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John Beardmore

In message .com,
writes
John Beardmore wrote:
In message .com,
writes
John Beardmore wrote:
In message . com,
writes
sarah wrote:
Andy Hall wrote:
On 2006-12-03 17:47:04 +0000, (sarah) said:
Andy Hall wrote:

but not half as mythical as saying LAs must use the least energy of all
options!

Straw man. All I've expressed is the concern that the proposed scheme
would increase fuel used, congestion, number of vehicles and staff used
to do the same job etc.

...exactly what you just called a straw man then.

Your saying

"but not half as mythical as saying LAs must use the least energy of
all
options!"

is a straw man because that isn't what I've said.

My saying

"All I've expressed is the concern that the proposed scheme
would increase fuel used, congestion, number of vehicles and
staff used to do the same job etc"

isn't a straw man - it's a legitimate concern for many people - and
it's probably true, regardless of what you want to hear.

At the moment, I think they are obliged to chase 'bast value', which I
guess gives them a lot of scope for subjective consideration.

nominally yes, but realistically no. There isnt the competition there,

Anybody can tender. How much competition do you need ?

the investment in new trials,

It's certainly true that a process has to demonstrably work before an LA
will or should sign up to it.

Trial are possible though, if the project might bring enough benefit.

incompetents stay in their jobs etc.

Or move to other regions when the laughter from their colleagues echos
too shrilly !

Or alternatively, the rubbish is processed the cheapest way, regardless
of consequences.

its down to the customer and the law. Personally I'd be in favour of
reducing customer costs,

This is fine as long as the people at the sharp end don't have their
wages cut just because some suit fancies better first quarter figures.

I think the basics of capitalism are already well known.

As are their limitations.

To get
factual, wages in the private sector are mostly higher than in the
public sector, despite services being delivered more competitively.
Feel free to wonder why.

So are your facts taking the values of pensions, job security, health
and safety provision etc into account ?

I don't think people stay in town hall jobs because "incompetents stay
in their jobs etc". Seems to me that it has something to do with other
factors too.

and can think of ways to do it while in the
same measure increasing recycling.

Maybe. Go on then...

I was about to tell you my thoughts on that, but it would take us off
the point. The whole point here is that in a freeish market everyone
that thinks they can improve on existing services is free to try it,
and see if it works. (And motivated to do so.) And if it does, others
will follow. This just doesnt happen in the command economy of LAs.

I'm not sure that's true - I think the limiting factor is that while
appropriate recycling brings environmental benefits, there just aren't
many ways to make putting stuff in the right bin exciting.

Hopefully there would be no loss of
environmental stringency in the process.

why would one lower the legal requirements at the same time as
privatisation?

It's not so much that the minimum environmental standards would be
lowered, so much as that the culture is likely to shift to looking for
ways to cut costs rather than exceeding standards.

Are you proposing a two- (or more) tier cost for
refuse disposal, with one price for those of us who sort their own and
another for those who prefer not to sully their hands with it? How much
would implementing *that* cost?

nothing. You leave the market to it,

And that makes it free ? Oh good !!

That makes it more cost efficient.

Key word there is COST.

Yes, thats one of them. Lowered costs mean more people can afford
silver medal type services.

This is where the dustman wears a tie ?

The cost of deciding on price is a
very small part of a large business operation's costs. Other
differences will dwarf this one.

I had in mind the delivery of multiple services rather than the
submission of prices.

OK. Lets take fro example garbage collectors being willing to go onto a
persons property to collect bags if they have an orange sticker in the
front window. The cost of that little exta labour is paid for by the
silver service buyers. In fact in private enterprise it is common to
have basic services at cost with the fancier options bringing in the
profit. Thus all win, the low cost service is cheaper, those wishing
and happy to pay for fancy services can have that too. All standard
stuff in retail today.

The orange sticker is of course an example, there are various ways to
do it irl.

Yes - though I'm not sure that this sort of provision couldn't be made
within a single contractor arrangement.

and people will buy from whichever
firm does closest to what they want. It would result in economies
rather than costs.

Yes - but that makes the preferred outcome cheap, not the most
sustainable one.

it makes it whichever the people of Britain vote for on a yearly basis,
it is the ultimate democracy.

