Has anyone else had the experience of a local council getting sh*tty because
you have asked them to take away a fridge? They are charging me £20 anyway,
but thats not the issue, I was made to feel really guilty for daring to get
rid of my old appliance and get a new one at all!

I heard of recycling but this is silly.

In 1977 I brought my fridge. Its now knackered. Doesnt cool and needs to be
replaced. So I replaced it. Council officer told me I should not have
replaced it - I am an ecologically unfriendly person for getting rid of an
old appliance!

What am I supposed to do?

Ditto experience when I went to the amenity tip/ recycling tip with my old
microwave ( bought 1981). Old microwave has a hole in it. It is rusted
through. I got a new one. They told me I should not be dumping my old one
because I was making waste! Unfortunately I took my old knackered Vax (
bought 1987) at the same time. The motor is knackered and it doesnt suck.
Apparently I am supposed to repair it ( I was told by the repair people it
was not economic to do so!).

We have got to the point now where you are not allowed to throw anything
away. You are not allowed to burn anything. You are not allowed to dump
anything. Should I rename my house Steptoes Backyard?

So what am I supposed to do? Not replace old appliances? Go without
altogether and live a life of Victorian * luxury* with no mod cons?

Fwiw, I might add, I am getting so p*ssed off with all this eco stuff that
I am getting to the point where I think sod you all and it will last my
lifetime ( which it probably will!)

Shouting at people for changing fridge's every 25 years is not the way to go
here. I would have understood if I was doing the designer thing and
throwing out goods because they didn't fit in with the colour of my dogs
coat!

"lynd" wrote in message
...
Has anyone else had the experience of a local council getting sh*tty
because
you have asked them to take away a fridge? They are charging me £20
anyway,
but thats not the issue, I was made to feel really guilty for daring to
get
rid of my old appliance and get a new one at all!

I heard of recycling but this is silly.

In 1977 I brought my fridge. Its now knackered. Doesnt cool and needs to
be
replaced. So I replaced it. Council officer told me I should not have
replaced it - I am an ecologically unfriendly person for getting rid of an
old appliance!

What am I supposed to do?

Ditto experience when I went to the amenity tip/ recycling tip with my old
microwave ( bought 1981). Old microwave has a hole in it. It is rusted
through. I got a new one. They told me I should not be dumping my old one
because I was making waste! Unfortunately I took my old knackered Vax (
bought 1987) at the same time. The motor is knackered and it doesnt suck.
Apparently I am supposed to repair it ( I was told by the repair people it
was not economic to do so!).

We have got to the point now where you are not allowed to throw anything
away. You are not allowed to burn anything. You are not allowed to dump
anything. Should I rename my house Steptoes Backyard?

So what am I supposed to do? Not replace old appliances? Go without
altogether and live a life of Victorian * luxury* with no mod cons?

In article ,
lynd wrote:
In 1977 I brought my fridge. Its now knackered. Doesnt cool and needs to
be replaced. So I replaced it. Council officer told me I should not have
replaced it - I am an ecologically unfriendly person for getting rid of
an old appliance!

Complain in writing to his superior.

--
*Sherlock Holmes never said "Elementary, my dear Watson" *

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

On Sat, 3 Dec 2005 10:11:17 +0000 (UTC), "lynd"
wrote:

Has anyone else had the experience of a local council getting sh*tty because
you have asked them to take away a fridge? They are charging me £20 anyway,
but thats not the issue, I was made to feel really guilty for daring to get
rid of my old appliance and get a new one at all!

IME, council waste departments seem to attract two main types of
people:

- Those who are managing an outsource contractor and taking phone
calls from customers complaining about bins not being emptied etc. I
had occasion to have a "discussion" with one of these some while ago
when the collection policy was changed from one of collecting bins at
the house to bins must be at edge of property. I have quite a long
drive and it was a PITA. Their opening line was that this was a
health and safety issue and that the operatives weren't insured to go
on people's property. I didn't buy it. Eventually I spoke to the
manager who admitted that it was a time and cost issue in their
contract negotiation. Fine. I don't have a problem with that - they
could have simply told the truth in the first place.

