Andy Hall wrote:
On 2006-12-04 16:48:31 +0000, John Beardmore said:

The inevitable result is overpricing and poor quality. The only way
to defend that is not to have any competition so that people have
comparison points.

This strikes me as a political belief rather than an observation based
on what can be observed in the town hall.

One only has to look in a few places to see a consistent malaise.

Guess I just look under different rocks.

Perhaps that's where you are going wrong. The malaise is in broad
daylight for all to see.

I know what you mean in some departments, but it's not universal. I'm
going to support the people in LAs that are worth supporting.

You must spend a lot of time looking.

or not looking a all, and just assuming


Didn't your environmental studies course have anything about business
principles..?

Well up to a point, but they don't generally encourage the provision of
redundant services to gratify and ideological lust for choice where any
marginal benefit from the provision of choice is swamped by increasing
the environmental footprint of the service provision of a whole.

Not in touch with reality then...

Its odd how many put whatever theyre taught on a pedestal. The 'well..'
paragraph above describes some real naivete.


And calling it a "Home Care" package implies that there is more
bundled into it than waste collection. I thought you only wanted to
pay for what you used ?

So create "Home Care" bronze, silver and gold products.

Bronze is basic rubbish collection, silver includes collecting
additional things such as garden rubbish etc. and gold includes rat
catching and wasp nest destruction; or whatever. Just illustrations.

I suspect many will opt for the 'wet paper medal' home care package.
This should cut costs, staff use, vehicle miles, energy use and
pollution greatly.


Hmmm... The only people to whom this kind of thing seems to appeal are
those who seem to be obsessed by the provision of choice a matter of
principle. Still - make it an election issue, and see how far you
get. It'd be interesting to see.

I think it will....

I dont believe it'll happen any day soon, as recycling is a vehicle for
taking more of our money, using it to pay for services that companies
then profit from. And that games been going on for along time. The
Olympics is another example.


NT

On 6 Dec 2006 04:18:20 -0800 wrote :
A friend and I in the mid 70s used to retrieve Flymos from the dump
and make 'em work again. Made a nice income from that which was
very welcome to a couple of teenagers.

this kind of thing is educational and gets kids into subjects at which
they later do well. So now its illegal, and we have armies of bored
clueless kids instead. Thanks Nanny.

Now we have Flymos (like the 15-month old one in my garage) which are
destined for the dump because they are unfixable.

--
Tony Bryer SDA UK 'Software to build on' http://www.sda.co.uk

On 6 Dec 2006 04:21:07 -0800 someone who may be
wrote this:-

I doubt if even ten minutes a week would make any difference to the
solving of problems by the competent, especially as they can still
think about these problems as they do the sorting.

doesnt sound like comprehension to me

Doesn't it.

Well, people can draw their own conclusions from that.



--
David Hansen, Edinburgh
I will *always* explain revoked encryption keys, unless RIP prevents me
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/00023--e.htm#54

On 2006-12-06 12:49:16 +0000, said:

Andy Hall wrote:
On 2006-12-04 16:48:31 +0000, John Beardmore said:

Well up to a point, but they don't generally encourage the provision of
redundant services to gratify and ideological lust for choice where any
marginal benefit from the provision of choice is swamped by increasing
the environmental footprint of the service provision of a whole.

Not in touch with reality then...

Its odd how many put whatever theyre taught on a pedestal. The 'well..'
paragraph above describes some real naivete.

Quite amazing. I've always considered education to be about finding
out things for one's self, questioning
them and sifting the important and influencing from the dross. The
last thing that I have felt it to be was being fed
a package of goods and treating it as sacrosanct. I suspect that
that is one reason for my not wanting to buy
unquestioningly into mindless ecobabble for the sake of it.

On 6 Dec 2006 02:58:01 -0800 someone who may be
wrote this:-

There appear to be rather a lot of assumptions behind your remark.

Any extra container than the main black binbag one has to take up more
space, it cant fail to.

You are assuming that people have a "main black binbag".
Next contestant please.

Outside the "junk" should be inside suitable containers, a bin or
box, rather then bags.

Maybe you should tell our LA.

They don't provide a bin or box for recyclables? Where is this
council?

And how do these "fill up with neighbourhood rubbish"?

people put junk in them

Really. How do they manage this?


--
David Hansen, Edinburgh
I will *always* explain revoked encryption keys, unless RIP prevents me
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/00023--e.htm#54

On 6 Dec 2006 04:39:40 -0800 someone who may be
wrote this:-

and bizarrely, some people want these folk to have a monopoly on their
waste services!

There is only one "minor" flaw with your assertion. Councils don't
have a monopoly. Unlike the situation with gas and electricity bills
some years ago any householder can contract with any supplier to
deal with their waste.

However, as with roads, education, defence and many other things the
householder will not get a discount if they don't use the government
provided service.


--
David Hansen, Edinburgh
I will *always* explain revoked encryption keys, unless RIP prevents me
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/00023--e.htm#54

On 2006-12-06 13:54:50 +0000, David Hansen
said:

On 6 Dec 2006 04:39:40 -0800 someone who may be
wrote this:-

and bizarrely, some people want these folk to have a monopoly on their
waste services!

There is only one "minor" flaw with your assertion. Councils don't
have a monopoly. Unlike the situation with gas and electricity bills
some years ago any householder can contract with any supplier to
deal with their waste.

However, as with roads, education, defence and many other things the
householder will not get a discount if they don't use the government
provided service.

So a monopoly.

Private armies seem not to be appreciated for some reason, so let's
leave that one aside.

However, if I use a toll bridge or toll road I pay for them, otherwise I don't.

On Wed, 06 Dec 2006 12:23:54 +0000 Owain wrote :
Jumble sales and the like are done by people wanting to sell
things for money. Council tips are run by councils.

Jumble sales are run by organisations who aren't worth suing.
There's a certain breed of lawyer who make money suing over uneven
pavements: they would have a field day with people injuring
themselves (for real or otherwise) on things got from the dump.

--
Tony Bryer SDA UK 'Software to build on' http://www.sda.co.uk

On 2006-12-06 20:00:18 +0000, Tony Bryer said:

On Wed, 06 Dec 2006 12:23:54 +0000 Owain wrote :
Jumble sales and the like are done by people wanting to sell
things for money. Council tips are run by councils.

Jumble sales are run by organisations who aren't worth suing. There's
a certain breed of lawyer who make money suing over uneven pavements:

They normally seem to come from out of the drains.......

aka ambulance chasers.

they would have a field day with people injuring themselves (for real
or otherwise) on things got from the dump.

In message . com,
writes
John Beardmore wrote:
In message , Andy Hall writes
On 2006-11-29 00:25:37 +0000, John Beardmore
said:
In message , Andy Hall writes

More people,
equipment and road miles may be involved.

as may be less. Its really not difficult to see how that could occur.

Also you keep saying more vehicles, without offering any evidence that
this is the way it will go down in practice.

Well, equally, as Andy declines to give any detail, I don't see any
reason to assume it need be any lower footprint either.

It's really Andy who has pushed this agenda, but I'm not convinced in
the absence of a hard proposal, that he can know that there would be a
reduction in foot print, or that he cares much. It's not his priority.


As far as pricing is concerned, the market will decide. One element
of the market is price competition.

Well - the average consumer may feel they've been had if it does work
out more expensive.

I'm tempted to call the other examples of demonopolisation, such as
electricity, gas, phone.

Be tempted. But maybe this is more like delivered milk or groceries ?


You would be at liberty to choose a supplier who operates in the same
way as your existing one.

Which guarantees nothing about the change to multiple providers as a
whole.

whats this preoccupation with guarantees? Clearly life doesnt give
guarantees, wise decisions just give us the best odds.

Yes - my point is only that saying "You would be at liberty to choose a
supplier who operates in the same way as your existing one" doesn't
guarantee anything about environmental performance or answer my concerns
in any respect, and indeed if other services are run as well, it's
impossible to see how the aggregate footprint of moving that material
could be lower.


I also told you that the term "environmental impact" is whatever the
individual decides it is.

You may have told me that, but an MSc course in environmental decision
making tells me otherwise.

Which do you think I'm going to believe ?

I get the feeling its whatever you were told.

No - being told isn't enough. What you are told has to 'add up' and
make sense !


That depends on what you mean by "environmental foot print"

No it isn't. It's been understood for a long time, and has been refined
somewhat over time, but broadly goes like this.

Environmental Footprint is an indicator of consumption. It is
calculated in terms of the amount of area required to deliver the
things we consume, in such a way that there is no net use of
non-renewable resources.

If anything, Environmental Footprint estimates tend be
conservative indicators of resource use because it is virtually
impossible to build a complete list of all the things we use.

In the context of Environmental Footprint calculations, 'area'
means biologically viable land or sea required to grow the
required resources we live on, and to incorporate the waste
produced as a consequence of their consumption back into
that biological system.