I'm not sure that democracy is much better for 'saving the planet' than
capitalism, but I don't remember when we last had a referendum about
waste services, never mind one per year !

Man, this is basics of free markets stuff. Each time a customer buys a
service they are voting with their wallet. They will vote for the
service they prefer by paying for it. Capitalism is the ultimate
democracy. Capitalism enables the people to determine what they get by
this method of voting with their money.

OK - I see what you mean, but the word 'democracy' is normally
associated with larger scale political systems.

With private enterprise comparison and analysis are pssible. How well
comparison is done varies of course.

Actually I don't see any evidence at all that private business is at all
good at making environmental performance data public, either in
sufficient detail, or in a timely way.

And if the data isn't generally available, saying "comparison and
analysis are possible", while formally true is utterly missing the
point. In the real world, this information is generally not available.

It is elementary to legally require publication of environmental data
(or if the market is controlled via the LA, ie without a change in the
law, to contractually require it).

I'd certainly be very happy with that !

When you've only got one system,
there is no possibility of comparison of the options, and nothing can
be learnt, because there are no comparison facts to learn anything
from.

If it can be measured, it can be improved. 'Continuous Improvement'
doesn't requite competition.

no, it just happens 4x faster in a free economy. This is 101 stuff.

It's certainly a 101 assumption !

The availability of comparison
data

What availability would that be ??

Is that a promise ?

is it a sensible question to ak me to promise what I dont control? I
think it relevant to garbage collection and would vote for full data
being available.

OK - good ! But I'll believe it when I see it.

why cant he have another option, such as not sorting and not recycling?
Its not like the recycling option is beyond debate.

I guess the real answer is that most people are happy enough to recycle
what they can easily, and while not ecstatic about LA waste services,
don't really want to think about alternatives foisted upon them.

foisted? wouldnt they rather have choice than the current foisting?

I'm sure some wouldn't given that the current system works pretty well
for most people.

All
those people that have changed from british gas and BT have all voted
yes with their wallets to that one.

Yes - though until we know what we're paying for waste disposal at the
moment and what we'd be charged in your scheme, it's quite hard to know
if we'd be interested for a start.

In the old days, BT was clearly a technical backwater and an obvious rip
off. This is far less clear with waste disposal provision.

At the end of the day, LCA will indicate where materials aren't worth
recycling, and should be able to give a clue as to the best way to
dispose of them.

In a sense, it doesn't require a debate, such as doing the LCA in each
locale. Maybe when you have the LCA data there might be something to
debate.

you're welcome to your undying faith in LCAs.

You're welcome to show mw a better tool.

To pretend there is no
debate is so unrealistic

Well - I can only comment from my experience in Derbyshire. There has
been loads debate about waste disposal methods, but none about service
provision by multiple competing providers.

it seems almost disingenuous, though I daresay
you really do believe so.

Well - you can stir up debate as you have here, but you've also kept it
a pretty fact free zone, and based your assumptions about improvement on
your undying faith in markets !

You've talked up the possibility of environmental improvements without
addressing any of the issues that make such outcomes unlikely, and you
can't even be sure that the costs would be lower...

So yes - debate if you like, but expect the various positions to be
scrutinised by techniques such as LCA when people want to go beyond
dogma to assess actual performance.

Well - you can lobby your democratically elected members using sound
numerically supported arguments if you like.

I hope youre kidding, but I get the feeling you're not.

Well - you seem keen on democracy

yes. Do you see how a free market implements it, whereas LAs are
command economy?

I do, but that doesn't mean that in aggregate, they do the job with
lower environmental impact, or that the benefits accruing from the 'more
free' market should necessarily be valued more highly.

... ...but less able to come up with
plausible figures.

what figures, concerning what? If you want examples of what happens
when command markets go free, UK has several examples you can look at.
If you want 101 principles of capitalism, again theres no need for me
to rehash it all.

No - I would like plausible figures to justify the change you propose,
and specifically the claim that the environmental impact of delivering
the new multiple services need be no higher than delivering the existing
single service.

Happy Christmas all ! J/.
--
John Beardmore