- The socialist jobsworths on a crusade and who are unemployable
anywhere else. Poorly paid and realising they control a resource that
you want, they will play it for all it's worth. There is a very
simple solution to this nonsense. Tell them that they are not
empowered by their employer to make social or any other judgments and
are there to implement the service that their employer says that they
provide. Further tell them that you expect that to be provided
expeditiously, you will pay the defined charge and that is that.
Threaten to escalate the issue if they don't co-operate. The do it
anyway. Write to the chief executive of the council and your
councillor. These people need to be weeded out of these positions.





I heard of recycling but this is silly.

Yes of course it is.


In 1977 I brought my fridge. Its now knackered. Doesnt cool and needs to be
replaced. So I replaced it. Council officer told me I should not have
replaced it - I am an ecologically unfriendly person for getting rid of an
old appliance!

What am I supposed to do?

You use the procedure that the council has to provide and you pay for
it. That's it.





Ditto experience when I went to the amenity tip/ recycling tip with my old
microwave ( bought 1981). Old microwave has a hole in it. It is rusted
through. I got a new one. They told me I should not be dumping my old one
because I was making waste! Unfortunately I took my old knackered Vax (
bought 1987) at the same time. The motor is knackered and it doesnt suck.
Apparently I am supposed to repair it ( I was told by the repair people it
was not economic to do so!).

These places are another magnet for jobsworths, although most at these
places are into selling stuff on the side. The technique is to let
them have their say, ignore it completely and then ask where you put
the item, thanking them for their co-operation.




We have got to the point now where you are not allowed to throw anything
away. You are not allowed to burn anything. You are not allowed to dump
anything. Should I rename my house Steptoes Backyard?

So what am I supposed to do? Not replace old appliances? Go without
altogether and live a life of Victorian * luxury* with no mod cons?


I think that the answer is simple:

- Recycle when it is convenient and economically sensible to do so.

- Make product choices based on ecological considerations provided
that again they are economically sensible and also products are fit
for purpose.

- Expect to pay for disposal. Having said that, increasingly
manufacturers will be expected to play a part in facilitating or
paying for that. Of course, the customer will pay in the end.


--

..andy

On Sat, 3 Dec 2005 10:11:17 +0000 (UTC), "lynd"
wrote:

Has anyone else had the experience of a local council getting sh*tty because
you have asked them to take away a fridge? They are charging me £20 anyway,
but thats not the issue, I was made to feel really guilty for daring to get
rid of my old appliance and get a new one at all!

The whole recycling system is a joke.

Some types of waste Councils do not want. Other types of waste they
really do want.

The Government has set local authorities a target based on weight in
respect of the recycling of certain types of waste. This does not
encourage a local authority to recycle in the most effective way.

For example, take the recycling of glass and aluminium.

The UK now produces so much recycled green glass that we sell the
excess to China. However, we produce insufficient aluminium in the UK
that we have to import it from Europe.

Solution: We need to encourage greater recycling of aluminium.
However, this will not particularly help a local authority to meet
their recycling weight target, because aluminium is considerably
lighter in weight than glass. In order to meet weight targets, a local
authority is more likely to push glass and paper recycling.

Graham

"lynd" wrote in message
...
Has anyone else had the experience of a local council getting sh*tty
because
you have asked them to take away a fridge? They are charging me £20
anyway,
but thats not the issue, I was made to feel really guilty for daring to
get
rid of my old appliance and get a new one at all!

I heard of recycling but this is silly.

In 1977 I brought my fridge. Its now knackered. Doesnt cool and needs to
be
replaced. So I replaced it. Council officer told me I should not have
replaced it - I am an ecologically unfriendly person for getting rid of an
old appliance!

From next year councils will be fined for exceeding quotas of rubbish just
buried instead of recycled. The figures run into several hundred thousand
pounds.

The councils are between a rock and a hard place. So blame it all on
central government.


bland

Our local council [NW lancs] gets rid of approx 1 skip full of
bicycles a month. these go for scrap when asked about re;cycling them
for repair and resale they quoted H&S isssues. BO!!OCKS. It doesn't
stop the local council employed skip rats running their own private
scheme, routing through binbags for stock for their car boot sales!!!!
IMHO one step above a pikey!


