Reply to: How can we make collecting rubbish as complex as possible?

[cailin maith]

At home (Ireland) you have to put a tag thing on your wheelie bin for the council to empty it. You get them from all the shops and I think they are about €7 - the binmen won't empty it without it. Every 2 weeks they have a recycle bin collected but thats free. It's certainly made my parents think a lot more about what they are throwing away!

[Rantor]

Sounds suspiciously like the charge they brought in for disposal of refrigerators and freezers
After six weeks there wasn't a lay bye or country lane in the UK without one or the other dumped there.
Six weeks later they scrapped the charge.

Same with scrap cars. they tried to enforce a recycling & de-pollution charge, and closed landfill sites to fragmentation waste. - result.
SIMS metal, EMR and the other major scrap metal recycling companies stopped taking cars.
After a week half the lay bye's and country lanes in the UK had a car dumped there, usually burnt out as well.
One week later the landfills were taking frag waste and the charge was dropped.

Want to take bets on how long this one will last, for all it's good intentions.

In Belgium, re-cycling is well-established and generally done on less manic basis than the British qpproqch (no need to have five bins or whatever.) There is a very small charge on new electrical goods for end-life disposal though there is a good system of container park dumps where you pay a euro to dump yer load (bargain!)

Interestingly, I can't recall seeing any fly-tipping anywhere.

[Diver]

Sounds suspiciously like the charge they brought in for disposal of refrigerators and freezers
After six weeks there wasn't a lay bye or country lane in the UK without one or the other dumped there.
Six weeks later they scrapped the charge.

Same with scrap cars. they tried to enforce a recycling & de-pollution charge, and closed landfill sites to fragmentation waste. - result.
SIMS metal, EMR and the other major scrap metal recycling companies stopped taking cars.
After a week half the lay bye's and country lanes in the UK had a car dumped there, usually burnt out as well.
One week later the landfills were taking frag waste and the charge was dropped.

Want to take bets on how long this one will last, for all it's good intentions.

[DimPrawn]

Apologies if anyone has mentioned it, but people with a garden or back yard will suddenly start burning their rubbish, thus causing a massive rise in smoke pollution _and_ leaving a conveniently anonymous residue of scorched tins and melted plastic which can be scooped up and dumped anywhere with no chance of identifying the culprit. Nice one, Labour (or rather, EU).

My neighbours already do this. They have a bonfire almost everynight. I guess this is progress New Labour style.

[OwlHoot]

Apologies if anyone has mentioned it, but people with a garden or back yard will suddenly start burning their rubbish, thus causing a massive rise in smoke pollution _and_ leaving a conveniently anonymous residue of scorched tins and melted plastic which can be scooped up and dumped anywhere with no chance of identifying the culprit. Nice one, Labour (or rather, EU).

[Muttley08]

I wonder how much rubbish I could flush down the toilet? I don’t have a water meter.

They'll be coming to everyone eventually...flush things now...

Wonder how much industrial strength acid is? You could melt things away - works with bodies apparently, so packet of crisps should be ok

[gingerjedi]

I wonder how much rubbish I could flush down the toilet? I don’t have a water meter.

[Muttley08]

You're forgetting the fact that they will hire wipro to do it and it'll be a shocking pile of pap that comes in 5 years behind schedule......

Oooh I can hear the pleasant jingle of extensions in the air

[Ardesco]

Anything that means we need more civil servants to administer the scheme is what Gordo is after....

As long as they need some IT to get the scheme working, we're ok...

Nice microchip readers on wagons, GPS to ensure it's outside the right property, cluster analysis algorithms to determine best bin routes etc etc...

Dancing banana at the thought of the contractors they're gona need

You're forgetting the fact that they will hire wipro to do it and it'll be a shocking pile of pap that comes in 5 years behind schedule......

[Muttley08]

Anything that means we need more civil servants to administer the scheme is what Gordo is after....

As long as they need some IT to get the scheme working, we're ok...

Nice microchip readers on wagons, GPS to ensure it's outside the right property, cluster analysis algorithms to determine best bin routes etc etc...

Dancing banana at the thought of the contractors they're gona need

[richard-af]

Is that at Ted Rogers' old place?

[DimPrawn]

I will fill my bin with Helium balloons and make a killing.

[Ardesco]

Already happens with commercial properties in some parts of London. My father in law has to purchase bags from the council for his waste at something silly like £1/bag. He then needs to purchase special labels at a £1/label if he wants to put recycled material in them and stick said label on the bag.

If he doesn't use the special bags provided, or the relevant label (if required) his rubbish is left. All this malarky means he pays a lot more for rubbish removal, and if he splits one of the bags thats £1 down the drain (£2 if it is a bag with a label stuck on it) and he can't stick it in a normal bag to get it collected.

whoever thought it up is onto a winner in the revenue collection stakes.

All these ideas are rubbish, why do it by weight? surely the fact that our existing bins can only take a certain amount of mass is good enough. Why penalise people for having heavy rubbish ?

[gingerjedi]

I leave ours at the bottom of the drive within the boundaries of my property but when I get home it’s always just left on the pavement outside, who would be responsible if someone should trip over it? Also I buy extra garden waste bags only to find they have been redistributed to all of my neighbours.

[DimPrawn]

Maybe they recycled it?