Rubbish Collection Rant

[OneOffDave]

* My usage of council facilities :-
Schools - No
Social service - No
Leisure facilites - I amuse myself
Street lighting - Dont have, dont want
Library - I do use it, but have donated about 200 books to them to date, probably paid for myself
Police - Never see them
Road maintenance - I don't damage the road, lorries do. I'd be happier if the road were a dirt track TBH - there would be less passing traffic.
Roadside hedge cutting - Cut it myself

So you cut all the hedges on all the roads you use? Do you want your home to be reachable by people who drive vehicles? Do you want to be able to have the fire service waiting in case you need them or would you prefer a system where you have to wait to be on fire and then pick a fire service provider out of the phone book? If you have a stroke, would you like someone to help you return home after or would you rather search for a private service to do that for you when your ability to communicate has gone? Do you live in a society where no one needs educating and you don't interact with other humans at all? I suppose you want a rebate for all the times you've not used the army too.

 

[OneOffDave]

This gets my goat!

I see the reasoning - those in flats don't have garden bins.
Okay, I wil stop recycling, and thus stop using my recycling bin. Does that mean I get a £30 a year discount?

It's a simple money making scheme by the local councils.

Yeah stop recycling and then more waste goes to landfill and the councils have to pay more and more on landfill tax and the base rate of council tax goes up.

 

[whhistle]

Flats tend to be in a lower tax band, all other things being equal, . Your garden adds to your house value and therefore pushes you up the tax bands, so you are paying the council for having a garden but getting nothing back for it.

I am in Band A - I can't get any cheaper.
I've never been in a house that isn't Band A.

 

[yorksrob]

In the good old days, we used to get one free bulky item collection a year. Now wone has to pay a surcharge.

I blame the Tories.

 

[Lucan]

Yeah stop recycling and then more waste goes to landfill

Whhistle said he might stop re-cycling, not the council. What the council do is up to them (unless Whhistle is the council chairman ). We can eat it, burn it, pile it up in the garden, get the council to take it away, or take it to the council depot ourselves. What the council do is up to them (unless Whhistle is the council chairman ).

Much of it has been sent to China where it is probably dumped in the ground or a river after being picked for any metals. China are no longer taking it I believe, so I expect some African countries will pick up the baton, and they are likely to be even less fussy, having a lot of thinly populated areas to dump it, and are blessed with some big rivers. But as long as it is a long way away we will be happy (BTW Dave, that's irony in case you miss it).

A problem is the modern mis-use of the word "recycling". It has become a synonym for the words "rubbish", "waste" and "litter" as well as its true meaning. Thus we have "Recycling Bins" instead of "Litter Bins", and council "Recycling Centres" instead of "Waste Depots" etc, even though recycling is only part of what they do and much of what passes through the "Recycling Depot" goes to landfill anyway.

 

[johntea]

In the good old days, we used to get one free bulky item collection a year. Now wone has to pay a surcharge.

I blame the Tories.

We paid £20 for the council to come pick up an old knackered three piece suite from our old house, left it outside for them to collect and before they had chance to come and collect it someone had nicked it! Thanks for saving us £20!

 

[yorksrob]

We paid £20 for the council to come pick up an old knackered three piece suite from our old house, left it outside for them to collect and before they had chance to come and collect it someone had nicked it! Thanks for saving us £20!

An impressive re-use of resources !

 

[Cowley]

We paid £20 for the council to come pick up an old knackered three piece suite from our old house, left it outside for them to collect and before they had chance to come and collect it someone had nicked it! Thanks for saving us £20!

Excellent. Up cycling at its best.

 

[MotCO]

I also have fortnightly collections, and the reason for this is to encourage us to reduce waste. However, I fail to see how this is the case since I have the same volume of waste whether it is collected every week or every two weeks. Who are they trying to kid?

It is also not due to the need to save money - the binmen still come every week, it's just that they pick up different things each week. However, they pick up 'clean' paper or 'clean' plastic/metal every other week, but leave the real smelly stuff to collections every fortnight. Is it a surprise that there are more rats around? How is this good for public health? (Rant over!)

 

[hooverboy]

I also have fortnightly collections, and the reason for this is to encourage us to reduce waste. However, I fail to see how this is the case since I have the same volume of waste whether it is collected every week or every two weeks. Who are they trying to kid?