--
Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG

Huge wrote:
"lynd" writes:
Has anyone else had the experience of a local council getting sh*tty
because you have asked them to take away a fridge? They are
charging me £20 anyway, but thats not the issue, I was made to feel
really guilty for daring to get rid of my old appliance and get a
new one at all!

I heard of recycling but this is silly.

In 1977 I brought my fridge. Its now knackered. Doesnt cool and
needs to be replaced. So I replaced it. Council officer told me I
should not have replaced it - I am an ecologically unfriendly person
for getting rid of an old appliance!

What am I supposed to do?

Tell him to get ****ed and dump it in a layby, like everyone else.

Who's everyone? certainly not me.

--
Sir Benjamin Middlethwaite

In article ,
writes:
The whole recycling system is a joke.

A friend of mine used to do PAT testing for an organisation which
would try to recycle washing machines, fridges, freezers, etc which
people chuck out. They were collected up and where necessary repaired
using parts from other ones, and then tested and provided to people
who couldn't afford to buy such items themselves.

The EU recycling regs completely killed this recycling activity.
They inevitably produce a large amount of white goods waste (non-
repairable machines raided for parts), and the cost of dealing with
that would have required selling the repaired machines at near to
the new prices. The fact that they were actually reducing the amount
of waste by taking in more chucked-out machines than they produced
and recycling them was irrelevant.

The UK now produces so much recycled green glass that we sell the
excess to China.

The phrase "driving to the bottle bank" is commonly used as a
reference to the futility of some types of recycling. If you have
to drive to a bottle bank, it's more environmentally friendly to
drop the glass in your regular landfill rubbish.

--
Andrew Gabriel

On Sat, 3 Dec 2005 10:18:50 +0000 (UTC), "lynd"
wrote:

Fwiw, I might add, I am getting so p*ssed off with all this eco stuff that
I am getting to the point where I think sod you all and it will last my
lifetime ( which it probably will!)

Shouting at people for changing fridge's every 25 years is not the way to go
here. I would have understood if I was doing the designer thing and
throwing out goods because they didn't fit in with the colour of my dogs
coat!


If you were shouted at you should most definately complain.
It is not in any council employees description to shoout at members of
the public (unless their job is chief of shouting at people)

--
Promotional codes, discounts, money off
http://www.promotionalcode.co.uk/
http://www.moneyoffvouchers.co.uk

lynd wrote:
Has anyone else had the experience of a local council getting sh*tty
because you have asked them to take away a fridge?

I'd remind them that it is simply their job to provide the services you pay
(no doubt) huge sums of council tax for. It is not their job to make social
or any other judgments (as Andy Hall put so well).

Dave

On Sat, 03 Dec 2005 17:04:48 +0000, mogga wrote:

If you were shouted at you should most definately complain.
It is not in any council employees description to shoout at members of
the public (unless their job is chief of shouting at people)

Or town crier

In article ,
Owain writes:

I don't know when it comes in, but I think WEE (waste electrical

It just got postponed again in the UK, IIRC from Janurary 2006 to
June 2006, because no one's even remotely ready for it (and I think
it's WEEE). Government hasn't yet started setting up its register
of manufacturers/importers, AFAIK. However, much of the rest of
the EU is in the same position.

equipment) regulations mean the seller of the new one will have to take
the old one back.

It means the manufacturer (or importer) is responsible for disposal.
In practice, it may be implemented as you suggest.

--
Andrew Gabriel

On 03 Dec 2005 14:49:58 GMT, Andrew Gabriel wrote:

The phrase "driving to the bottle bank" is commonly used as a
reference to the futility of some types of recycling. If you have
to drive to a bottle bank, it's more environmentally friendly to
drop the glass in your regular landfill rubbish.

Presumably only when making a special journey just to the bottle bank.

If the journey is going to be made anyway, the extra fuel that the
added weight of a few bottles are going to use is minimal.

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail

On Sat, 3 Dec 2005 10:11:17 +0000 (UTC), lynd wrote:

In 1977 I brought my fridge. Its now knackered. Doesnt cool and
needs to be replaced. So I replaced it.

