EXCLUSIVE: “I think there’s something about that bit of street furniture [bins], most post boxes are the same, most phone boxes are the same but I think there’s more variety in the bin”
Britain’s biggest bin lover is trashing the opposition – and thinks his home is the ‘perfect place’ to be. Charity fundraiser Andy Bailey, 50, is the man behind the viral Instagram hit, The Bins of Congleton, which has taken the platform by storm with its ambiguously-serious coverage of ‘litter receptacles’ in the Cheshire market town.
Is he having a laugh? Does he really love bins? Why Congleton? Where even is Congleton? Why do I love this so much? These are all perfectly reasonable questions to ask yourself while looking through the page, which has nearly 6,000 followers on Instagram at the time of writing and gained the attention of BBC North West Tonight.
Congleton, situated between Manchester and Stoke-on-Trent, with a population of 30,000, seems an unlikely muse to spark such creative outpouring, yet Andy believes that the town is something of a rubbish Mecca.
“It works well in Congleton, because the town’s grown so much over the years, but nothing ever gets replaced or updated so you get bins that go back to the 1960s,” he said.
“As new housing estates pop up or shopping precincts get built there’s new bins that come in but the old ones stays the same, so it’s the perfect place for bins.”
He’s made a calendar, which has now sold out, as well as mugs, both testiment to the cult following he’s gained – but the core element is a rating system based on the ‘five Ps’ – Personality, Pristine, Placement, Popularity and Performance – which come together to give each bin a total score out of 25.
At the centre of it all is Andy’s real appreciation for bins and while he admits his hobby is ‘light-hearted’ there is a serious spine to it.
“I think there’s something about that bit of street furniture,” he said.
“Most post boxes are the same, most phone boxes are the same but I think there’s more variety in the bin. And I think what they do do is perhaps the exact opposite of a bin.”
He lamented the homogenisation of urban landscapes amid so many new developments, such as shopping centres, around the country and celebrated the organic nature of British towns.
“What we’ve got in Congleton and towns like it, is these bins have character, a sense of charm for the place. You know if you took them all away and they’re all replaced with exactly the same thing, it would lose a lot of the character of the place, the charm, a sense of place.”
While Andy does genuinely love the bins, their history and what they represent, he’s astute on social media and the page’s brand incorporates a charming level of humour.
“I try and make it light hearted, try to do a few videos along the way.” Asked if he was having a laugh while doing it, he said: “Yeah, I am really and a lot of people say to me, and I think they get frustrated with themselves, ‘I don’t get it,’ but there’s not a lot to get, to understand. It’s funny how people try and look too deeply for something that’s not there. I’m just taking pictures of these things and sharing them and if they like it, they like it, and if they don’t, they don’t.
He told the Daily Star about a woman, who had lost her husband, getting in touch with him on what would have been their Golden Anniversary, to tell him of the significance of one bin in the town to her and her late husband.
“There’s a concrete bin in the middle of Congleton, this pebble-dashed thing, and that used to be the place that they met, all these lovely little stories,” Andy explained.
And does he think he like bins more than anyone else in the country? “There might be people who think that I’m not and they are, but comparing what I’m doing to people doing something similar… most other people seem to dry up, they’ve had a bit of fun with it and then after maybe 20 or 30 bins they’ve packed it in – probably to do something more worthwhile – but this sort of propels [me] to do more.”
The bins of Congleton keep pulling him back in, always throwing something up to keep him interested – lately it’s been the snow, but ultimately, the motivation is very simple: “I try and have bit of fun with it, it’s all light hearted and it keeps me out of mischief.”