On Tue, 08 Nov 2005 11:54:15 +0000, Tony Bryer wrote:

In article , Bob Martin wrote:
In Germany (at least, when I was living there in the early 80s) they had
a monthly "big rubbish day" when people put out beds, fridges, etc.
A key feature of the scheme was that people would wander round and take
whatever they fancied. The council picked up the rest.

(thinks, why does the UK never take up bright ideas from elsewhere?)

20 years back the London Borough of Sutton used to put out community skips
in each road once or twice a year for people to get rid of big stuff. I
don't know whether they still do it. Arguably it's less necessary now that
most people have cars and can take stuff to their local tip.

In Sutton it was last done in about 1996/97 - then they stopped, which was
utterly stupid.

Apart from the usefullness of the scheme, it was partly aimed at
discouraging fly tipping.

Tunbridge Wells BC have really been on the crack in the last couple of
years. We now have rubbish collection fortnightly; designed to encourage
recycling, but in reality means smelly bins in summer and putting surplus
rubbish in the neighbours bins. I take the more cynical view that
recycling is secondary and they are just saving money. The recycling
provision is pretty useless, being in the intervening weeks they collect
paper and garden waste. The paper is fine, but I use the garden waste
"feature" about 5 times a year. What I would rather have is glass and
metal collection. As point of fact, I'd rather the CC waste processing
facility did the metal as even back in the 70's some where using
electromagnets to collect the ferrous materials. I believe other metals
can now be auto seperated using linear motor technology which makes it
quite practical to do centrally, and the CC should get some money back
from the scrap.

When one spends 12 hours a day working or travelling to work the last
thing I can be bothered with is doing the council's job for them - I'd be
much happier to pay extra for a decent service rather than a half-arsed
one.

Tim