The area units used are hectares with world average
productivity. This area may be analysed in terms of
requirements for cropland, grazing land, forest to grow raw
materials, sea for fish and seafood production, land for
housing, work and infrastructure, and land to fix carbon
dioxide emissions arising from energy use.

Because the area of available land and sea habitats are
known, this indicator enables comparison between the
footprint areas required by individuals, populations, or
processes, and that available locally or globally.

Are you going to tell us you dont see any issues with that definition?

Well - clearly it is prone to underestimate, but it seems to be a
pretty useful and largely quantitative way of looking at the problem.


Or that you think everyone agrees with it?

Well - environmentalists seem to. As they coiled the phrase, defined
it and refined the meaning, I think it's fair to say that as much as
most other technical term there is good consensus.

Of course you may choose to give it some other meaning altogether, but
I'm not sure that's any more sensible than calling a food mixed a
microprocessor.


While slightly different definitions used by different researchers may
give rise to slightly different methodologies, as long as the same
methodology is used when making comparisons, a fairly accurate relative
measure can be obtained for individuals, populations, processes etc, and
all methodologies give broadly similar results.

as long as the same definiton is used, the same errors will be present.

In indeed there are any - or at least any that aren't recognised as
inherent to the technique.

Anyway - if you've got any bright ideas for better ways to work it out
that's fine. If not, random redefinition is probably petty pointless.


To say "The definition is individual" shows a pretty complete lack of
understanding of the field.

it may be just an acknowledgement of the fact that not everyone buys
this approach.

Then they can say

'Footprint calculations don't work because...'

That's not the same thing as redefining what it is agreed to mean.


No - all work to reduce environmental impact is done in the context of
supporting life on the planet, ours included.

If thats true then these assessments arent worth much, given the way
Britain behaves towards the 3rd world countries it deals with. What is
the result of your assessments concerning trade with china, africa etc?

Who knows ? I don't spend my whole life doing LCAs.

But how does the action of UK PLC render the assessments worthless ?

LCA might indicate various things about all sorts of activities, and
these indications will be correct if the LCAs are carried out
objectively. They won't be 'worth' any less just because of the
character of the system or process analysed, any more than a voltage
will be 'worth' any less in a toaster than a TV.


For example, the United States is not signing up for Kyoto because
they believe that to do so would damage their economy. The Chinese are
not stopping building power stations, presumably for similar reasons.

Quite so, but none of this means we should do nothing.

The fact that much of the solution is not trivially delivered does not
mean that the problem that needs addressing has gone away.

its not that the solution is non-trivial, right now the issue is that
the solution isnt available.

THE solution ??


No-one has even proposed any method that
would reduce the worlds environmental footprint - and by that I mean a
system based in reality that is likely to work. There is no such
solution today.

There is certainly no single solution, but there are many things that
can contribute to a reduction. Recycling is one such.

Nobody has ever said there is a single 'magic bullet'.


With only 2% of the worlds population there is nothing Britain can do
today to solve the problem by acting within our own borders.

Except contribute.

Your arguments leads to the conclusion that

nobody should do anything because nobody can do everything

where as those with a little more presence of mind see that

if everybody does something, everybody can achieve anything.


The only
real solution si to devise methods that both can be applied
internatinally, and for which there is an incentive to apply them
worldwide. The real climate problem solvers are not footprint
assessments, but technology innovators.

Well - as I've said, fusion might get us out of a hole, but it seems
dumb to 'bet the farm' on technologies that may never emerge while we
are already doing damage at an alarming rate.


By all means try and find better ways to deal with the situation, but I
don't buy it that 'business as usual' is the answer.

It is because it gives people what they want. If you think this and
that need changing, convince people. If you can, if they vote for your
ideas with their wallet, theyll buy from business that offer what they
want.

Actually they seem to be voting for them in the European Parliament
as well...


The environmental lobby needs to go away and learn some economic
realities and then come with solutions that will allow sustainable
economies.

This isn't some problem owned by environmentalists for their amusement.

It's a problem owned by all of us that all of us have contributed to.

yes, but Andys comment above is still quite right. Enviro types really
have not got a handle on it yet.

Depends what you think 'IT' is ! There are certainly 'ITs' that the
'knit your own yoghurt' environmentalists miss, but equally there are
many that are over the horizons industry looks to too.


Just as awareness is now much better
than in the 70s, perhaps this interest group will come of age in the
future and come up with some real solutions.

This problem isn't going to be solved by a single interest group, or by
a 'them and us' mentality, but by characterising the problems and
looking for opportunities to fix it at all levels.


Cheers, J/.
--
John Beardmore

On 2006-12-06 21:00:52 +0000, John Beardmore said:

In message . com,
writes

Also you keep saying more vehicles, without offering any evidence that
this is the way it will go down in practice.

Well, equally, as Andy declines to give any detail, I don't see any
reason to assume it need be any lower footprint either.

So the net is that it is an unknown quantity because there is not firm
evidence one way or the other.
Under those circumstances there is no need to have the restraint of
trade from having a single supplier.



It's really Andy who has pushed this agenda, but I'm not convinced in
the absence of a hard proposal, that he can know that there would be a
reduction in foot print, or that he cares much. It's not his priority.

Again, you make assumptions. I do care, but I choose not to address
the issues in the (single) way promoted by a monopoly supplier.




You would be at liberty to choose a supplier who operates in the same
way as your existing one.

Which guarantees nothing about the change to multiple providers as a
whole.

whats this preoccupation with guarantees? Clearly life doesnt give
guarantees, wise decisions just give us the best odds.

Yes - my point is only that saying "You would be at liberty to choose
a supplier who operates in the same way as your existing one" doesn't
guarantee anything about environmental performance or answer my
concerns in any respect, and indeed if other services are run as well,
it's impossible to see how the aggregate footprint of moving that
material could be lower.

.... or higher.....




I also told you that the term "environmental impact" is whatever the
individual decides it is.

You may have told me that, but an MSc course in environmental decision
making tells me otherwise.

Which do you think I'm going to believe ?

I get the feeling its whatever you were told.

No - being told isn't enough. What you are told has to 'add up' and
make sense !

Which is the precise problem with the greenwashing agenda through the LAs.



Or that you think everyone agrees with it?

Well - environmentalists seem to.

Which environmentalists? Are you suggesting that they are incapable
of independent and individual thought?




No-one has even proposed any method that
would reduce the worlds environmental footprint - and by that I mean a
system based in reality that is likely to work. There is no such
solution today.

There is certainly no single solution, but there are many things that
can contribute to a reduction. Recycling is one such.

Nobody has ever said there is a single 'magic bullet'.

Good. Then nobody should have an issue over whether an individual
chooses to buy his rubbish collection on an open market basis from his
supplier of choice without also paying the LA to do it, or indeed the
approach taken.




With only 2% of the worlds population there is nothing Britain can do
today to solve the problem by acting within our own borders.

Except contribute.

There is only a point to this if it makes a tangible difference to the outcome.



Your arguments leads to the conclusion that

nobody should do anything because nobody can do everything

where as those with a little more presence of mind see that

if everybody does something, everybody can achieve anything.

That is naive in the extreme. The focus of the 2% should be on what
it takes to achieve the 98% - i.e. look at the largest aspects of an
issue first. Just because it isn't easy does not mean that it isn't
the correct action.
Unfortunately people seem to think that "doing their bit" is the right
thing to do. The only real effect of that is that they may feel good
about it - it doesn't make a significant difference to the outcome.





The only
real solution si to devise methods that both can be applied
internatinally, and for which there is an incentive to apply them
worldwide. The real climate problem solvers are not footprint
assessments, but technology innovators.

Well - as I've said, fusion might get us out of a hole, but it seems
dumb to 'bet the farm' on technologies that may never emerge while we
are already doing damage at an alarming rate.

Conventional nuclear technology is perfectly able to address the
shortfall until that happens. Little bits here and little bits there
generally result in all of the bits being inadequate because of
insufficient investment in each.

David Hansen wrote:

On Tue, 5 Dec 2006 08:10:40 +0000 someone who may be
(sarah) wrote this:-

You are wedded to the outdated
notion that competition on the free market spit always results in the
best of all possible worlds.

It is not outdated. Rather it is a very simplistic model, suitable
for O Grade economics but not something to rely on in the "real
world". Unfortunately some party politicians cling to it, as they
don't understand the limitations (and probably prefer something
simple).

[-]

That's why I said 'always' :-)

regards
sarah


--
Think of it as evolution in action.

Mary Fisher wrote:

"sarah" wrote in message
. ..

sarah

[1] Note my self-restraint.

Has to be a first time for everything :-)

Damn. Believe me, I've got a brilliant riposte to that, I just can't
post it for posterity. My vaguely Victorian upbringing triumphs over
free speech yet again...

regards
sarah


--
Think of it as evolution in action.

Mary Fisher wrote:

"sarah" wrote in message
...