It is also not due to the need to save money - the binmen still come every week, it's just that they pick up different things each week. However, they pick up 'clean' paper or 'clean' plastic/metal every other week, but leave the real smelly stuff to collections every fortnight. Is it a surprise that there are more rats around? How is this good for public health? (Rant over!)

why do you think most councils introduced the two-weekly pickup in winter????

it's not a surprise at all...... incompetence at best, criminal negligence at worst.
(and yes, it most definitely IS a health hazard...not just rats, but flies/maggots and feral animals will be picking over it......most of these are not innoculated in any way and likely to spread disease if in contact with them)

 

[Mojo]

it's not a surprise at all...... incompetence at best, criminal negligence at worst.
(and yes, it most definitely IS a health hazard...not just rats, but flies/maggots and feral animals will be picking over it......most of these are not innoculated in any way and likely to spread disease if in contact with them)

If your council offers a food waste collection there should be nothing in your general waste bin for incineration/landfill that will cause vermin or bad smells.

I would have no problem with a monthly collection as long as the food waste remains weekly.

 

[Darandio]

If your council offers a food waste collection there should be nothing in your general waste bin for incineration/landfill that will cause vermin or bad smells.

How many councils actually offer it though? Ours certainly doesn't.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

If your council offers a food waste collection there should be nothing in your general waste bin for incineration/landfill that will cause vermin or bad smells.

I would have no problem with a monthly collection as long as the food waste remains weekly.

Last week I put our landfill bin out for the first time in a year. It was only 75% full. No smells. The time interval before that was about 15 months, again no smells and about 85% full.

 

[JLH]

I am no expert but I feel I must make two comments on the back of what others have said and my own personal experience.

1) The teams who collect my bins, that is both male and female staff, work efficiently, are polite and friendly. I think they do a fantastic job.

2) Council tax does pay for social services and if you are fortunate never to need social services then you should be very thankful. You never know when you or someone you care for might suffer a brain injury, get a life limiting illness or be a victim of abuse.

 

[Lucan]

Last week I put our landfill bin out for the first time in a year. It was only 75% full.

You obviously never do any DiY work. I can fill a "landfill" bin in an hour of stripping old wallpaper, chiselling loose plaster, removing old shelves, discarding excess bits of coving etc. In fact I have so much at times I make my own trips to the local council depot - I went earlier this week with a half-full 20kg sack of cement that had gone hard, a sack of broken house bricks that I had turned up from my vegtable plot, and about 2 sq meters of plaster board.

Not everyone lives the same lifestyle. Perhaps you get white van men to do that stuff, but the rubbish they take away still ends up in landfill.

 

[Puffing Devil]

You obviously never do any DiY work. I can fill a "landfill" bin in an hour of stripping old wallpaper, chiselling loose plaster, removing old shelves, discarding excess bits of coving etc. In fact I have so much at times I make my own trips to the local council depot - I went earlier this week with a half-full 20kg sack of cement that had gone hard, a sack of broken house bricks that I had turned up from my vegtable plot, and about 2 sq meters of plaster board.

Not everyone lives the same lifestyle. Perhaps you get white van men to do that stuff, but the rubbish they take away still ends up in landfill.

That's building waste, not reguar household waste and not for the bin. You did the right thing taking it to the tip. Or you could hire a skip.

 

[PeterC]

That's building waste, not reguar household waste and not for the bin. You did the right thing taking it to the tip. Or you could hire a skip.

You beat me to it.

Our council has just started charging for building waste as well as cutting tip opening hours back from seven days ot five days a week. It remains to be seen if the savings will exceed the costs of clearing the additional fly tipping.

 

[Typhoon]

We paid £20 for the council to come pick up an old knackered three piece suite from our old house, left it outside for them to collect and before they had chance to come and collect it someone had nicked it! Thanks for saving us £20!

Where I live it is traditional for items like this (but usually better) to be left outside by the road, usually, but not always, with a note saying 'free' on it. If residents don't take it, scrappies usually will. We have a very nice upholstered chair and a compost bin as a result.
Someone new to the area left his lawn mower there once, he learnt the tradition the hard way!

 

[Lucan]

That's building waste, not reguar household waste and not for the bin. ..... Or you could hire a skip.

Some of that could be called building waste, some not. Stripped wallpaper is decorating waste for example, and being soaked in stripper fluid it cannot go with regular paper waste. My council has several types of recycle collection bags (paper, glass, plastic etc) and their comprehensive list of what cannot be put in them leaves a lot that needs to go in the "general houshold" or "landfill" bin. For example they don't want metal in with plastic and they dont want plastic in with metal, so what do people do with something that is made with plastic and metal, which is common enough? These days most people are incapable or think it undignified to use a tool to dismantle anything like that (I can, and I would BTW). The "general household" It is also the only option for home collection of electronics (in fact I save mine for the special bin at the depot).

