On Sun, 04 Dec 2005 15:58:58 +0000, Owain wrote:

wrote:
I recall more than one occasion when several lorry loads of paper were
landfilled because the paper mills were so swamped with incoming
material that they were unable to take it. That's the sort of cock-up
that occurs when strategists plan short-term.

I know of one council that apparently bought new bin lorries that didn't
fit the wheelie bins, so replaced the wheelie bins and (allegedly
illegally) landfilled the old, recyclable plastic bins.

Local authorities have the business acumen of British Leyland.

British Leyland weren't *that* bad!

Our idiot council sprung once per fortnight collections on us.

They collect paper and garden waste (which is highly restrictive - turf
and bits of soil are forbidden) on weeks alternate to the main rubbish.

I'd be more impressed if they collected glass and metal - the heavy bits.

I'd be even more impressed if metals were sorted at the processing centre.
Hell, some processing centres were using electro magnets to pull out
ferrous material back in the 70's. Linear motor technology according to
Tomorrow's World a long while ago was supposed to be practical to take out
different grades of non ferrous metals too.

I would have though that metals would be the most economically worthwile
item to extract. Loads of iron in waste and electromagnets hanging over a
conveyor are relatively cheap.

As for the fortnightly collection, doesn't work. Those of use with little
sprogs for whom one bin/2 weeks is woefully inadequate just use our
neighbour's spare capacity with their wholehearted permission.

As for recycling, I'm all for it in theory, but with a 11-12 hour working
day plus X hours of various duties at home, pratting around going to
various sets of bins in various places is pretty low on the list,
especially when I hear rumours of some of our recycled materials going
straight into landfill. Maybe when I've won the lottery or retired and
have lots of time. Until then I expect the damn council to do the job I'm
paying them for.

Anyway, what's with the landfill ******** anyway. Incinerate the stuff and
get some electricity off it. There's a fine plant that does exactly this
next to Millwall FC stadium.

Bah.

Tim

On Sun, 4 Dec 2005 20:04:11 UTC, "NikV" wrote:

its now happened here (council promised that the second bin was not in
preparation for a two weekly pick up), I now use a 4x2 clamped to the top of
the large plastic bin a bottle jack & metal plate to compress the rubbish
allowing it to last between collections - sometimes difficult to wheel this
monstrosity to the perimeter, I have seen occasions where two 'refuse
collection technicians' manhandled on to their lift.

I'd love to see a picture of this setup!

--
The information contained in this post is copyright the
poster, and specifically may not be published in, or used by
Avenue Supplies, http://avenuesupplies.co.uk

wrote:
collect bulky items. This effects the poor, disabled and elderly. Of
course it's all wrong but you can only change local policy by lobbying
politicians.

It may affect them but I very much doubt if it effects them.

--
Chris Green

On Sun, 04 Dec 2005 20:15:02 +0000, Tim S wrote:

As for the fortnightly collection, doesn't work. Those of use with
little sprogs for whom one bin/2 weeks is woefully inadequate just
use our neighbour's spare capacity with their wholehearted
permission.

Family of four, we have trouble filling a bag in two weeks, the
recycling box (glass, paper and tins) is starting to get a bit full by
then. Plastics, all bottles, films and bags go off to be recycled as
part of a shopping trip, along with cartons. The major part of the our
domestic waste now is metalised wrappings.

As for recycling, I'm all for it in theory, but with a 11-12 hour
working day ...

So what do you on your extra day off then? As, in theory, the working
week should be no longer than 48hrs without very good reason.

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail

On Sun, 04 Dec 2005 22:02:13 +0000, Dave Liquorice wrote:

On Sun, 04 Dec 2005 20:15:02 +0000, Tim S wrote:

As for the fortnightly collection, doesn't work. Those of use with
little sprogs for whom one bin/2 weeks is woefully inadequate just use
our neighbour's spare capacity with their wholehearted permission.