I know exactly what's coming next. This lady is obviously another
Beardmore, smart as a whip with the intellectual integrity
of a sleazeball politician:

I know sarah IRL and while she is smarter than any whip I know her
intellectual integrity is beyond reproach.

blush

And we don't even always agree :-)

And we are almost always agreeable. At least I think so.

regards
sarah



--
Think of it as evolution in action.

In article , Andy Hall wrote:
However, if I use a toll bridge or toll road I pay for them, otherwise I don't.

You don't get any discount on your general taxation if you don't use a
particular toll bridge, do you?
The tolls on a toll bridge generally only cover part of the costs of
maintenance of the bridge. The capital cost is normally covered from central or
local government funds. Part of the dispute over the cost of the Skye bridge was,
IIRC, that the ownership of the bridge remained with the toll-collecting company
instead of reverting to the state (as a proxy for the people), and that they were
setting the toll to cover the building cost and a profit margin, as well as
maintenance costs.

--
Aidan
Aberdeen, Scotland
Written at Thu, 07 Dec 2006 08:54 GMT, but posted later.

In message , Andy Hall writes
On 2006-12-04 02:54:50 +0000, John Beardmore said:

Obviously, one would hope that you wouldn't seek to reduce the
choice of others who do not have the same order of priorities in
terms of the impact of additional choices of supplier.
I think there should be a debate about it. Many of our choices are
curtailed in the interests of others. I don't think waste disposal is
precious an issue that it should be out of the question that a
democratically elected state make that choice. YMMV.

It does, because the state, and it's local level implementation does
not demonstrate any great skill in that area

The rubbish is collected. What more do you want ?

You want a free market, but this seems to be more to do with your
personal ideology than any particular lack of skill.


If you would like to introduce a social transaction element into
your agreement, then hopefully you can find a supplier to include
it. Quite what that would be - who knows.?
There is one there already I think. That you have no sense of it
comes as little surprise.
Oh I do. For the moment, the supplier is offering the service
that I want (although his choice is limited) to one thing which is
not good).
Secondly, I would prefer to negotiate my own deal rather than
letting the LA do so for me and applying its markup.

Your life really must lack important things to worry about !!

There's actually very little that I *worry* about.

Indeed.


Not sure about the notion of 'mark up' here.

I've explained it clearly enough. It buys the service from an outside
(normally private) supplier. It adds administrative cost in spades

If you want to prove that, get numerate about it.


and sells it to the customer. The administration adds no value,

A bold yet spurious assumption...


so the customer might as well deal direcly with the supplier and cut
out the middle man. Clear enough?

Clear, simple, simplistic, but not in my view correct.


Cheers, J/.
--
John Beardmore

On 2006-12-10 22:50:34 +0000, John Beardmore said:

In message , Andy Hall writes
On 2006-12-04 02:54:50 +0000, John Beardmore said:

Obviously, one would hope that you wouldn't seek to reduce the choice
of others who do not have the same order of priorities in terms of the
impact of additional choices of supplier.
I think there should be a debate about it. Many of our choices are
curtailed in the interests of others. I don't think waste disposal is
precious an issue that it should be out of the question that a
democratically elected state make that choice. YMMV.

It does, because the state, and it's local level implementation does
not demonstrate any great skill in that area

The rubbish is collected. What more do you want ?

Choice of supplier, service and price - I already told you that.



You want a free market, but this seems to be more to do with your
personal ideology than any particular lack of skill.

It's not a personal ideology, rather a recognition of the natural order.


Not sure about the notion of 'mark up' here.

I've explained it clearly enough. It buys the service from an outside
(normally private) supplier. It adds administrative cost in spades

If you want to prove that, get numerate about it.

Are you telling me that you can't figure out that if you take service A
and add admin cost B to it that the total isn't A+B?





and sells it to the customer. The administration adds no value,

A bold yet spurious assumption...

It's an unnecessary cost. I am surprised that you think that that's spurious.




so the customer might as well deal direcly with the supplier and cut
out the middle man. Clear enough?

Clear, simple, simplistic, but not in my view correct.

It's hard to come to any other conclusion unless you believe that
Father Christmas funds local authorities.

In message , Andy Hall writes
On 2006-11-28 17:03:45 +0000, John Beardmore said:
In message , Andy Hall writes
On 2006-11-27 18:21:13 +0000, John Beardmore
said:

No, but they seem to go on about it more. More to the point,
they tend to be offended by state provision.
I see. I wouldn't say that state provision offends me. I just
it as largely unnecessary
Well - we can each judge the tone of your posts I guess.
I don't know where this "we" comes from.
Well - remarkably there seem to be more than two of us in this
thread, and WE, can each judge the tone of your posts.

Oh I see. A representative sample, then.

No sampling required. You just have to live with us each forming our
own opinions.


There is no "tone" to my posts.



Yes, though there is probably much to be said for education,
public health provision, health and safety, environmental
protection the police etc...
Out of those, the only one that marginally may be worth doing in
the public sector is policing and even that is marginal
Again - this is your view, and I don't get the feeling that it's
widely
shared !

It really doesn't bother me. As long as there is freedom of choice,
one of the choices can be to stay with the status quo.

But the status quo involves one fleet of vehicles run by one contractor
doing the whole job. As soon as you move to three services from three
contractors, that is lost.


If it is possible to sort mechanically, or otherwise *some*
different types of plastic or metal, then I am sure that given
thought and investment, other types can be as well.
I doubt it will be cheap, and it's likely to be energy intensive.
Let's see what happens when the drongos in the LAs are taken out of
the
food chain.
Let's see what happens when you have the software, circuit diagram
and the components list.

??

To sort materials automatically...


Cheers, J/.
--
John Beardmore

On 2006-12-10 23:39:47 +0000, John Beardmore said:

In message , Andy Hall writes
On 2006-11-28 17:03:45 +0000, John Beardmore said:
In message , Andy Hall writes
On 2006-11-27 18:21:13 +0000, John Beardmore said:

No, but they seem to go on about it more. More to the point, they
tend to be offended by state provision.
I see. I wouldn't say that state provision offends me. I just it as
largely unnecessary
Well - we can each judge the tone of your posts I guess.
I don't know where this "we" comes from.
Well - remarkably there seem to be more than two of us in this
thread, and WE, can each judge the tone of your posts.

Oh I see. A representative sample, then.

No sampling required. You just have to live with us each forming our
own opinions.

I always do. It's called being an individual rather than a sheep. I
commend it.




Yes, though there is probably much to be said for education, public
health provision, health and safety, environmental protection the
police etc...
Out of those, the only one that marginally may be worth doing in the
public sector is policing and even that is marginal
Again - this is your view, and I don't get the feeling that it's widely
shared !

It really doesn't bother me. As long as there is freedom of choice,
one of the choices can be to stay with the status quo.

But the status quo involves one fleet of vehicles run by one contractor
doing the whole job. As soon as you move to three services from three
contractors, that is lost.

Sigh.... Already covered.




If it is possible to sort mechanically, or otherwise *some* different
types of plastic or metal, then I am sure that given thought and
investment, other types can be as well.
I doubt it will be cheap, and it's likely to be energy intensive.
Let's see what happens when the drongos in the LAs are taken out of the
food chain.
Let's see what happens when you have the software, circuit diagram and
the components list.

??

To sort materials automatically...

That would be something worthwhile striving for rather than wasting
millions of peoples' time sorting crap.

On uk.environment, in , "Andy Hall" wrote:

snip

If it is possible to sort mechanically, or otherwise
*some* different types of plastic or metal, then I am
sure that given thought and investment, other types can
be as well.
I doubt it will be cheap, and it's likely to be energy
intensive.
Let's see what happens when the drongos in the LAs are
taken out of the
food chain. Let's see what happens when you have the
software, circuit diagram and the components list.

??

To sort materials automatically...

That would be something worthwhile striving for rather than
wasting millions of peoples' time sorting crap.

Here we see yet another reason why the environmental movement
is a failu Laziness. Extreme laziness.

The 'environmentalists' won't even take the time to sort their
garbage.

Whose idea was it to recycle? Theirs.

They talk, but they don't do.

In order to avoid taking a little time off from watching the
Telly and running his mouth on the Usenet, he would rather see
yet another industry created.

(Or radically expanded: It would take many hundreds of thousands
of these garbage-sorting complexes to serve even the developed
nations.)

This would be an industry that produces very complex and
energy-intensive machinery to sort his garbage for him. Robots,
essentially.

May I suggest that you would be a lot more comfortable on
alt.pave.the.earth?

Those are your people there.

Alan

--
http://home.earthlink.net/~alanconnor/

Thanks for your kookfart, Beavis.

