A grandmother puzzled by an avalanche of lost bins on her street learned the truth when she turned to CCTV to solve the baffling mystery.
Amanda Nicholson, 46, took her bin out as normal in Wythenshawe, Manchester, on Sunday July 10, only to find it missing the next day.
It was not the first time that the mysterious container thief had attacked.
Amanda’s gray dumpster had already disappeared along with another resident’s dumpster two weeks earlier.
And the shocking truth emerged 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 ‘strongman act’ and dumping the entire bin in the back of the truck.
Amanda, a mother of five, was so shocked to see Emma’s video that she wondered if the bin man had a personal vendetta against her and if she had upset him in any way.
CCTV showing a binman dumping a full wheelie bin on his truck
‘Shocking’ video footage shows the man emptying Amanda’s green bin into the van before ‘checking that no one is looking’, then does a ‘strongman act’ and throws the entire bin into the back of the truck.
The Biffa waste management service, which collects household and municipal waste on behalf of Manchester City Council, apologized for the incident and said they were taking “internal measures” to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
Biffa claimed that the man believed the container was damaged, but Amanda says there was nothing wrong with him.
Meanwhile, neighbor Emma remains puzzled as to why the man looked around as if to check if anyone was watching before dumping him.
Amanda said, ‘Part of me is furious, how dare you treat my container like this?
“But the other part of me (thinks) the more I see it, the funnier it becomes.
“In the video, (the container) falls and he (the man with the container) just picks it up, checks that nobody is in the garden and just throws it away.
‘There he was, doing his strongman act with my wastebasket.
The other man in the trash can doesn’t even blink, like it’s normal.
‘Have I disturbed my garbage man or something? Is it revenge?
Amanda Nicholson (pictured), 46, took her bin out as normal in Wythenshawe, Manchester, on Sunday July 10, only to find it missing the next day.
When Amanda first noticed that her food and trash bin was missing, she assumed Emma had accidentally taken it, so she ran across the street and pushed her neighbor’s bin into her path.
When Emma got home from work to find she now had no bin, she checked CCTV footage, which revealed the ‘peculiar’ scene.
Immediately, she knocked on Amanda’s door to retrieve her rubbish bin, telling the caretaker “your bin has been thrown away”.
The caretaker, unable to figure out why her bin was thrown away, contacted the council to request a new one, but revealed that this was not the first of her wheelie bins to go AWOL.
Amanda said: ‘It was a bin for food and rubbish, my green bin.
‘It was so random. If she got stuck in the back of the truck, then I could understand it, but I can’t understand it.
It wasn’t damaged or anything.
‘I was shocked. I thought you can’t do that. I’ve been through all the scenarios, and it confuses me more than anything.
‘Of course, the council’s money will also be wasted because now they will have to buy a new container.
It is also the damage, it could damage the truck. You are not allowed to put anything in your green bin in case it has plastic in it, but now there is plastic in there.
I have to get another container. It’s a bit complicated, I’m going to have to go and order one and wait.
‘Last summer, I applied to the council for a large container because my husband is disabled. I think you have to pay £20 for it.
“I only had the large (gray) container for about two months before it went away.
“I’ve heard of bins getting stuck and gone before, I know it happens, but not this.”
Her neighbor Emma, who captured the footage, believes the “strange” event was definitely not an accident.
Emma, a driving instructor, said: ‘I got home from work and my container was gone. I realized that my neighbor across the street had left my trash can in her garden.
She didn’t realize she had taken mine.
‘I was wondering why so I rewound my cameras. I watched the bin man empty the bins, he didn’t look in them or anything, he just put them in the back of the wagon.
“Mine had grass clippings, I don’t know what hers had, I think she said weeds and little things.
They emptied it. He got out of the wagon, it wasn’t broken or anything, and he just took one look and tossed it into the wagon. Because?
‘It was definitely not an accident.
We were in shock. I went to her house and told her ‘your trash can has been thrown away’. I said there’s the video, it’s so peculiar. I’ve never seen anything like it before.
It’s so strange. People said it should be broken but it wasn’t and there wasn’t anything on it that shouldn’t have been because they just stick stickers on them and don’t empty them.
“Two weeks ago my other neighbor’s gray bin went missing, which is really weird, but I didn’t catch it on CCTV.
I know Manchester City Council say if there is a problem with your bin they will stick a sticker on it.
‘If there’s rubber or something in it, they won’t empty it and tell you to sort your bins.
‘If it’s broken, they sure don’t take it away, bring you a new one and replace it or you’ll run out of trash.
“I think she has filed a complaint because now she doesn’t have a bin for food or yard waste.
“They only empty every two weeks, so we really need them.”
Amanda Nicholson now misses her green bin after she caught a garbage man dumping it
Emma posted the video online with the caption: ‘What a weird thing to do with the bin. She threw the trash can (laughing emoji).’
One person commented: ‘That’s hardly biodegradable (nervous emoji)’.
Another said: “Emotional trash man (laughing emoji, face palm emoji).”
Another said: ‘Don’t turn those things on, he must have been furious, or only ten men.’
One last post: ‘This happened to my neighbor and the council tried to charge him for a new one until he said he had the video, very similar to this one. There was nothing wrong with his trash can.
A spokesperson for Biffa said: ‘We would like to thank the resident for getting in touch and raising this with us. We apologize for the trouble this has caused.
‘Our shipper believed the container was damaged, however this should have been reported to the office where we would arrange for it to be collected. A replacement container has now been delivered to the resident and we will be taking internal steps to ensure this does not happen again.
Manchester City Council has been contacted for comment.