As for a skip, have you ever hired one? I have, and you might be surprised at how expensive they are (regular trade users must get them far cheaper), and do you seriously suggest that someone hires a skip just to take away a small wooden shelf that they have taken down and not allowed to put in other than the "general household" bin. What is the sense of hiring a skip just to save putting something in the "general household" bin?

I actually waste very little, verging on obsession, always have, nothing to do with the recycling movement. I will keep any piece of timber longer than about 6", any piece of wire longer than a foot, any plug off an old appliance, old ice-cream containers and pinapple tins (to store nails and screws, salvaged or new), computer components going back to the 1980's, and when I re-plumb I keep the old pipe and fittings. I still have most of my childhood toys, put back into the boxes they came in - I really need an Ebay selling campagn.

Incidentally I find it sad that there is so little DiY capability among people now, or understanding as shown in dismissing any DiY as "building" work. There seems to be a contempt and fear of rolling sleeves up and picking up a tool. That's why the only thriving UK industry these days seems to be the "white-van handy-man" industry, with white vans filling the roads* and parking spaces in the streets, and customers being ripped off in their ignorance of anything practical (my elderly mother spent a fortune on them, paying any price they said). I have seen the waste that white-van-man creates, like throwing paint brushes away at the end of every day because "their time is worth more than a paint brush". The white van industry is not environmentally friendly at all.

* I did a count of traffic passing me on a 50 mile motorway stretch recently; I was generally doing 70 in the middle lane. About 50% of those passing me were white vans, some obviously being driven flat out; I overtook only three.

 

[WelshBluebird]

Incidentally I find it sad that there is so little DiY capability among people now, or understanding as shown in dismissing any DiY as "building" work. There seems to be a contempt and fear of rolling sleeves up and picking up a tool.

I think you can expand that to a lot of things tbh, not just DIY stuff. Look at how much stuff gets thrown away because some part of it that could easily be replaced or fixed has broken.

 

[Cowley]

Incidentally I find it sad that there is so little DiY capability among people now, or understanding as shown in dismissing any DiY as "building" work. There seems to be a contempt and fear of rolling sleeves up and picking up a tool. That's why the only thriving UK industry these days seems to be the "white-van handy-man" industry, with white vans filling the roads* and parking spaces in the streets, and customers being ripped off in their ignorance of anything practical (my elderly mother spent a fortune on them, paying any price they said). I have seen the waste that white-van-man creates, like throwing paint brushes away at the end of every day because "their time is worth more than a paint brush". The white van industry is not environmentally friendly at all.

* I did a count of traffic passing me on a 50 mile motorway stretch recently; I was generally doing 70 in the middle lane. About 50% of those passing me were white vans, some obviously being driven flat out; I overtook only three.

Some interesting points there actually.
We’re not all like that. I treat my customers extremely well, everyone knows everyone in Devon and although I’ve never advertised I’ve got more work than I can manage at the moment. All via word of mouth too...
I dispose of waste carefully and try not to create waste in the first place by being careful with what I order.
I buy expensive (Purdy) brushes once every few months and cascade the previous set to secondary duties.
I’ll only recommend other people with the same ethics as me.
I will always go back and put right any mistakes I’ve made for nothing, and I don’t drive my white van like a loon...

However, unfortunately some do and give the rest of us a bad name, for instance like dumping soggy plasterboard and paint tubs in lay-bys etc.
The fines need to be higher for this kind of behaviour, but it’s difficult to catch those doing it.

I do agree with your point of people being scared to do DIY though.
Although sometimes when you weigh it all up is it better to go and work for a day and use that money to pay someone else who has all the tools and knowledge and can do a better job twice as quickly as you can than struggle to do it yourself?
I can see why busy people take that route. But it is satisfying when you do something yourself and do it well.

 

[MotCO]

I think you can expand that to a lot of things tbh, not just DIY stuff. Look at how much stuff gets thrown away because some part of it that could easily be replaced or fixed has broken.

Although I like repairing things, these days many things cannot be repaired either because you cannot undo them or because you need special tools.

 

[PeterC]

I do agree with your point of people being scared to do DIY though.
Although sometimes when you weigh it all up is it better to go and work for a day and use that money to pay someone else who has all the tools and knowledge and can do a better job twice as quickly as you can than struggle to do it yourself?
I can see why busy people take that route. But it is satisfying when you do something yourself and do it well.

