A sence of proportion

On or around Thu, 29 Dec 2005 09:55:19 +0000 (UTC), beamendsltd enlightened us thusly:

yeah, but if it's going to be done by weight, they'll have to invoice after the event, or add it to the council tax next year, or something equally unwieldy.

Indeed. Parents are retired of course, but what happens to some Johnny who needs to go away on business for a day or two thus having to put his rubbish out early or it won't be collected. Sorry for leading the thread OT by the way. TonyB

We have two communal bins, and anything goes in, whatever doesn't gets dumped by the side for the kids to set light to if it is flammable.

I think certain areas are just abandoned to lawlessness. The council will claim the bin area is not there responsibility, the housing association claim it is not theres and so on, whoever you complain to if you want the rubbish shifting says it is someone elses responsibility.

Well many years ago that is what households with a coal fire did, until the clean air act came along. There was not the packaging we have then, and most of what ended up in the metal bin was ash, hence the need for a metal bin when the fire grate would be emptied, glowing ash in the metal pan carried through the house and down the garden path.

These days the bin lorries have got too big for the streets, especially when they are blocking the buses with cars parked on either side, I'll say it again there is no sence of proportion.

It's a global problem that has even made it's way to the far end of the British Empire. I'm still waiting (reported at least 8 times, by 4 different people, since September) for the pothole in our street to be fixed. It's now of the size where you could lose a small car in it, and hitting it in a Series is a great way to remove your teeth - yet under the old system the blokes in the van would have seen and repaired it before it became a hazard.

And... typing this got me thinking, and google got me the mobile phone number for the mayor of Auckland - apparently someone will be out to look at it directly, and a repair is promised *this* year. I've also forwarded him your post so that he can see it's not just a local problem.

The way councils work, they will probably charge everyone the maximum - then you have to prove you generated /less/ rubbish than the max. Then fill out a form (in triplicate) to humbly apply for your refund.

On or around Fri, 30 Dec 2005 08:53:09 +1300, EMB enlightened us thusly:

tell 'em you'll be putting in a bill for replacement suspension parts...

Wheelie bins and 'recycle bins' are a total diversion IMO from the issue of waste. Like you, we rarely fill our wheelie, but we do waste far, far too much (and do try to minimise that waste).

A number of years ago I owned a cyber-cafe, one of the first at that time. We used to pride ourselves that there was no waste to go in the bin as we recycled everything - and I mean _everything_. This takes time and a lot of effort though and I guess for the average family, the waste is encouraged by the convenience lifestyle.

I really don't blame people for waste any more, but the industry of waste creation.

And local councils. We had a nice new fridge/freezer for Christmas. Getting rid of the old one? No problem - the tip is 3/4 mile from home. Dust Mat Dan comes round to help get it in the 110, and with the Mem in the car and DMD in his we set off for the tip - a 10 min job?

Get to the tip. Doing the "right thing" I go to the office (you have to fill in a sheet - address, car reg. and sign to say only one item per household.

"Oh no, mate, you've got to go to Burslem, this is Staffordshire Moorlands" (aka the most ignorant council in the world by anyone who has had the misforune to deal with them).

So 2 vehicles have to go and drive round for an hour to get to the "right" tip and back, thus negating any polution saving made by the "safe disposal", and wasting the time of two of us (self-employed, so working).

Well done local councils:

1. We wasted our time (x2) - why shouldn't we be able to invoice you for it?
2. Fuel wasted.

1. The majority would simply have gone and dumped the errant machine in the nearest lay-bye - and they wonder why? Idiots.

1. What would happen in we had seperate fridge and freezer? Could it be that they would get dumped in the aforementioned lay-bye with the others? When oh when are councilors going to engauge their brains and jonn the rest of us in the real world!

Richard

Where I live, we have a kerbside recycling scheme, but the list of things it won't pick up is far larger than the list of things that it will, and includes some quite specific items. If you include an item that they won't pick up, then they usually just leave the whole lot at the side of the road.

Particularly annoying things they won't pick up are glass, cardboard, the "wrong type of plastic", shredded paper and bottle-tops. When recycling, if someone leaves a bottle-top on a plastic bottle or puts some plastic in there that the bin-men don't like the look of, they empty out the recycling bins of the people who have done it right, and then either leave the wrong bin alone, or put the stuff they can't recycle into one of the now empty bins then empty the errant bin into the truck. The end result of that is that recently my bin, which was originally full of recyclable stuff, came back to me half-full of someone else's non-recyclable rubbish.

In the nearby town (10 mins drive) there are 4 bottle banks and paper recycling banks in the tiny tiny town, but the nearest place that will take cardboard is 30 minute's drive away, making it largely pointless to recycle cardboard around here. I take my cardboard out there on occasion as I need to make trips to the more remote town to get pipe tobacco so it's not so bad for me.

Kerbside recycling is the only viable recycling scheme IMHO as otherwise you get people burning fuel to get to the recycling centres so it's particularly galling to see the council mess about so much.

I reckon they should give rough guidance for recycling, take all recyclable materials including glass and cardboard and also take all plastics as people know the difference between plastic and other materials, but not the difference between different types of plastic.

Doesn't the council offer a "bulky items" collection service? Ours does, costs a tenner for up to three items.

Didn't the shop you bought the new fridge/freezer offer to take the old one away when they delivered the new?

...and beamendsltd spake unto the tribes of Usenet, saying...

As long as they are in feather-cushioned jobs-for-life, spending your money on their priorities, never.