Family of four, we have trouble filling a bag in two weeks, the recycling
box (glass, paper and tins) is starting to get a bit full by then.
Plastics, all bottles, films and bags go off to be recycled as part of a
shopping trip, along with cartons. The major part of the our domestic
waste now is metalised wrappings.

Our shopping's done in small batches on foot mostly. Your efforts are
admirable, I don't have the time yet to get that organised. One day, maybe...

As for recycling, I'm all for it in theory, but with a 11-12 hour
working day ...

So what do you on your extra day off then? As, in theory, the working week
should be no longer than 48hrs without very good reason.

3+ hour round trip commute. Doesn't count against the directive, neither
am I at home doing useful things like recycling! It's an itty bitty
London commute, 20 mins driving, 40 mins on the train, 20 mins on tube, 10
minutes walking.

The 40 mins on the train is usefully used on the laptop to persue my
hobby, other than that it's pretty much time wasted.

Yes, I do get weeekends off. No, I'm sorry, doing the council's job is not
high on my list once I've done all the chores, etc and down to my last
couple of hours. I'd rather pay extra on my tax for them to do it. Not
very PC, but I've got more interesting things to do with my time!

Tim

On Sun, 04 Dec 2005 22:02:13 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Liquorice"
wrote:

On Sun, 04 Dec 2005 20:15:02 +0000, Tim S wrote:

As for the fortnightly collection, doesn't work. Those of use with
little sprogs for whom one bin/2 weeks is woefully inadequate just
use our neighbour's spare capacity with their wholehearted
permission.

Family of four, we have trouble filling a bag in two weeks, the
recycling box (glass, paper and tins) is starting to get a bit full by
then. Plastics, all bottles, films and bags go off to be recycled as
part of a shopping trip, along with cartons. The major part of the our
domestic waste now is metalised wrappings.

As for recycling, I'm all for it in theory, but with a 11-12 hour
working day ...

So what do you on your extra day off then? As, in theory, the working
week should be no longer than 48hrs without very good reason.


It certainly is a theory and there are numerous exceptions:

One is if the person has partly unmeasured work time.

For example, from the DTI site:

"Worker F has a managerial or professional role which allows him to
decide how and when he works, chooses what is done, establishes
priorities and determines the time and effort that are devoted to
tasks. Time worked above F’s contracted hours will fall within the
scope of this exception because he can determine the volume of his
work."


I agree with Tim - I'd rather pay somebody else to deal with the waste
problem where possible - I think that it's important, but not an area
in which I want to invest time. It would be nice to think that the
local authority operates proper disposal, but I am not naive either.




--

..andy

On Sun, 04 Dec 2005 06:54:23 -0800, hauntedriver wrote:


Recycling is just very badly managed in this country. The Govt reacts in a
knee-jerk manner to last minute deadlines.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programme...ry/4493728.stm

You can say that again:

"Councils are investigating what happens to their recycled rubbish after the
BBC revealed 500 tons had been shipped unsorted to Indonesia.

Customs at Jakarta impounded containers holding mixed up paper, cardboard,
plastics and cans from UK households."

wrote:
wrote:
collect bulky items. This effects the poor, disabled and elderly. Of
course it's all wrong but you can only change local policy by lobbying
politicians.

It may affect them but I very much doubt if it effects them.


Indeed. Local authorities can't even organise decent education these
days.

MBQ

On Sun, 04 Dec 2005 22:30:04 +0000, Tim S wrote:

Our shopping's done in small batches on foot mostly.

Nearest shop is down in the village 1.5 miles away it carries bread,
milk and a couple of dozen other longer life foods. The Co-op in the
town is 2.5 miles away and has a reasonable range of fresh, frozen and
other produce. Shelf area probably about the same as one side of one
aisle in Tesco. The nearest large supermarkets are at least a 40min
drive away, a "quick trip" to them is at least 3hrs and around
60miles. So the weekly shop with recyclables if required is just from
practicality not good organisation.

