A grandmother who was baffled by a spate of missing bins on her street discovered the truth when she turned to CCTV to solve the baffling whodunnit.
Amanda Nicholson, 46, put her bin outside as usual in Wythenshawe, Manchester, on Sunday, July 10, only to find out the next day that it had disappeared.
It wasn’t the first time the mysterious garbage thief had struck.
Amanda’s gray bin had already gone missing two weeks earlier, along with another resident’s bin.
And the shocking truth came to light when neighbor Emma Probert checked her CCTV to discover the ‘peculiar’ scene.
“Shocking” video footage shows the man emptying Amanda’s green bin into the van before “checking that no one is looking,” then doing a “strong man act” and launching the entire bin into the back of the truck.
Mum-of-five Amanda was so shocked watching Emma’s video that she wondered if her garbage collector had a personal ‘vendetta’ against her and if she had annoyed him in some way.
CCTV footage shows how a garbage man dumps an entire wheelie bin in his truck
‘Shocking’ video footage shows the man emptying Amanda’s green bin into the van before ‘checking that no one is looking’, then doing a ‘strong man act’ and launching the entire bin into the back of the truck
Waste management services Biffa, which collects domestic and municipal waste on behalf of Manchester City Council, apologized for the incident and said they were taking ‘internal action’ to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
Biffa claimed the man thought the bin was damaged, but Amanda says there was nothing wrong with it.
Meanwhile, neighbor Emma is left perplexed as to why the man looked around as if to check if anyone was watching before throwing it away.
Amanda said, “Part of me is furious, how dare you treat my trash can like that?
“But the other part of me[thinks]the more I look at it, the funnier it gets.
“In the video, it (the bin) comes down and he (the garbage man) just picks it up, checks that no one is in the yard, and just throws it away.
“There he was, doing his strong man act with my bin.
“The other garbage man doesn’t even wink, like it’s normal.
“Did I annoy my garbage man or something? Is it a vendetta?’
Amanda Nicholson (pictured), 46, put her bin outside as usual in Wythenshawe, Manchester, on Sunday July 10, only to find it had disappeared the next day
When Amanda first noticed that her food and waste bin had gone missing, she assumed Emma had accidentally taken it, so she crossed the road and wheeled her neighbour’s bin into the driveway.
When Emma came home from work and discovered that she now had no bin, she reviewed her CCTV footage, which revealed the “peculiar” scene.
Immediately she knocked on Amanda’s door to pick up her bin and tell the caretaker ‘your bin has been thrown out’.
The caretaker, who couldn’t figure out why her bin was thrown in the bin, has since contacted the council to request a new one, but revealed it wasn’t the first of her wheelie bins to go AWOL.
Amanda said, “It was a food and waste bin, my green bin.
“It was just so random. If it got stuck on the back of the truck then I could understand but can’t figure it out.
It wasn’t damaged or anything.
‘I was shocked. I thought you couldn’t. I went through every scenario and it confused me more than anything.
‘Of course the municipal money has also been thrown away, because they now have to get a new bin.
‘It is also the damage, which can damage the truck. You are not allowed to put anything in your green bin if it contains plastic, but now it contains plastic.
‘I have to get another bowl. It’s a bit of a hassle, I’ll have to order one and wait.
‘Last summer I requested a large container from the municipality because my husband is disabled. I think you have to pay 20 euros for it.
“I only had the big (grey) bin for a month or two before it disappeared.
“I’ve heard of bins getting stuck and lost before, I know it happens, but not this.”
Her neighbor Emma, who took the footage, believes the “strange” occurrence was definitely not an accident.
Emma, a driving instructor, said: ‘I came home from work and my bin was gone. I noticed that my neighbor across the street had my waste bin in her garden.
“She didn’t realize she’d taken mine.
“I wondered why, so I rewinded my cameras. I saw the garbage man empty the bins, he didn’t look in them or anything, he just put them on the back of the truck.
‘Mine had grass clippings, I don’t know what hers had, I think she said weeds and bits and pieces.
‘They emptied it. It came off the wagon, it wasn’t broken or anything, and he looked around and threw it in the wagon. Why?
“It certainly wasn’t an accident.
‘We were shocked. I went to her house and said ‘your bin has been thrown away’. I said there’s the video, it’s so strange. I’ve never seen anything like it.
‘It’s so weird. People said it must be broken but it wasn’t and there was nothing in it that shouldn’t be because they just put stickers on it and don’t empty them.
“Two weeks ago my other neighbor’s gray bin went missing, which is very strange, but I didn’t catch it on CCTV.
‘I know Manchester City Council says if there’s a problem with your bin they put a sticker on it.
“If there’s rubber or anything else in there, they won’t empty it and tell you to sort the bins.
‘If it’s broken, they won’t just take it away, they’ll bring you a new one and replace it, otherwise you won’t have a waste bin.
“I do believe she has filed a complaint because she no longer has a bin for food or yard waste.
“They are only emptied every two weeks, so we need them badly.”
Amanda Nicholson is now missing her green bin after catching a garbage man throwing it away
Emma posted the video online with the caption, “What a weird thing to do with the trash. Thrown out the trash (laughing emoji).’
One person commented, “That’s barely biodegradable (nervous emoji).”
Another said, “Emotional Garbage Man (laughing emoji, face palm emoji).”
Another said, “Don’t lighten up on those things, he must have been furious, or just ten men.”
One final note: ‘This happened to my neighbor and the council tried to charge him for a new one until he said he had the video, which is very similar to this one. There was nothing wrong with his tank.’
A spokesperson for Biffa said: ‘We would like to thank the resident for contacting us and discussing this with us. We apologize for the issues this has caused.
‘Our loader thought the bin was damaged, but this should have been reported to the office where we would arrange for the container to be collected. A replacement container has now been delivered to the resident and we will take internal action to ensure that this does not happen again.’
Manchester City Council has been contacted for comment.