--
article not downloaded:

Info about "Alan Connor"

Alan "The Usenet Beavis" Connor is a good friend of Bigfoot:
http://tinyurl.com/23r3f

A couple of years ago he was kidnapped and raped by Xena,
the Warrior Princess: http://tinyurl.com/2gjcy

Beavis believes that the MSBlast virus of yesteryear was explicitly
targeting him, for some inexplicable reason: http://tinyurl.com/ifrt

Beavis belongs to a UFO cult: http://tinyurl.com/2hhdx
Beavis's life in a UFO cult: http://tinyurl.com/24jqm
Beavis knows all about network security: http://tinyurl.com/5qqb6
And he's also a search engine expert: http://tinyurl.com/9pjnt



"But if you must know, Alans' name is Bruce Burhans, and he lives in
Bellingham WA. To his hippie friends he calls himself "Tom Littlefoot"
**Google Tom Littlefoot, Bruce Burhans and "Wildwood"**.

Bruce has some serious mental problems and spends a lot of time as an
in-patient at the big mental hospital in Bellingham, when he's not
hospitalized, he posts to usenet. In every group he posts to he comes off as
some sort of expert in the subject at hand, and when anyone disagrees (and
they will, he sees to that) he starts in on his trollery.

Again, Bruce is a true Professional Usenet Troll. It is his entertainment
and it's what he lives for."


http://www.pearlgates.net/nanae/kooks/ac/fga.shtml
http://groups.google.com/groups/prof...-MEqh3HQ&hl=en
http://www.pearlgates.net/nanae/kooks/ac/
http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Mail/challenge-response.html
http://www.spamcop.net/fom-serve/cache/329.html#CR
http://www.gatago.com/authors_pgs/13650.html
http://blog.bananasplit.info/?p=84
http://tinyurl.com/ifrt
http://tinyurl.com/3h6a5
http://tinyurl.com/ys6z4

Also in the headers for alan to read.

On Mon, 11 Dec 2006 10:58:22 GMT someone who may be Alan Connor
wrote this:-

On uk.environment, in , "Andy Hall" wrote:

To sort materials automatically...

That would be something worthwhile striving for rather than
wasting millions of peoples' time sorting crap.

Here we see yet another reason why the environmental movement
is a failu Laziness. Extreme laziness.

The 'environmentalists' won't even take the time to sort their
garbage.

Nice try.

However, you have got the wrong end of the stick.


--
David Hansen, Edinburgh
I will *always* explain revoked encryption keys, unless RIP prevents me
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/00023--e.htm#54

In message , Andy Hall writes
On 2006-12-02 19:29:48 +0000, John Beardmore said:

In message , Andy Hall writes

The only people to lose out would be the bureaucrats in the
local authority who aren't adding any value in the first place.
They should view it as an opportunity to find something gainful
to do. That would be a benefit to them as well as to the population as a whole.
Maybe in some instances, but I'm not convinced it's true in the
general case.
You haven't met many local authority employees, have you....?
Loads as it happens. But my experience seems rather different to yours.
Maybe I have high expectations....
Maybe - or maybe you just can't acknowledge that good can come from
anything that isn't the type of organisation that your ideology says
it should be.

I can and do acknowledge achievement where it is made. Unlike a lot
of people, I won't accept poor service and being promised A and having
A - B delivered.
This is why, as a nation, we are ripped off and then moan about
things but are generally not willing to take action about them.
IME, both the private and the public sectors suffer from bad service
malaise, but it is far more prevalent in the public sector.

But none of this happy rant says anything specific about the matter in
hand.


Cheers, J/.
--
John Beardmore

In message , The Central
Authority writes
On Fri, 24 Nov 2006 19:26:47 +0000, John Beardmore
wrote:

The plastic is shipped to China.

Well - if our plastic didn't go there, presumably oil would. Which do
you think has the lower net environmental impact ?

A non-sequitur.

Waste plastic going to China does not replace oil. I've seen
photographs of PET bottles being burnt in China on open bonfires
yielding acrid yellow smoke.

Even if you have, that doesn't mean that the Chinese burn all PET, or
indeed that all our PET goes to China.


I am sure if PET could be shredded and included with pulverised fuel
at British power stations it would be.

Hmmm... Can't see why it couldn't be. Drax is tooling up to burn a bit
of wood on the side, but I doubt burning it is the best use for PET.


Waste paper (including Yellow Pages) can be put in a recycling box
but Yellow Pages cannot be put in a waste paper collection station.
The waste paper is driven to Kent and from there shipped to Sweden
where it is reprocessed,

Really ? I though Kent had a lot of UK based paper mills ?

Why should Kent have a lot of paper mills?

My understanding is that a lot of wood comes into the UK from Europe.


For composting, small branches are OK but dead woody matter isn't.
How you tell the difference between a small branch (which is dead
woody matter but allowed) and something which is dead woody matter
and not allowed is interesting but could cost you a lot of money to
get wrong.

In theory. How many are fined in practice ?

Sems to be about 1 per week, and the fines are not minor slaps on the
wrist either. ISTR £400 for a single item of junk mail in with the
waste paper.

I find that hard to believe.


Glass and Plastic bottles are supposed to be washed - which wastes
water and energy.

Water is a renewable resource, at least for the time being.

Water usage is currently restricted in many parts of this country.

Quite possibly, but it continues to fall out of the sky.

The real question is if recycling uses less energy than working with
virgin materials, and which of the above is sustainable. Any thoughts ?


How much energy is used raising a moderate amount of water to say 55
degrees, (and the tail end of the washing up water will probably do !),
as opposed to melting glass ?

Another non-sequitur, it still has to be melted.

True.


Unsurprisingly this scheme is held up as a paragon of virtue by FOE
and won an award.

Well - I guess the question is, can you prove that the impacts outweigh
the benefits ? Because, of course there impacts - that's no surprise,
it's just a question of magnitude.

Or, more to the point, "Does any of it make sense ?"

I'll take it from that that you can't prove anything but just want to
cast aspersions from the sidelines.


Cheers, J/.
--
John Beardmore

"John Beardmore" wrote in message
Waste plastic going to China does not replace oil. I've seen
photographs of PET bottles being burnt in China on open bonfires
yielding acrid yellow smoke.

Even if you have, that doesn't mean that the Chinese burn all PET, or
indeed that all our PET goes to China.

I wonder how he knows that the smoke is acrid if he's only seen photographs?



For composting, small branches are OK but dead woody matter isn't.
How you tell the difference between a small branch (which is dead
woody matter but allowed) and something which is dead woody matter
and not allowed is interesting but could cost you a lot of money to
get wrong.

In theory. How many are fined in practice ?

Sems to be about 1 per week, and the fines are not minor slaps on the
wrist either. ISTR £400 for a single item of junk mail in with the
waste paper.

I find that hard to believe.

I find it impossible to believe. It's probably been rumoured in a redtop or
a consumer tv programme.


Mary

On 2006-12-14 15:17:47 +0000, John Beardmore said:

In message , Andy Hall writes

I can and do acknowledge achievement where it is made. Unlike a lot
of people, I won't accept poor service and being promised A and having
A - B delivered.
This is why, as a nation, we are ripped off and then moan about
things but are generally not willing to take action about them.
IME, both the private and the public sectors suffer from bad service
malaise, but it is far more prevalent in the public sector.

But none of this happy rant says anything specific about the matter in hand.

There is no rant, just an observation on the poor service ethic which
is a UK malaise. It is just as much the customer's fault for
allowing it to happen as the suppliers' for performing poorly.

In terms of public to private sector comparison, the acid test is what
happens when there is good service and bad service. Do people get
rewarded over and above their basic remuneration for giving good
service? Do they get penalised and ultimately fired if not. Does
the organisation that they work in cease to exist if it doesn't deliver?

When those fundamental questions are answered, it becomes very clear
that for the most part the public sector is not being correctly
motivated.

On 2006-12-14 15:19:16 +0000, John Beardmore said:

In message , The Central Authority
Why should Kent have a lot of paper mills?

My understanding is that a lot of wood comes into the UK from Europe.


When I looked on the map this afternoon, the UK appeared to be in Europe....

John Beardmore wrote:
In message . com,
writes
John Beardmore wrote:
In message , Andy Hall writes
On 2006-11-29 00:25:37 +0000, John Beardmore
said:
In message , Andy Hall writes

More people,
equipment and road miles may be involved.

as may be less. Its really not difficult to see how that could occur.

Also you keep saying more vehicles, without offering any evidence that
this is the way it will go down in practice.

Well, equally, as Andy declines to give any detail, I don't see any
reason to assume it need be any lower footprint either.

It's really Andy who has pushed this agenda, but I'm not convinced in
the absence of a hard proposal, that he can know that there would be a
reduction in foot print, or that he cares much. It's not his priority.

Andys answered that one quite well. Another angle on it is that a
substantial percentage of British people are quite price driven, and
this translates to less frequent collections and motivation to develop
more efficient colelction systems - which really isnt too hard to do
once theres the money motive in place. And as already said, once people
pay for disposal there will be a mass uptake of composting, which
clearly will reduce collection footprint.