3+ hour round trip commute. Doesn't count against the directive,

True, move closer to your work place so you don't waste that 2+hrs
every day.

It's an itty bitty London commute,

But can't afford to move into London...

What do you do? Do you actually have to be physically at the work
place to do your job. If it's "paper pushing" in an office that can be
done just as well at home, on a connected computer. I'm not suggesting
that every day should be worked at home. Just one or two per week
would make your quality of life so much better, no more leaving the
house before 0700 getting back after 1900. Nice day? Take an hour or
two off and enjoy it, make the time up later on.

Working at home does take self disipline and preferably a room that
can be given (not totaly) to that use. This helps to keep home and
work seperate both in your own mind and with other members of the
household.

Yes, I do get weeekends off.

Actually I hate it when my "days off" are forced onto the weekend, the
shops are crowded and you can't do anything useful involving other
workers 'cause they are all in the shops not working...

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail

On Sun, 04 Dec 2005 23:57:34 +0000, Andy Hall wrote:

"Worker F has a managerial or professional role which allows him to
decide how and when he works, chooses what is done, establishes
priorities and determines the time and effort that are devoted to
tasks. Time worked above F s contracted hours will fall within the
scope of this exception because he can determine the volume of his
work."

Self scheduling, it is the "managers" own problem if he chooses to
work longer than 48hrs/week. The Working Time Directive is to stop
employers either directly or by coersion making their workers do long
hours.

I'm in one of the few industries that has an "opt out", to allow
employers to leggaly work their workers for more than 48hrs.
Fortunately I'm also freelance and thus to some extent self
scheduling, if I feel I've worked too hard I don't accept the job, an
employee of the same company can't do that.

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail

In article .com,
wrote:

Indeed. Local authorities can't even organise decent education these
days.

That's why they "loose" money then. :-)


--
AJL

Dave Liquorice wrote:

What do you do? Do you actually have to be physically at the work
place to do your job. If it's "paper pushing" in an office that can be
done just as well at home, on a connected computer. I'm not suggesting
that every day should be worked at home. Just one or two per week
would make your quality of life so much better, no more leaving the
house before 0700 getting back after 1900. Nice day? Take an hour or
two off and enjoy it, make the time up later on.

Absolutely true for lots of jobs, but you try to persuade employers.

Fortunately I have a 15 minute commute, and a flexible employer who
will let me work from home occasionally. However lots and lots of
people are not so lucky.

--
Chris Green

Hi Dave,


On Mon, 05 Dec 2005 14:17:17 +0000, Dave Liquorice wrote:

3+ hour round trip commute. Doesn't count against the directive,

True, move closer to your work place so you don't waste that 2+hrs every
day.

No thanks! I just moved out of London (well, south London suburb). It's a
smelly criminal infested cramped dump. (Not a controversial statement
then!).

But can't afford to move into London...

I used to have a one bed flat when Sutton was still vaguely civilised.
Got married, so far so good. Bit of DIY to maximise storage.

Then sproglet #1 was on the way, and that was the end of pretending that
the flat would cut it any more. Turned out that to rent (this is 2002,
insane time to buy) a 2 bed flat or "cottage" (one we looked at in Cheam
had the kitchen in the hall because the bathroom was added into the room
that used to be the kitchen) was as expensive as what it would cost to
rent a 3 bed link-detached house in mid Kent. No competetion there, Kent
won. Needed to be nearer to ailing parents too (ironically and sadly, Mum
died a few months after we moved down).

What do you do? Do you actually have to be physically at the work place to
do your job. If it's "paper pushing" in an office that can be done just as
well at home, on a connected computer. I'm not suggesting that every day
should be worked at home. Just one or two per week would make your quality
of life so much better, no more leaving the house before 0700 getting back
after 1900. Nice day? Take an hour or two off and enjoy it, make the time
up later on.

Senior sysadmin for a college in London University. Yes, I can do 90% of
my job at home. I've initiated an upgrade on 60 machines from one version
of linux to another without touching them physically just to prove a point.