Didn't the place you bought the new one from have a (free?) scheme to
take away the old one? Plenty of "exchanged" fridges out the back of
Comet, Carlisle with large red stickers on wibbling something about
the enviroment.
--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail

Andrew Gabriel wrote:

The phrase "driving to the bottle bank" is commonly used as a
reference to the futility of some types of recycling. If you have
to drive to a bottle bank, it's more environmentally friendly to
drop the glass in your regular landfill rubbish.

We had a glass/cans/paper collection bin provided recently. The idea
being you collect such items in this bin and it gets emptied on the same
day as the bins every other week.

So far so good. But I do wonder how much environmental cost is there in
everyone using now washing up cans and bottles that would previously
have just been binned, on the grounds that they don't want soiled
containers sitting about in the open air for a fortnight?

--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On Sun, 04 Dec 2005 00:21:30 +0000, John Rumm
wrote:

We had a glass/cans/paper collection bin provided recently. The idea
being you collect such items in this bin and it gets emptied on the same
day as the bins every other week.

So far so good. But I do wonder how much environmental cost is there in
everyone using now washing up cans and bottles that would previously
have just been binned, on the grounds that they don't want soiled
containers sitting about in the open air for a fortnight?

We've had the same thing for a while now. They expect you to cut
windows out of envelopes before "recycling" them. Sod that.

I rarely use the recycling box - I walk a couple of hundred yards to
Sainsbury's where there are recycling bin-type-thingies.

And I rinse jars out, but never wash up cans.

--
Frank Erskine

In article ,
writes

In order to meet weight targets, a local
authority is more likely to push glass and paper recycling.

And garden waste, which our local council has started collecting every
two weeks for composting. The compost is then sold back to Joe Public
at two quid a bag...

On Sun, 4 Dec 2005 09:22:38 +0000, Mike Tomlinson
wrote:

In article ,
writes

In order to meet weight targets, a local
authority is more likely to push glass and paper recycling.

And garden waste, which our local council has started collecting every
two weeks for composting. The compost is then sold back to Joe Public
at two quid a bag...



Without thinking about the detailed economics, somebody has at least
thought about that and turned a problem into an opportunity.

Ours has done the typically stupid thing of being willing to collect
one bag per week, or you can buy special bags from them. However, you
have to go to the council offices, where there is no parking, to buy
them for a pound each. Either that, or take the whole lot to the
tip.

--

..andy

In 1977 I brought my fridge. Its now knackered. Doesnt cool and needs to be
replaced. So I replaced it. Council officer told me I should not have
replaced it - I am an ecologically unfriendly person for getting rid of an
old appliance!

I thought old fridges were inefficient, so it would be environmentally
unfriendly to keep it in use even if repaired. Fridges that run but don't
cool usually do so because they have leaked some or all of the coolant gas
already.

BTW I have 3 half-full cans of foam filler, with the nozzles bunged up. I
asked my council if they have a hazardous waste facility for these, they
said to chuck in the wheelie bin. Does this sound wise?.

Egremont.

On Sun, 4 Dec 2005 00:30:35 +0000 (UTC), Frank Erskine
wrote:


We've had the same thing for a while now. They expect you to cut
windows out of envelopes before "recycling" them. Sod that.

I rarely use the recycling box - I walk a couple of hundred yards to
Sainsbury's where there are recycling bin-type-thingies.

And I rinse jars out, but never wash up cans.

Apparently, clear glass is the most valuable of brown, green and clear
glass.

However, if bottle banked clear glass is contaminated by more than 7%
with coloured glass then it is not worth so much. (7% figure is taken
from several years ago - it may have changed and may vary from
location to location).

Many local authorities would offer brown, green, clear bottle banks.
However, all the glass would be emptied into one single truck because
joe public is too stupid to put the bottles in the correct banks. The
glass is then sold as mixed.

Graham

On Sun, 04 Dec 2005 11:08:36 GMT, "Egremont"
wrote:


I thought old fridges were inefficient, so it would be environmentally
unfriendly to keep it in use even if repaired. Fridges that run but don't
cool usually do so because they have leaked some or all of the coolant gas
already.