All the above factors contribute to reducing vehicle use. We dont know
for sure what might turn out when a market changes, but the evidence is
fairly one sided here.


I'm tempted to call the other examples of demonopolisation, such as
electricity, gas, phone.

Be tempted. But maybe this is more like delivered milk or groceries ?

And in both cases, private enterprise leads to improvements.

Take grocery delivery for example. One vehicle delivers to (at a guess)
lets say 20 customers, and each vehicle goes to a geographic grouping
of customers because of the profit motive.

We need some numbers here - so lets say the customers of one van live 1
mile from the store, and on avergae 0.15 miles from each other. Now,
traditional shopping means 20 cars each doing 2 miles, finishing the
job in say 2 hrs. thats 20 vehicles and 40 miles travelled, and 40
manhours of labour.

A delivery van travels the 1 mile to customer A, then 0.15 miles 19
times, then 1 mile back to store. It takes 5 minutes per delivery and
10 minutes in traffic between each customer. So thats 4.85 miles
travelled in total, or quarter of a mile per customer, one vehicle not
20, and under 20 minutes of labour per customer.

Now, we both know that under state monopoly control, supermarkets would
not have started internet ordering and home deliveries. Under private
enterprise, its been done and is a great success. And from one success,
many will copy. You picked a good example.


You would be at liberty to choose a supplier who operates in the same
way as your existing one.

Which guarantees nothing about the change to multiple providers as a


whats this preoccupation with guarantees? Clearly life doesnt give
guarantees, wise decisions just give us the best odds.

Yes - my point is only that saying "You would be at liberty to choose a
supplier who operates in the same way as your existing one" doesn't
guarantee anything about environmental performance or answer my concerns

so you said, and I answered that one.


in any respect, and indeed if other services are run as well, it's
impossible to see how the aggregate footprint of moving that material
could be lower.

well, see above, but theyre already points that had been brought up
before you wrote that, so its pretty well addressed really.


I also told you that the term "environmental impact" is whatever the
individual decides it is.

You may have told me that, but an MSc course in environmental decision
making tells me otherwise.

Which do you think I'm going to believe ?

I get the feeling its whatever you were told.

No - being told isn't enough. What you are told has to 'add up' and
make sense !

but you werent exposed to other views on the matter. This is a basic
problem with school-like teaching. Students are left without anything
like the kind of expertise that results when one goes over the various
views and finds out whats right and what isnt, why, and what the pros
and cons of each approach are.


That depends on what you mean by "environmental foot print"

Are you going to tell us you dont see any issues with that definition?

Well - clearly it is prone to underestimate, but it seems to be a
pretty useful and largely quantitative way of looking at the problem.

Uesful yes, quantitative yes, but properly addressing the issue I think
no.


as long as the same definiton is used, the same errors will be present.

In indeed there are any - or at least any that aren't recognised as
inherent to the technique.

of course there are

Anyway - if you've got any bright ideas for better ways to work it out
that's fine. If not, random redefinition is probably petty pointless.

yes I have. I'm not saying either system is perfect, but the
deficiencies in what you quote do seem a bit significant.


To say "The definition is individual" shows a pretty complete lack of
understanding of the field.

it may be just an acknowledgement of the fact that not everyone buys
this approach.

Then they can say

'Footprint calculations don't work because...'

That's not the same thing as redefining what it is agreed to mean.

I think thats addressing a point no-one has made.


its not that the solution is non-trivial, right now the issue is that
the solution isnt available.

THE solution ??

the solution to climate change

No-one has even proposed any method that
would reduce the worlds environmental footprint - and by that I mean a
system based in reality that is likely to work. There is no such
solution today.

There is certainly no single solution, but there are many things that
can contribute to a reduction. Recycling is one such.

Nobody has ever said there is a single 'magic bullet'.

There isnt a solution full stop. I dont care if it has 1 or 100
components to it, there just isnt one. The popular notion of a solution
is to be a little more energy efficient at home, and that doesnt even
begin to solve the problem. What most people in UK are doing today is
not the solution.

No-one can stand up and say 'heres the plan sir, this will work and
stop climate change' and have their plan taken as realistic. Nobody has
a workable effective plan.


With only 2% of the worlds population there is nothing Britain can do
today to solve the problem by acting within our own borders.

Except contribute.

Your arguments leads to the conclusion that

nobody should do anything because nobody can do everything

where as those with a little more presence of mind see that

if everybody does something, everybody can achieve anything.

No, they most definiately dont lead to such conclusions. I've already
explained what I see as the solution, and it sure isnt the above. Its
developing energy technologies that can be used around the world.
Britain-only solutions are never going to cut it.

The notion that everyone can achieve anything is the stuff of Disney
films. The mass of people working 9-5 year in year out make it pretty
clear it aint so.


The only
real solution si to devise methods that both can be applied
internatinally, and for which there is an incentive to apply them
worldwide. The real climate problem solvers are not footprint
assessments, but technology innovators.

Well - as I've said, fusion might get us out of a hole,

AFAIK fusion is not one of the promising energy techs in the pipeline,
so isnt part of the solution.

but it seems
dumb to 'bet the farm' on technologies that may never emerge while we
are already doing damage at an alarming rate.

Whether you like it or not we are betting the farm. There is no better
alternative to that.

2nd we have no other solution today than research. So we need to follow
the R&D path, not waste our time money & energy on things that can
never do it.

3rd there is plenty the average Jo can do to support such research.
They can ask publicly for more research, they can raise funds for
research programs, they can donate, they can set up prize funds for
anyone that comes along with an energy solution that meets a given set
of criteria - all these things accelerate the pace of technological
change, and all (but one) are within anyone's grasp.

4th there are loads of new techs coming out every year, check the
patents if you dont believe me.

5thly energy technologies are being developed and improved already. Its
already happening, so you cant say theres nothing ahead there.

6th, we can combine 3 and 5 to reduce the private cost of research and
hasten the process.


Just as awareness is now much better
than in the 70s, perhaps this interest group will come of age in the
future and come up with some real solutions.

This problem isn't going to be solved by a single interest group,

It only takes one technology. That will come from one lab, so yes it
will be.


but by characterising the problems and
looking for opportunities to fix it at all levels.

Hmm. Thing is, there are no opportunities to fix it at almost all
levels. There are none. The present approach sure isnt going to do it.
Its only when we can face these facts that one stops running about like
a headless chicken, and starts to look again at just where the solution
does lie. And its with research. The one thing that everyone will do
the world around is adopt a new technology that is cost efficient and
non-polluting. That is our solution.

In the distant future, energy reduction is not part of the solution.
Its an interim measure only. Once energy is cheap in bulk and
non-pollution, we can use much more than we do today.


NT

David Hansen wrote:
On 6 Dec 2006 02:58:01 -0800 someone who may be
wrote this:-

There appear to be rather a lot of assumptions behind your remark.

Any extra container than the main black binbag one has to take up more
space, it cant fail to.

You are assuming that people have a "main black binbag".
Next contestant please.

yes, thats how its mandated around here.

Outside the "junk" should be inside suitable containers, a bin or
box, rather then bags.

Maybe you should tell our LA.

They don't provide a bin or box for recyclables? Where is this
council?

they do, one box and several categories of recyclables, that cant be
mixed of course.

And how do these "fill up with neighbourhood rubbish"?

people put junk in them

Really. How do they manage this?

If you cant work that out we're in trouble.


NT

Owain wrote:
wrote:

A small army of uk.d-i-y regulars have expressed the desire to scavenge
at the dump in the UK but are prevented from doing so by H&S regulations.
is that truth or excuse though? How hard is it to sign a preprinted
waiver?

A waiver *might* indemnify the tip operator against a civil claim but
would not prevent the criminal prosecution under H&SAWA.

In any activity in the workplace there has to be a risk assessment:

Is there a risk of injury or death to the public if they are allowed on
the tip? -- Yes.

How can that risk be reduced? -- Don't allow public on the tip.

What do you mean by 'on the tip' The idea is to give access to goods
_destined_ for landfill. This can be done by putting goods on flatback
forkliftable platforms that buyers can pick from, not climb over.


How hard is it to buy electrical goods after showing evidence
of being in the trade? Etc.

Apart from H&SAWA there is all the legislation around only conveying
'waste' between licensed waste handlers. What happens to the 'waste'
when it becomes 'useful' again I don't know.

If an item is bought and sold it is by definition not waste.


And why is laying out the possibly saleable rubbish so much more
hazardous than it is when its done at jumble sales, second hand goods
shops and so on? I'm far from convinced.

Jumble sales and the like are done by people wanting to sell things for
money. Council tips are run by councils.

Owain

No, theyre run by private contractors. These contractors could openly
take orders for goods, sell from a long table like platform, and each
platformful could be checked by an inspector before being opened to the
public. Yes it costs, and yes theres a financial return. They'd do best
out of bulk orders for trade. Advertising onsite that such orders are
taken would encourage more business.