My machine room has remote IP capable KVMs, IP serial boxes, remote power
switches etc.

Also I can get 2-3 times the productivity at home compared to a crappy
noisy open plan office with continuous interruptions.

Working at home does take self disipline and preferably a room that can be
given (not totaly) to that use. This helps to keep home and work seperate
both in your own mind and with other members of the household.

Yes, indeed. Work supplied laptop linked to WIFI makes hiding in random
places feasible.

Unfortunately, we have non-21st century management. No-one wants to
attempt a policy of working at home in case it's abused(!). In reality one
can get away with it occasionally because no one really checks anyone,
usually on the grounds of illness (the sort where you feel OK, but no-one
wants you coughing on them) or train related disasters, ie about once per
year when it snows.

Given that my boss is stuck in the same crappy office as me and 4-6 other
people, whilst secretaries (sorry, "administrators") are holed up nicely
mostly in single occupancy offices, I don't hold out much hope of change.

I have thought of attempting to invoke the legislation that says that
parents can push to work from home a day or two per week, but it's such a
toothless act it's barely worthwhile.

I could just do it and be bloody minded and see if they can be bothered to
discipline me. We work at that sort of level. On the other hand they are
flexible on hours and the pay is surprisingly good for academia and I get
near perfect freedom to implement the best technical solution for the job
in hand. Also I can't match my salary in Kent doing anything I like the
look of (I've looked around on several occasions). I'm a linux admin and I
refuse to touch anything made by Microsoft (having run mid sized NT 4
systems in a previous life) so I'm kind of limiting my options.

The obvious thing is to work for myself. The wife's keen on that (she's
the one with the degree in computer science, I just fake it :-0

We just need the killer idea... Sure we'll think of something once the
current squeaking sproglet reaches a state of civilisation.

Yes, I do get weeekends off.

Actually I hate it when my "days off" are forced onto the weekend, the
shops are crowded and you can't do anything useful involving other workers
'cause they are all in the shops not working...

Heh. I've lodged with a nurse and a train driver years ago (they were
married, no it wasn't a kinky threesome!). Some days I envied the fact
that the driver would get back at 2pm and have the afternoon free. But he
assured me that changing shift patterns every week or two was in fact hell.

Cheers

Tim

In article om,
Dave Liquorice wrote:
I'm in one of the few industries that has an "opt out", to allow
employers to leggaly work their workers for more than 48hrs.

I'm not sure this is strictly true Dave. Freemantle have started
scheduling 'The Bill' at 48 hrs a week - including makeup and costume -
after union pressure. They're also observing EU legislation on breaks - no
matter what the production pressures may be.

Of course covering breaking news, etc, may rightfully be a different
matter.

--
*Never slap a man who's chewing tobacco *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Mon, 05 Dec 2005 19:18:33 +0000 (GMT), Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

I'm in one of the few industries that has an "opt out", to allow
employers to leggaly work their workers for more than 48hrs.

I'm not sure this is strictly true Dave. Freemantle have started
scheduling 'The Bill' at 48 hrs a week - including makeup and
costume - after union pressure.

The "opt out" still exists but the rumours are that it won't for much
longer. Emmerdale are also bringing the working week down from 72 or
60 to 48(ish). I think there are a few contributary factors from the
management finally getting the message that the crews are permenantly
knackered and you don't get the best work or co-operation from tired
and ****ed of people and in the rumours that the opt out is going and
a little bit of union pressure And you may as well jump rather than be
pushed.

Of course covering breaking news, etc, may rightfully be a different
matter.

My view is that no matter the "story" it is only television, no body
dies. Front line emergency workers or similar *essential* infra
structure workers are another matter, but *only* in exceptional
circumstances, like the local emergency plan being activated etc.

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail

On Mon, 05 Dec 2005 16:35:31 +0000, Tim S wrote:

True, move closer to your work place so you don't waste that 2+hrs
every day.

