'I've got an unusual obsession - and my wife is not impressed'

A dad has created a ‘rubbish calendar’ - featuring 12 of his town's best bins.

Andy Bailey, 50, known as the ‘bin-influencer’, created his masterpiece after spending a year ranking around 130 local waste disposal units.

His intrigue was piqued when he started noticing the strange variety of different litter containers throughout Congleton, Cheshire, in December last year.

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And the dad of four then shared pictures of them on social media - scoring them out of 25 on ‘personality, placement, popularity, performance and pristineness’.

Andy, who also gives the bins nicknames based on their appearance, has now created the one-of-a-kind calendar showcasing his favourite ‘dirty dozen’.

He said: “I was giving them a score out of 25, and filming a few videos as it kept me busy. And a few people said to me, ‘This would make a great calendar.’ When I got to October, I thought, ‘Well, let’s have a go’.

“Part of the ‘joke’ is the calendar is fairly high end - with one of those hangers at the top. So it kind of punctuates the fact that it’s about bins even more so.

"A lot of people like the idea of having a calendar, but does anybody want to buy one?"

Andy said he became intrigued by the bizarre selection of public bins in his town while taking his kids to a park shortly before the start of this year.

And the charity fundraiser, who had never bothered using the picture-sharing platform Instagram, then started up an account and began posting images of them.

He said: “One of the kids mentioned that all the bins in the park were different and there were standout ones that had been there for donkeys years.

“I thought nothing of it. But when I walked back home through the streets, I then realised that this randomness of different litter bins continued. And the thing about Congleton is none of the bins ever seem to get replaced.

“I’d never bothered with Instagram, but I knew it was more about photos if you like, so I thought I’d just put a few pictures on, just to see where it goes. Now I’ve got about 130-odd different bins.”

Andy said he began to name the bins based on their appearance, which added to the fun of those who follow his posts on social media.

He has called one ‘The Taylor Swift bin’ as it was placed in the town in 1989 – the title of one of the star’s most famous albums.

Andy has named another ‘Binnie The Pooh’ as it is shaped like a giant bear, and a further set of two that hang side by side are known as ‘The Kray Bins’.

Speaking about his favourite, he said: “It’s a concrete bin, there’s about six of them, and for no real reason, it’s got a lovely copper trim all the way around the top.

“But it’s also really easy for the people who empty the bins to get access to it because it’s got his plastic container that slides out.

“All the bins have got nicknames now. So this got the nickname of R2-D2.

“It’s like a 1960s soviet bloc type thing - it looks like it’s come from some war-torn bit of Eastern Europe.

"It looks old and battered. But it’s actually been kept in really good nick. That for me ticks all the boxes for what a really good bin should be.”

Andy said that many people who found out about his slightly eccentric project were left confused by his motives.

And he said his wife was also less than enthusiastic about his bin obsession.

He went on: “The most normal reaction is, ‘I don’t get it.' But there’s not that much to get. It is what it is. It’s a bit of fun.

“The wife’s not a big fan. We’ve had more than one incident where we’ve been going on a walk on a Sunday afternoon, and she’s been chatting to me.

“And then I’ve just stopped. She’ll just be walking on, talking away, and I’m photographing a bin on my phone.”