In short, permitting free trade would reduce landfill and make lots of
good goods available for businesses and end users alike.

If the issues of dealing with public direct were insurmountable, which
I doubt, trade lots are still workable.


NT

Andy Hall wrote:
On 2006-12-06 12:49:16 +0000, said:
Andy Hall wrote:
On 2006-12-04 16:48:31 +0000, John Beardmore said:

Its odd how many put whatever theyre taught on a pedestal. The 'well..'
paragraph above describes some real naivete.

Quite amazing. I've always considered education to be about finding
out things for one's self, questioning
them and sifting the important and influencing from the dross. The
last thing that I have felt it to be was being fed
a package of goods and treating it as sacrosanct. I suspect that
that is one reason for my not wanting to buy
unquestioningly into mindless ecobabble for the sake of it.

Most dont need to understand things in depth to do their job, and
education to adequate-for-a-job depth can be done quickly en masse by
just telling people what to believe. Educational establishments market
themselves as being The providers of Knowledge, when this is really
sales talk rather than reality. The problem is that kids grow up not
being taught any critical thinking skills, and therefore swallow such
ideas whole. The result is graduates that think they know all they need
to know. A nice fuzzy feelgood idea, but not really realistic.

Doing a degree course proves you can do a degree course, and know at
least something about the subject. So its useful, but to take it as
complete qualification is just not how it is, and employers see it this
way too in my experience.


NT

In message m,
writes
John Beardmore wrote:
In message . com,
writes
John Beardmore wrote:
In message , Andy Hall writes
On 2006-11-29 00:25:37 +0000, John Beardmore
said:
In message , Andy Hall writes

More people,
equipment and road miles may be involved.

as may be less. Its really not difficult to see how that could occur.

Also you keep saying more vehicles, without offering any evidence that
this is the way it will go down in practice.

Well, equally, as Andy declines to give any detail, I don't see any
reason to assume it need be any lower footprint either.

It's really Andy who has pushed this agenda, but I'm not convinced in
the absence of a hard proposal, that he can know that there would be a
reduction in foot print, or that he cares much. It's not his priority.

Andys answered that one quite well.

Well... He answered it... More with words than meaning I think.


Another angle on it is that a
substantial percentage of British people are quite price driven, and
this translates to less frequent collections and motivation to develop
more efficient colelction systems - which really isnt too hard to do
once theres the money motive in place.

Maybe.


And as already said, once people
pay for disposal there will be a mass uptake of composting, which
clearly will reduce collection footprint.

It might reduce collected volume, but if the composting is done badly at
home, it may also give off a great deal of methane I suspect, so I'm not
sure the footprint would necessarily fall.


All the above factors contribute to reducing vehicle use. We dont know
for sure what might turn out when a market changes, but the evidence is
fairly one sided here.

The hunches may be. Not sure that there is "evidence".


I'm tempted to call the other examples of demonopolisation, such as
electricity, gas, phone.

Be tempted. But maybe this is more like delivered milk or groceries ?

And in both cases, private enterprise leads to improvements.

Take grocery delivery for example. One vehicle delivers to (at a guess)
lets say 20 customers, and each vehicle goes to a geographic grouping
of customers because of the profit motive.

Yes - delivering groceries might make more sense than all end users
driving to the supermarket, but that doesn't mean that each supermarket
having a vehicle fleet covering each area has a lower delivery footprint
than each area being served by a single vehicle from a single location.


We need some numbers here - so lets say the customers of one van live 1
mile from the store, and on avergae 0.15 miles from each other. Now,
traditional shopping means 20 cars each doing 2 miles, finishing the
job in say 2 hrs. thats 20 vehicles and 40 miles travelled, and 40
manhours of labour.

A delivery van travels the 1 mile to customer A, then 0.15 miles 19
times, then 1 mile back to store. It takes 5 minutes per delivery and
10 minutes in traffic between each customer. So thats 4.85 miles
travelled in total, or quarter of a mile per customer, one vehicle not
20, and under 20 minutes of labour per customer.

An analogy which would be utterly splendid if only we drove our own
rubbish to the 'waste transfer station' !

But we don't. So it's toast !


Now, we both know that under state monopoly control, supermarkets would
not have started internet ordering and home deliveries. Under private
enterprise, its been done and is a great success. And from one success,
many will copy.

And yet somehow the LAs still manage to come round and collect waste
once a week !


You picked a good example.

Indeed ! Better than yours anyway !


You would be at liberty to choose a supplier who operates in the same
way as your existing one.

Which guarantees nothing about the change to multiple providers as a


whats this preoccupation with guarantees? Clearly life doesnt give
guarantees, wise decisions just give us the best odds.

Yes - my point is only that saying "You would be at liberty to choose a
supplier who operates in the same way as your existing one" doesn't
guarantee anything about environmental performance or answer my concerns

so you said, and I answered that one.

Well - if you were setting out to be convincing, you failed !


in any respect, and indeed if other services are run as well, it's
impossible to see how the aggregate footprint of moving that material
could be lower.

well, see above, but theyre already points that had been brought up
before you wrote that, so its pretty well addressed really.

There are currently about 108 messages in this thread I haven't read and
may never have time to. None the less what I have read from you and
Andy among the other 932 messages hasn't been convincing so far.

What makes you think I'll regard your recent missives as the very model
of good sense ?


I also told you that the term "environmental impact" is whatever the
individual decides it is.

You may have told me that, but an MSc course in environmental decision
making tells me otherwise.

Which do you think I'm going to believe ?

I get the feeling its whatever you were told.

No - being told isn't enough. What you are told has to 'add up' and
make sense !

but you werent exposed to other views on the matter.

I wouldn't bank on that.


This is a basic
problem with school-like teaching. Students are left without anything
like the kind of expertise that results when one goes over the various
views and finds out whats right and what isnt, why, and what the pros
and cons of each approach are.

Well - it's certainly true that we all have our unique perspectives,
but that doesn't make you right any more than it makes me wrong.


That depends on what you mean by "environmental foot print"

Are you going to tell us you dont see any issues with that definition?

Well - clearly it is prone to underestimate, but it seems to be a
pretty useful and largely quantitative way of looking at the problem.

Uesful yes, quantitative yes, but properly addressing the issue I think
no.

The reason being ?

Or is this just the sweet voice of assertion and bluff ?


as long as the same definiton is used, the same errors will be present.

In indeed there are any - or at least any that aren't recognised as
inherent to the technique.

of course there are

Anyway - if you've got any bright ideas for better ways to work it out
that's fine. If not, random redefinition is probably petty pointless.

yes I have.

Go on then...


I'm not saying either system is perfect, but the
deficiencies in what you quote do seem a bit significant.

Well again, given that footprint calculations tend to underestimate, I'd
like to know how you think the sort of errors that the technique is
prone to strengthen your case.


To say "The definition is individual" shows a pretty complete lack of
understanding of the field.

it may be just an acknowledgement of the fact that not everyone buys
this approach.

Then they can say

'Footprint calculations don't work because...'

That's not the same thing as redefining what it is agreed to mean.

I think thats addressing a point no-one has made.

Well you seem to be decrying environmental footprint because "The
definition is individual". I'm suggesting that given that the
definition and concept are pretty clear, you might criticise particular
elements of the method for failing to accurately account for all the
impacts of an activity, and if you have a sound numeric argument, the
technique can be refined. But just to say "The definition is
individual", (which it isn't), or "not everyone buys this approach", (so
what ?), if pretty useless unless you plan to volunteer some better way
to understand the situation.


its not that the solution is non-trivial, right now the issue is that
the solution isnt available.

THE solution ??

the solution to climate change

But may things which may mitigate it are. There unlikely ever to be a
SINGLE solution.


No-one has even proposed any method that
would reduce the worlds environmental footprint - and by that I mean a
system based in reality that is likely to work. There is no such
solution today.

There is certainly no single solution, but there are many things that
can contribute to a reduction. Recycling is one such.

Nobody has ever said there is a single 'magic bullet'.

There isnt a solution full stop. I dont care if it has 1 or 100
components to it, there just isnt one.

There isn't ONE. But there are many that can contribute.


The popular notion of a solution
is to be a little more energy efficient at home, and that doesnt even
begin to solve the problem.

Wrong. It does begin, but it can't get all you need.


What most people in UK are doing today is
not the solution.

No - but it's a contribution.


No-one can stand up and say 'heres the plan sir, this will work and
stop climate change' and have their plan taken as realistic. Nobody has
a workable effective plan.

Indeed, but making the problem less bad less quickly seems smarter than
making it more bad more quickly.


With only 2% of the worlds population there is nothing Britain can do
today to solve the problem by acting within our own borders.

Except contribute.

Your arguments leads to the conclusion that

nobody should do anything because nobody can do everything

where as those with a little more presence of mind see that

if everybody does something, everybody can achieve anything.