Apparently, with old fridges there is more cfcs contained in the
insulating material than there is in the refrigerant coolant system
itself. Merely draining off the refrigerant - which is relatively
simple to do - does not solve the problem.

The bulk of the cfcs in the fridge will be released when the fridge is
broken up or crushed.

The proper machines designed to recycle fridges are airtight. The
fridge goes in one end through an airlock. The machine is crushed and
any gasses released from the insulation are trapped within the machine
and then stored.

Graham

On Sun, 04 Dec 2005 11:08:36 GMT, "Egremont"
wrote:


In 1977 I brought my fridge. Its now knackered. Doesnt cool and needs to be
replaced. So I replaced it. Council officer told me I should not have
replaced it - I am an ecologically unfriendly person for getting rid of an
old appliance!

I thought old fridges were inefficient, so it would be environmentally
unfriendly to keep it in use even if repaired. Fridges that run but don't
cool usually do so because they have leaked some or all of the coolant gas
already.

BTW I have 3 half-full cans of foam filler, with the nozzles bunged up. I
asked my council if they have a hazardous waste facility for these, they
said to chuck in the wheelie bin. Does this sound wise?.

Egremont.



It would be an expensive, although amusing wheeze to put a load of
these or a large one into a wheelie bin in the hope that the crusher
would pierce them, thus leading to a huge expansion of said stuff in
their wagon that they then have to deal with.

--

..andy

In article ,
writes:

Many local authorities would offer brown, green, clear bottle banks.

All the ones I've seen do.

However, all the glass would be emptied into one single truck because
joe public is too stupid to put the bottles in the correct banks. The
glass is then sold as mixed.

Maybe that varies by location?

--
Andrew Gabriel

In article ,
Mike Tomlinson writes:

And garden waste, which our local council has started collecting every
two weeks for composting. The compost is then sold back to Joe Public
at two quid a bag...

Yes, of the two local councils I'm familiar with, one does this
and makes a profit out of it, which is fine by me. The other one
charges £25 for a bag which lasts a year and is collected
every other week. I suspect most people just hide their garden
refuse in the regular rubbish.

It's looking like most councils will be changing the regular
refuse collection to every two weeks over the next year.

--
Andrew Gabriel

I monitored a refuse & recycling contract for three years. You are
right to be concerned. In the last ten to fifteen years, local
authorities have been cutting back on refuse collection services across
the board because they are obliged to meet strict recycling quotas.
This has given refuse contractors carte blanche to be as picky and
fussy as they like about what they will or won't pick up. You can waste
hours on the phone to the local authority complaining about these
issues, but the only way that you will achieve any change is to lobby
either your local councillor or the committee responsible for the
service, ideally with a petition signed by others. If that has no
effect, try to get the local media involved, because nothing scares an
elected councillor more than the thought of bad publicity.

Fridges, cars, DIY material, car batteries etc etc - although local
authorities are obliged to provide facilities for disposing of these
things, there are allowed to charge. It used to be that second hand car
dealers would fight over the rights to impound abandoned cars - legion
are the stories about backhanders thrown to highways inspectors in
return for scrap cars - but now no one wants them, what with the low
cost of second hand cars, so the councils charge high fees just for
scrapping a vehicle, because the car dealers don't want them anymore.

Taxpayers who can't drive to amenity tips are being discriminated
against because they have to pay extra to the refuse contractor to
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.

For years local government ignored the issue of recycling. These were
the golden days when binmen would collect anything. Then when the
horrendous cost of recycling was suddenly realised, swingeing cuts were
made to the general refuse collection service (along with cuts to
street cleaning and similar grounds maintenance work). To make matters
worse, so much is now being recycled that the value of recycled paper,
glass and metal has tumbled, meaning that local authorities get far
less income than they had budgetted for.

In article , Andy Hall
writes

Without thinking about the detailed economics, somebody has at least
thought about that and turned a problem into an opportunity.

I agree, though can't help idly wondering whether the benefit to the
environment is offset by the manufacture and distribution of the half-
ton woven re-usable plastic bags for collecting the waste (distributed
free to every household, whether they wanted it or not, by the council),
the fuel used by the trucks to collect and empty the bags, and the fuel
used by people going to and from the central point used to distribute
the resultant compost.

