (you’ll need both hands) the look on the right hand side there is a bit of metal that kind of sits over the end of the bar, you need to flick it up at the same time as pushing the whole bars rail inwards. It is a bit tricky, I tend to use my first bag to push the bars open then while it is keeping it open I can grab the next bag without repeating the process. If you can’t find it let me know and I’ll get a picture for you.
As I started this thread I thought best to investigate further. @toryroo you seem to have found an answer to opening up rhe bin wider than normal so I have just done our 2kilometre round trip to our nearest bin, crikey it aint half hot!
Ihave taken the following pictures but can’t work out how to ooen the 3 inner bars thst restrict the opening?
The opening between the bars measure 230mm x 290mm 9 inches by 12 inches approximately in old money so even putting rubbish in ‘vrac’ is not easy.
We do have the large round sunken bins in the village, which is a 4 kilometre round trip from our house, and in site of the maire which is why I was seen depositing my large bag of recyclable waste accumulated over 3 months.
I collect it in our barn by the method shown in the following photo but it seems my attempted economy to save the planet doesn’t fit with the rules but I shall continue to do it my way.
Read my written instructions in the post above yours. If you zoom in on the 1st photo top right hand side you’ll see a round bit coming down that looks like part of the hinge mechanism. It you push this up you can then push the bars forwards away from you to open them.
Thanks Tory. You now have me fired up to beat the bin!
I will return later to have a look and then fashion a tool to keep the vertical bars away from the opening. I feel sure making the required gadget in doable. Watch this space.
One thing has occurred to me, if it is the maire’s responsibility to inform SMD3 when the large round bins need emptying then who chases ariubd the commune checking all the other bins? The whole system is a joke.
One local village has had someone angle grind it off so they just swing freely 
Our bins are abput1k too. We do our tri and then take things to the bins when we are passing. The stupid thing is that the bottles are separate from the other things.
It has always been like that though, even in UK or Oz no?
The Company was was always telling the Mayor we should not be putting things in the wrong bin.
It is much better now that they take all plastic.
As we are on a Route Touristique folk would be passing that just wanted to get rid of their rubbish from their motorhomes.
Got 3 Tri bins out in 47:
Green for glass
Blue for paper
Yellow for plastic bottles, metal cans and cardboard.
For those in 24, this is the local anti SMD3 group, they are quite active: http://www.mecontents-collecte-dechets-dordogne.com/
None of our recycle waste is unsavoury or unhygienic because it gets rinsed first. The whole point of putting in loose is to reduce the time taken for the sorting at the other end (I suspect most is sorted automatically).
I quite understand why you wash stuff… but it was made very clear to us at the public meeting chaired by SMD3… “do NOT wash things, as that is using another resource unnecessarily… merely empty out as best one can…”
The Yellow Bin in our village now smells horrible… and is full of wasps most of the time … ghastly.
As Stella said don’t rinse! If I have a meat tray I’ll put it in the sink and leave it a bit to catch hand washing water ect but try not to just waste water doing it.
For us, the really annoying thing is SMD3 refused to accept our Council’s proposal of door-to-door outside the village (as per the old days) plus big Bins in the village itself (where the population is within easy walking distance…).
SMD3 insisted that they could only do “one sort of thing” and that had to be Big Bins as the village streets are too small for door-to-door.
Used to be fine before, when they actually employed a workforce, instead of the fancy camion+driver they have nowadays…
Progress??? It seems to be 2 steps forward and 3 steps back…
Made my gadget!
As @toryroo explained the release clip is on the right at the top of the mechanism that holds the bars in place. A bit tricky to locate but once found it is easy. With one or both feet on the foot bar flip the newly found catch upwards to release the prison bars tho push them up and into tge roof of the bin and then put in place ‘the gadget’ that will keep the mouth of the bin open and the bars out of the way and no need to keep your feet on the foot pedal as the gadget stops it from retracting.
be careful not to catch your fingers… that metal clip… it’s not a “public” thingy and you might have no come-back if your hand/fingers get damaged…
To be frank Stella the whole bin is anti public!