No, they most definiately dont lead to such conclusions. I've already
explained what I see as the solution, and it sure isnt the above. Its
developing energy technologies that can be used around the world.
Britain-only solutions are never going to cut it.

But sensible waste disposal isn't a "Britain-only solution" any more
than switching lights off using renewable energy.

The whole geographical / administrative boundary thing is a total red
herring.


The notion that everyone can achieve anything is the stuff of Disney
films.

Indeed - you can't back thermodynamics.


The mass of people working 9-5 year in year out make it pretty
clear it aint so.

Depends what they work on and how they work.


The only
real solution si to devise methods that both can be applied
internatinally, and for which there is an incentive to apply them
worldwide. The real climate problem solvers are not footprint
assessments, but technology innovators.

Well - as I've said, fusion might get us out of a hole,

AFAIK fusion is not one of the promising energy techs in the pipeline,

Then I don't think you K very much !


so isnt part of the solution.

So what do you think will sort it ?


but it seems
dumb to 'bet the farm' on technologies that may never emerge while we
are already doing damage at an alarming rate.

Whether you like it or not we are betting the farm.

I agree that we are doing, and I don't particularly like it.


There is no better
alternative to that.

I don't think that view is universally held !


2nd we have no other solution today than research. So we need to follow
the R&D path, not waste our time money & energy on things that can
never do it.

The less green house gas we emit, and the more slowly we emit it, the
longer we have to get something half way decent out of an R&D process.


3rd there is plenty the average Jo can do to support such research.
They can ask publicly for more research, they can raise funds for
research programs, they can donate, they can set up prize funds for
anyone that comes along with an energy solution that meets a given set
of criteria - all these things accelerate the pace of technological
change, and all (but one) are within anyone's grasp.

Yes - sounds much like the sort of stuff Eurosolar do.


4th there are loads of new techs coming out every year, check the
patents if you dont believe me.

There are loads of new patents, but it's fascinating that you don't name
a single one that looks more promising than fusion.


5thly energy technologies are being developed and improved already. Its
already happening, so you cant say theres nothing ahead there.

I've never said there is no progress being made, but you have yet to
identify any progress that is significant, and seem dismissive of
renewables and fusion. So - among all the patents you refer to, could
you identify say 5 which you think really address the problem of climate
change ?


6th, we can combine 3 and 5 to reduce the private cost of research and
hasten the process.

So in essence, you suggest we do noting to reduce our emissions, but ask
for research to be done, make some donations, and offer prizes to solve
the worlds problems !

ROFL !


Just as awareness is now much better
than in the 70s, perhaps this interest group will come of age in the
future and come up with some real solutions.

This problem isn't going to be solved by a single interest group,

It only takes one technology. That will come from one lab, so yes it
will be.

Well - you just might be right. Had cold fusion worked, something
along those lines might have been a 'magic bullet', but I for one don't
think we can rely on that sort of single solution, and even if we get
one, we have a better chance if emissions are reduced in the mean time.


but by characterising the problems and
looking for opportunities to fix it at all levels.

Hmm. Thing is, there are no opportunities to fix it at almost all
levels. There are none.

Well - none you seem to know about. But I guess we can't help wilful
ignorance or disingenuous stance.


The present approach sure isnt going to do it.

It sure isn't going to do all of it at present rates of progress.


Its only when we can face these facts that one stops running about like
a headless chicken, and starts to look again at just where the solution
does lie. And its with research.

Well - I'm all in favour of research, but I'm also in favour of
allowing longer for it to happen with whatever mitigation we can achieve
as soon as possible.


The one thing that everyone will do
the world around is adopt a new technology that is cost efficient and
non-polluting. That is our solution.

It will be when there is one. IF there is one...


In the distant future, energy reduction is not part of the solution.
Its an interim measure only.

OK - so you concede that it has value as an interim measure then.


Once energy is cheap in bulk and
non-pollution, we can use much more than we do today.

Well - here you have much in common with the renewable energy community
who take the view that once using RE, being profligate isn't a problem.

This is a sound point, except that your postulated sustainable energy
source (TBA) doesn't exist, and the capital cost of existing renewable
energy sources is so high that it's more or less always cheaper to cut
consumption than generate more energy.

Which takes us back to cutting consumption and solar water heating...


Cheers, J/.
--
John Beardmore

In message , Andy Hall writes
On 2006-12-10 22:50:34 +0000, John Beardmore said:

In message , Andy Hall writes
On 2006-12-04 02:54:50 +0000, John Beardmore
said:

Obviously, one would hope that you wouldn't seek to reduce the
choice of others who do not have the same order of priorities in
terms of the impact of additional choices of supplier.
I think there should be a debate about it. Many of our choices
are curtailed in the interests of others. I don't think waste
disposal is precious an issue that it should be out of the question
that a democratically elected state make that choice. YMMV.
It does, because the state, and it's local level implementation
does not demonstrate any great skill in that area
The rubbish is collected. What more do you want ?

Choice of supplier, service and price - I already told you that.

Hmmm... OK - well that may be your highest priority, but you may have
to accept that your view isn't universally shared.


You want a free market, but this seems to be more to do with your
personal ideology than any particular lack of skill.

It's not a personal ideology, rather a recognition of the natural order.

That may be how you see it, but again, you may have to accept that your
view isn't universally shared.


Not sure about the notion of 'mark up' here.
I've explained it clearly enough. It buys the service from an
outside (normally private) supplier. It adds administrative cost
in spades
If you want to prove that, get numerate about it.

Are you telling me that you can't figure out that if you take service A
and add admin cost B to it that the total isn't A+B?

No - I'm trying to tell you that you don't know the values of either A
or B, or the ratio of A to B, nor have you come up with values of B' for
your new proposed 'market place', nor values for C, D and E, the costs
of the new service provisions, and not have you expressed any meaningful
information about the environmental impacts of your scheme which you are
utterly unwilling to consider in any detail.

As such it does seem reasonable to ask you to "get numerate about it",
and in the absence of any numeric justification of your assertions, it
doesn't seem utterly wild to suggest that it's "personal ideology"
rather than an idea of substance or worth.


and sells it to the customer. The administration adds no value,
A bold yet spurious assumption...

It's an unnecessary cost. I am surprised that you think that that's spurious.

I'm surprised you think it's unnecessary.


so the customer might as well deal direcly with the supplier and cut
out the middle man. Clear enough?
Clear, simple, simplistic, but not in my view correct.

It's hard to come to any other conclusion unless you believe that
Father Christmas funds local authorities.

Well - even you seem to envisage LAs continuing to have a role, and a
thing is not rendered unnecessary by somebody having to pay for it !


Cheers, J/.
--
John Beardmore

In message , Andy Hall writes
On 2006-12-04 16:39:38 +0000, John Beardmore said:
In message , Andy Hall writes

If some people really think this is too difficult or takes too
long
then perhaps they should ask their local waste advisor to give them
some advice.
Actually no, it's not that this is difficult in the final analysis
but that it is unnecessarily overcomplicated and inconvenient for
dubious value.
Well - you couldn't actually do any meaningful separation and have
it any simpler !

Then one has to ask whether it is meaningful at all....

Yes - though it might not be a bad idea to listen to the reply !


I have no idea who a "waste advisor" is. Is it yet another person
paid for from council tax with pie in the sky ideas about the rality
of what people require?
Well - as you say, you've got no idea.

Perhaps you would like to enlighten the assembled throng so that we can
all have a laugh.

Perhaps you should when you've found out what the services cost and what
the departments actually do ?

To criticise them without taking the trouble to learn the basics seems
pretty **** poor IMV.


I would be very pleased to have a conversation with such a person,
but it would be along a few simple lines:
1) How is he going to offer me a choice of disposal services?
2) How is he going to reduce the cost?
3) How is he going to deliver the above with less use of time on my
part?
If he has good answers for all of the above, then there is a basis
for discussion. If he doesn't, then I will want to know who his
boss is and
who the budget holder is for his position because he isn't doing his
job properly and should be removed from the payroll..
Well - he certainly isn't doing what you want, but may well be
doing what he's employed to do.

By whom? Who is paying?

We all pay, but that doesn't mean you proposal would do the job better,
nor necessarily even cheaper.


Cheers, J/.
--
John Beardmore

In message . com,
writes

You appear to now be saying the LA is not so great after all.

Some are bound to be better than others.


Would you
say someone who can actually do the job should be given a chance to do
so?

Might be a better deal to sort the LA out.


Cheers, J/.
--
John Beardmore

In message , Andy Hall writes
On 2006-12-03 11:49:36 +0000, David Hansen
said:

On Sun, 3 Dec 2006 11:30:42 +0000 someone who may be Andy Hall
wrote this:-

If you choose to jumble it all together to make one large horrid
mess,
you should certainly have to sort that out yourself.
Why? I pay for rubbish disposal. If the local authority wants
it to be separated then they need to organise that.
As has been explained more than once the desire is driven by the
Westminster government and EU. Most councils undoubtedly just wanted
to continue in the way they had been doing in the past.