My suspicion is that all this garden waste is weighed and used by the
council to offset the tax they will be paying on recycling vs. landfill
ratios next year, as mentioned earlier in the thread. And as the bags
are open and the waste gets wet, it weighs more...

However, you
have to go to the council offices, where there is no parking, to buy
them for a pound each.

Typical council mentality.

Either that, or take the whole lot to the
tip.

Our local tip has a crusher for "green waste", which is presumably also
composted. I used it a lot earlier this year, before the collection
service came into being.

In article , Andrew Gabriel
writes

Yes, of the two local councils I'm familiar with, one does this
and makes a profit out of it, which is fine by me.

Me too, as long as it goes into local services or is used to reduce
council tax.

It's looking like most councils will be changing the regular
refuse collection to every two weeks over the next year.

I think this is acceptable as long as provision is also made for
recycling refuse that would otherwise have gone into the bin (paper,
glass, garden waste, etc.) so that the bin doesn't fill up as quickly.
Judging by the bins on collection day though, I suspect that some
families will have trouble. We're still on weekly collection around
here.

On 04 Dec 2005 12:13:16 GMT, (Andrew
Gabriel) wrote:

In article ,
writes:

Many local authorities would offer brown, green, clear bottle banks.

All the ones I've seen do.

It seems that nearly all local authorities still collect the glass
separately. However, it can end up all being transferred into a single
lorry.

However, all the glass would be emptied into one single truck because
joe public is too stupid to put the bottles in the correct banks. The
glass is then sold as mixed.

Maybe that varies by location?

A friend who worked for a local authority said he was unaware of any
local authorities who were able to offer clear glass than was less
than 7% contaminated.

It doesn't surprise me. I regularly see idiots using the bottle bank
who stick the whole lot into just one bank.

Graham

On Sat, 3 Dec 2005 21:00:50 UTC, Owain
wrote:

Between Part P and WEEE we seem to have an increase in ****-poor
legislation.

Never mind, the police will be too busy picking up 17 year old smokers
to do anything...!

--
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

Huge wrote:
writes:
I monitored a refuse & recycling contract for three years. You are
right to be concerned. In the last ten to fifteen years, local
authorities have been cutting back on refuse collection services across
the board

Yet another of the large, and increasing, ways in which the State
extorts taxes for a service, then fails to provide the service. And
another example of behaviour which if it were the private sector, would
be illegal.

[13 lines snipped]

It used to be that second hand car
dealers would fight over the rights to impound abandoned cars - legion
are the stories about backhanders thrown to highways inspectors in
return for scrap cars - but now no one wants them, what with the low
cost of second hand cars, so the councils charge high fees just for
scrapping a vehicle, because the car dealers don't want them anymore.

You're a tad out of date. The price of scrap steel has gone back up to the
point where it is economic to scrap cars again, hence all the ones
abandoned by the roadside have vanished.

[6 lines snipped]

For years local government ignored the issue of recycling. These were
the golden days when binmen would collect anything. Then when the
horrendous cost of recycling was suddenly realised, swingeing cuts were
made to the general refuse collection service (along with cuts to
street cleaning and similar grounds maintenance work). To make matters
worse, so much is now being recycled that the value of recycled paper,
glass and metal has tumbled, meaning that local authorities get far
less income than they had budgetted for.

The message contained therein being that recycling is generally
speaking a waste of time.


--
"Other people are not your property."
[email me at huge [at] huge [dot] org [dot] uk]

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

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.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember (Andrew
Gabriel) saying something like:

However, all the glass would be emptied into one single truck because
joe public is too stupid to put the bottles in the correct banks. The
glass is then sold as mixed.

Maybe that varies by location?

I've regularly seen the collection truck tip all 3 bottle banks into the
one opentop trailer. Makes a mockery of the whole thing, imo.
--

Dave

In article .com,
wrote:
but now no one wants them, what with the low
cost of second hand cars, so the councils charge high fees just for
scrapping a vehicle, because the car dealers don't want them anymore.

This is out of date. A bare bodyshell from the average car is worth about
25 quid these days. And of course the dismantler may make more by selling
secondhand parts.

--
*I didn't fight my way to the top of the food chain to be a vegetarian.