No thanks! I just moved out of London (well, south London suburb).
It's a smelly criminal infested cramped dump. (Not a controversial
statement then!).

Not at all. Now why did I just know you were going to say something
like that...

Also I can get 2-3 times the productivity at home compared to a
crappy noisy open plan office with continuous interruptions.

May be you ought to document that some how, then slowly start doing
more work from home. When "they" start to get nasty, point to to the
increased productivity and happier worker...

Sure we'll think of something once the current squeaking sproglet
reaches a state of civilisation.

That'll be about 2025 then...

Some days I envied the fact that the driver would get back at 2pm
and have the afternoon free. But he assured me that changing shift
patterns every week or two was in fact hell.

Shift is a PITA, just get settled into one pattern and it changes.
I've never done shift or the 9-5. I've always done iregular hours, any
time of day, any day of the year. Beggers up your social life even
more than shift as it's totaly unpredictable but "weekends" midweek
are very handy.

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail

On Mon, 05 Dec 2005 14:23:31 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Liquorice"
wrote:

On Sun, 04 Dec 2005 23:57:34 +0000, Andy Hall wrote:

"Worker F has a managerial or professional role which allows him to
decide how and when he works, chooses what is done, establishes
priorities and determines the time and effort that are devoted to
tasks. Time worked above F s contracted hours will fall within the
scope of this exception because he can determine the volume of his
work."

Self scheduling, it is the "managers" own problem if he chooses to
work longer than 48hrs/week. The Working Time Directive is to stop
employers either directly or by coersion making their workers do long
hours.


Of course. I am more focussed on objectives and results rather than
the time taken to achieve them.

Therefore the discussion is much more based on agreeing the objectives
so that they will take a time that I find acceptable in relation to
the remuneration.




I'm in one of the few industries that has an "opt out", to allow
employers to leggaly work their workers for more than 48hrs.
Fortunately I'm also freelance and thus to some extent self
scheduling, if I feel I've worked too hard I don't accept the job, an
employee of the same company can't do that.


This seems to be the case throughout the media industry and
independent of country. As you say, it comes with the turf

--

..andy

On Sun, 04 Dec 2005 22:02:13 +0000, Dave Liquorice wrote:

On Sun, 04 Dec 2005 20:15:02 +0000, Tim S wrote:

As for the fortnightly collection, doesn't work. Those of use with
little sprogs for whom one bin/2 weeks is woefully inadequate just
use our neighbour's spare capacity with their wholehearted
permission.

Family of four, we have trouble filling a bag in two weeks, the
recycling box (glass, paper and tins) is starting to get a bit full by
then. Plastics, all bottles, films and bags go off to be recycled as
part of a shopping trip, along with cartons. The major part of the our
domestic waste now is metalised wrappings.

As for recycling, I'm all for it in theory, but with a 11-12 hour
working day ...

So what do you on your extra day off then? As, in theory, the working
week should be no longer than 48hrs without very good reason.

PING Dave L:

S'OK, so it's an old thread...

Just thought you might be interested (or not) to know that I've put me
paternity leave to good use. Re-arranged things, now have waste paper box
outside kitchen door, door unlocked most of the day. That helps, it's now
trivial to toss the paper/boxes straight out into the right place. Making
things easy is the key...

Complemented that with a mouldy bucket for lobbing vegetable peelings into
- that goes onto the compost pile every few days. Come spring I might have
something brown and nutritious for the roses...

Assuming they live. One of the buggers, with the *big* thorns, whacked me
in the back on the way to the compost bin, so it got butchered in a
vindictive revenge attack with the secateurs - ungrateful sod that it was ;-|

I reckon vegetable peelings/melon skins etc are a large proportion of our
waste. We'll see how it goes...

I think what's left is *vast* amounts of plastic wrappings and ali foil
wrappers/cans and tin cans, and nappies, but that's transitory, and odd
scraps of food waste unsuitable for compost.

Still don't know why the dozy council don't extract the metal themselves,
sure it must be worth it...

Regards,

Tim