I'm sure. It was a big enough gravy train before, and now even more
wagons have been added.

I thought you were the one that wanted to add wagons, road miles and
multiple service providers ?


Cheers, J/.
--
John Beardmore

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

The whole premise was to have a range of services from a range of
providers so that people can choose what they want and with local
authorities taken out of the financial path between customer and
supplier. If you want to continue as you are then that is accomodated.

But if you want to continue having your waste collected with an
environmental impact / footprint that as small as it is now, you may not
be, and indeed, there is no guarantee that your existing service
provision would be offered.


Alternatively, you have the option to select products
based on the way that the manufacturer does the packaging. It's far
better not to have the packaging disposal issue in the first place.
Quite. But until legislation forces it on the manufacturers, their
marketing people, combined perhaps with a host of safety regs and
transport requirements, and sheer laziness on the part of some consumers
ensures the problem will persist.

There already is huge over-regulation in these areas. Adding more is
unlikely to alter the behaviour of consumers who want to buy a) on
price and b) on the attractiveness of the packaging.

Oh I don't know...


If you choose to jumble it all together to make one large horrid
mess,
you should certainly have to sort that out yourself.
Why? I pay for rubbish disposal.
And your rubbish is disposed of.

Then I'm happy. I am not happy if I am expected to do part of the
supplier's work for nothing. Either they reduce the price or they do
the work.

Oh there there !!


If the local authority wants it to be separated then they need to
organise that.
If waste recycling were merely some whimsical initiative undertaken
by
UK local authorities, that would be fair. Unfortunately it's not.
Recycling has been forced on them by EU directives which are in turn a
function of general (you may be excluded if you wish) recognition that
we're running short of sites for bulk waste disposal and that burying
valuable resources or sending them up in smoke to generate heat and
pollution is a Bad Thing.

If the total effect of each recycling procedure is positive (including
the whole lifetime of the product), then it may be worthwhile. I am
not convinced that there are very many actual cases where this applies.

Well - this is indeed the big one ! Is there any centralised reporting
and analysis of LCA data broken down by region ? That could certainly
inform a more systematic approach.


Cheers, J/.
--
John Beardmore

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

That's *your* premise, not mine. Making a range of services from a range
of providers available means no one can apply economies of scale (and

no it doesnt, no-one said they would have to be small firms.

Indeed, but three large ones will still have to drive round your area
each week where one does now, even if two of them don't pick up from
you.

What does that do for road miles per bon lifted ?


someone will have to regulate and inspect the suppliers,

same as they do now

Yes, but in your dream we'll have the same volume of waste, but three
tenders to process, and three companies to police.


but that's
another issue, sorry, set of costs).

which we already pay

And would then have to pay for more of.


I'm perfectly happy to have
essential services provided by a single supplier ultimately responsible
to me (the electorate).

this is another political myth.

A bit like the assertion that a cheaper service must necessarily use
less energy. !


You or the electorate didnt insitute
this LA garbage recycling system in the first place, theyre not acting
as you tell them, ie theyre not serving you. With a free market the
company does serve the customer/electorate, else it loses market share
and dies.

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


I beg to disagree. If regulation forces manufacturers to reduce their
packaging excesses, consumers will have to buy what's available.

the overpackaging myth

Not sure that it's a myth. Many things could do with a lot less
packaging.


You're not thinking it through. No one sorted refuse in the past: you're
requiring them to do additional work. Which means the cost of refuse
disposal would rise.

au contraire, I think Andy doesnt want to pay for sorting.

Quite possibly not.


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 !!


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.


Add the cost of providing sorting
facilities, hiring people to do the sorting, working out how to charge
for it... gods, they'd have to have *another* collection round for the
dirty combined stuff, which shouldn't contaminate the sorted refuse, so
they'd need more trucks and drivers... the cost would be (relatively)
astronomical.

What would happen in reality is that in the earliest days of the
market, many types of service would be offered and chosen somewhere or
other. This would provide a mass of real hard factual data about the
various options, and analysis would show which was genuinely best for
the economy, environment and so on,

Really ???


and as consumers learn about this
the choices would move toward the better options, according to the
choices of the service user. None of this happens today, which is why
we're still debating it.

And as we know from market observation, it tends to be the cheaper
services that get large market share, not the astropriced ones.

Yes - but again, that makes the preferred (cheap !) outcome cheaper,
and does nothing to the more sustainable options.


Nope, I'm afraid that if you don't want to sort your
refuse yourself, the only effective solution is for you to hire someone
to sort yours before you put it out.

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

You could have options to poo in the street too, but you may not get
huge popular support !


Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your PoV), those responsible
for recycling don't necessarily agree with you. And they're bound by the
regulations anyway, so neither their opinions nor yours will influence
the outcome.

does that mean they dont have power in democratically deciding this
after all?

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

Alternatively, you pontificate until you grow old, and never make an
effective case.


Cheers, J/.
--
John Beardmore

In message , Andy Hall writes
On 2006-12-04 10:29:24 +0000, (sarah) said:

Andy Hall wrote:
The whole premise was to have a range of services from a range of
providers so that people can choose what they want and with local
authorities taken out of the financial path between customer and
supplier. If you want to continue as you are then that is accomodated.
That's *your* premise, not mine. Making a range of services from a
range
of providers available means no one can apply economies of scale

Yes they can, because there is the potential to cover larger
geographical areas.

Road miles...


(and
someone will have to regulate and inspect the suppliers, but that's
another issue, sorry, set of costs).

That can be aggregated and outsourced as well

To consultants...

Or cheap dweebs.

Maybe the LA should inspect the outsourced inspectors and make sure they
inspect all the things that ought to be inspected ?

But seriously, what does aggregation mean here ?

If there are three companies to inspect, you still have to inspect three
companies. Unless 'aggregation' means that somehow you don't.

Or do you mean that only some statistical indicators get inspected
rather than the practices of individual companies ?


I'm perfectly happy to have
essential services provided by a single supplier ultimately responsible
to me (the electorate).

Fine. I'm not. Your choice is a subset of mine.

And your point is ?


Alternatively, you have the option to select products
based on the way that the manufacturer does the packaging. It's far
better not to have the packaging disposal issue in the first place.
Quite. But until legislation forces it on the manufacturers, their
marketing people, combined perhaps with a host of safety regs and
transport requirements, and sheer laziness on the part of some consumers
ensures the problem will persist.
There already is huge over-regulation in these areas. Adding more

unlikely to alter the behaviour of consumers who want to buy a) on
price and b) on the attractiveness of the packaging.
I beg to disagree. If regulation forces manufacturers to reduce
their
packaging excesses, consumers will have to buy what's available.

I see. So now we have this interference extending into customer choice
as well?

Fine by me !


If you choose to jumble it all together to make one large horrid

you should certainly have to sort that out yourself.
Why? I pay for rubbish disposal.
And your rubbish is disposed of.
Then I'm happy. I am not happy if I am expected to do part of
the
supplier's work for nothing. Either they reduce the price or they do
the work.
You're not thinking it through.

Yes I am.

Behind you !


No one sorted refuse in the past: you're
requiring them to do additional work.

I haven't asked them to do anything. They are doing so as a result of
attempting to meet
questionable political targets.

And attempting to deliver better environmental performance.


Which means the cost of refuse
disposal would rise.

Doesn't have to.

If you think you can justify opting out.


If you want to buy refuse disposal where you do half of the work,
you can.

Half ?


Nope, I'm afraid that if you don't want to sort your
refuse yourself, the only effective solution is for you to hire someone
to sort yours before you put it out.

Exactly. This is a service that a supplier could offer or could do it
at a central depot. I don't care how they do it - I pay them to do a
job.

And I care about the environmental impact of how the job is done.


I'd rather my council tax paid for
library books, thanks.

So would I, which is why I suggested taking local authorities out of
the financial path between supplier and customer. They add little or
no value.

Well as ever - get numerate then we can form our own opinions when
we've heard both sides of the story.


If the total effect of each recycling procedure is positive
(including
the whole lifetime of the product), then it may be worthwhile. I am
not convinced that there are very many actual cases where this applies.
Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your PoV), those
responsible
for recycling don't necessarily agree with you.

That's up to them.

Quite so.


And they're bound by the
regulations anyway, so neither their opinions nor yours will influence
the outcome.

Regulations can be interpreted and they can be changed.

Indeed, but you may not like the direction in which they are changing.


There is no need to slavishly follow every dotted i and crossed t
emanating from Brussels unless your name is Blair, of course.

In one or two respects, 'I wish' !


Cheers, J/.
--
John Beardmore

In message , sarah
writes
Andy Hall wrote:

[1] Note my self-restraint.

Noted !


Cheers, J/.
--
John Beardmore