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

On Sun, 04 Dec 2005 15:54:42 +0000, Grimly Curmudgeon
wrote:


I've regularly seen the collection truck tip all 3 bottle banks into the
one opentop trailer. Makes a mockery of the whole thing, imo.

The council can't win.

If people mix the glass then there is no point taking the glass away
is separate lots. This is waste.

If people see the glass being mixed by the council they might conclude
that there is no point sorting the glass when they put it into the
bottle banks.

Graham

On 4 Dec 2005 06:54:23 -0800, 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.

It was recently suggested that within the next 10 years all the land
fill sites will be full.

My partner and I used to produce around 1 wheeley bin of rubbish per
week.

We now recycle our paper, cardboard, glass, steel and aluminium. We
now produce 1 wheeley bin of rubbish per month.

Graham

wrote in message
...
On Sun, 04 Dec 2005 15:54:42 +0000, Grimly Curmudgeon
wrote:


I've regularly seen the collection truck tip all 3 bottle banks into the
one opentop trailer. Makes a mockery of the whole thing, imo.

The council can't win.


Yes they can, they can forget the farce of having different
bins. This has the additional benefit of being able to have
them in more places.

tim

wrote:
On Sun, 04 Dec 2005 15:54:42 +0000, Grimly Curmudgeon
wrote:


I've regularly seen the collection truck tip all 3 bottle banks into the
one opentop trailer. Makes a mockery of the whole thing, imo.

The council can't win.

If people mix the glass then there is no point taking the glass away
is separate lots. This is waste.

If people see the glass being mixed by the council they might conclude
that there is no point sorting the glass when they put it into the
bottle banks.

And when people like me see the council taking all the recycled rubbish
and putting it in the same vehicle as the domestic refuse, we know it's
all a con.

A contract I was working on recently scored a big pat on the back for
recycling. For using up a previously unusable mountain of glass cullet
as landfill.

Not only that, but *no* recycling scheme ever undergoes an audit to cost
out if it has a positive or negative environmental impact. I for one
don't believe that the gallons of water, soap, and fuel wasted in
cleaning and transporting waste from consumer to recycling has any net
positive effect.

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.

Owain



Does this mean that they'll all go bust in about 20 years time?

I do hope so.....


--

..andy

Grimly Curmudgeon wrote:
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember (Andrew
Gabriel) saying something like:


However, all the glass would be emptied into one single truck because
joe public is too stupid to put the bottles in the correct banks. The
glass is then sold as mixed.

Maybe that varies by location?


I've regularly seen the collection truck tip all 3 bottle banks into the
one opentop trailer. Makes a mockery of the whole thing, imo.

I've seen worse than that!

Wife works for local council and got involved in one of their fun days
for the public. The park where it was held was stocked with a plentiful
supply of various coloured bins, so that joe public could put glass in
one, paper in another etc.

A few days later, I was at the same place, waiting to pick her up. In
came the council's refuse contractors, who proceeded to empty every
single bin into the same wagon.

It turns out that only domestic rubbish is recycled. Industrial and
council waste is not paid for by the government, so they just bundle it
all in the same place.


Dave

"Mike Tomlinson" wrote in message
...
In article , Andrew Gabriel
writes

Yes, of the two local councils I'm familiar with, one does this
and makes a profit out of it, which is fine by me.

Me too, as long as it goes into local services or is used to reduce
council tax.

It's looking like most councils will be changing the regular
refuse collection to every two weeks over the next year.

I think this is acceptable as long as provision is also made for
recycling refuse that would otherwise have gone into the bin (paper,
glass, garden waste, etc.) so that the bin doesn't fill up as quickly.
Judging by the bins on collection day though, I suspect that some
families will have trouble. We're still on weekly collection around
here.



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. We still have a filled
(uncompressed) 'recycle' waste bin on the other week (3-kids 2 adult family)
and I compost my green/kitchen waste!!! (use the four woven backs for
storage in the shed - waste not want not :-))

--
(º·.¸(¨*·.¸ ¸.·*¨)¸.·º)
.·°·. NIK .·°·.
(¸.·º(¸.·¨* *¨·.¸)º·.¸)