I have paid people do do jobs that I had no qualms about doing myself. It would have taken me half the morning just to buy the necessary parts and tools before doing the job. An tradesman would have them all to hand and could do the whole thing in half the time it would have taken me.

 

[Cowley]

I have paid people do do jobs that I had no qualms about doing myself. It would have taken me half the morning just to buy the necessary parts and tools before doing the job. An tradesman would have them all to hand and could do the whole thing in half the time it would have taken me.

I’m a painter and decorator, but I do so many other things because like you say I’ve got the tools, I’m there and I might as well do it if it’s straight forward.

Anyway we’ve strayed quite a way off topic here, so back to rubbish:
I forgot to put my recycling out last night. I’ve now got a massive very full sack of the stuff in the kitchen with no more room for beer cans and a whole week to wait until the next collection.
Going to have to turn to spirits or go to the pub for the next week...

 

[Mojo]

Although I like repairing things, these days many things cannot be repaired either because you cannot undo them or because you need special tools.

It’s funny though what some people’s priorities are, it’s considered acceptable to throw away a ~£600 mobile phone when it breaks yet people will get a technician in to repair a washing machine that costs £250 brand new.

 

[Mag_seven]

Going to have to turn to spirits or go to the pub for the next week...

It's good to know that every cloud has a silver lining.

 

[PeterC]

Anyway we’ve strayed quite a way off topic here, so back to rubbish:
I forgot to put my recycling out last night. I’ve now got a massive very full sack of the stuff in the kitchen with no more room for beer cans and a whole week to wait until the next collection.
Going to have to turn to spirits or go to the pub for the next week...

I was caught like that last week. Went to put the food waste out at 7:20 and found that the collection had already been done. Since the "lock" was ripped off the food bin by a hungry badger I have stopped putting it out the night before.

Set the alarm for 6:45 this morning a and it wasn't collected until after 10.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It’s funny though what some people’s priorities are, it’s considered acceptable to throw away a ~£600 mobile phone when it breaks yet people will get a technician in to repair a washing machine that costs £250 brand new.

It's probably because if you buy a new mobile odds on you will get a significant upgrade from the one you bought 2 years ago, whereas if you buy a new washing machine it'll be exactly the same as the one you bought 2 years ago, as the technology has near enough stopped developing as it has reached the level where it is acceptable to almost everyone as it is.

 

[Lucan]

Although I like repairing things, these days many things cannot be repaired either because you cannot undo them or because you need special tools.

Indeed, and much of it is deliberate to make you buy new and dump the old. Apple made a gadget a while ago with screw head sockets in the shape of their trade mark Apple, which buyers thought was cute but with the real reason to throw another obstacle in the way of independent repairs. There are currently major legal battles in the USA (which will affect us all) under the heading of "Right to Repair". Prominent on one side are Apple, John Deere (tractors), Microsoft, and their licenced dealers, who, playing the "safety" card, want to sell new stuff rather than have broken stuff repaired; or if it is repaired, for their dealers and licenced repairers to have a monopoly. On the other side of the battle are principally independent repairers, the non-dealer workshops and garages, with certain consumer groups tagging along.
https://www.wired.com/story/john-deere-farmers-right-to-repair/

It is getting to the point that if an independent garage replaced eg your car cooling pump, a signal-emitting microchip in the pump would notify the car's central computer. The central computer would then not allow the car to start (or only in limp mode) until it had been re-programmed to accept the new pump. Of course, only a main dealer would have the software to do this, and would charge an independent garage £250 say for the service. Independents would be put out of business.

However, unfortunately some do and give the rest of us a bad name, for instance like dumping soggy plasterboard and paint tubs in lay-bys etc.

I believe, with the increasingly draconian restrictions on council collections, that there will be a major problem with private housholders driving out to dump their rubbish in lay-bys at night.

I have paid people do do jobs that I had no qualms about doing myself. It would have taken me half the morning just to buy the necessary parts and tools before doing the job.

I have a vast collection of tools to hand, inherited from my father and father-in-law as well as my own. It is a generation thing - that previous generation owned and used tools, and most tools last for ever; I have and use some, eg chisels, I reckon are over 100 years old. My son however is not interested.

 

[ComUtoR]

I have a vast collection of tools to hand, inherited from my father and father-in-law as well as my own. It is a generation thing - that previous generation owned and used tools, and most tools last for ever; I have and use some, eg chisels, I reckon are over 100 years old. My son however is not interested.

Unless of course, it's a class thing. The upper classes wouldn't lower themselves to do manual labour. Or maybe its a money thing. I get a decent wage nowadays. I just pay someone else to do stuff™ for me.