Recycle!
I've talked about rubbish and recycling before and in recent months it's become quite a hot potato.
Probably, on the back of protecting the environment and finding a way of tyeing it into the subject of Global Warming. On the grounds of trying to reduce the carbon emissions that many scientists see as the threat and cause of this problem. To some extent there is truth that landfill is not the best way to get rid of rubbish either and space allowed for this practise is reducing.
Here, in Europe laws have been passed by the European Parliament that will affect member states that will see Governments putting pressure on local councils and authorities to find ways to encourage them to make the population reduce how much is thrown out and what is thrown away.
This could result in householders being fined for putting out too much rubbish, reductions in the frequency of how often a collection of rubbish is taken away(some councils have tried to reduce the weekly collection to fortnightly)
It is believed that reducing the main collection can force householders to take up recycling. I am fortunate in that the design of my home allows our wheelie bin and recycling crate to be hidden from view in an enclosed passage that runs alongside the house. And because I do recycle what I am allowed to, less is being put into the main rubbish collection, little food is wasted(and if there is something we are unable to finish off, it's given to the birds that visit the garden as its mainly fruit and bread)
Because of this we have managed to make it so our main bin only needs emptying fortnightly(or shall I say, we could put it out weekly but it would only be half full)Smells and vermin are no trouble because of the passage being enclosed and we line the bin with a big rubbish bag, spray the bin with a antibacterial product and then over the weeks add one or two normal sized bags fastened closed. An odd few things that are not food can go in separately without causing a health hazard. Some people can turn household waste into something that can improve the garden.
The downside is that some people just can't be bothered to recycle. That doesn't help the rest of the population as this will give authorities the chance to introduce taxes and fines that could affect everyone. There is also(understandably)a back lash against these measures as in the UK we pay something called a Council Tax and this goes towards what would be called public services such as education, police, fire, environmental matters such as rubbish collection and so on. So to charge more for collection of rubbish or to reduce the service is seen as not acceptable.
As people, will say what am I paying my taxes for if the service offered is less acceptable or you are going to change additional fees?
Some households no matter how they try to reduce their rubbish are at a disadvantage because there are more than two people living there. Also, house designs are not friendly in that they are suitable for storage of many bins and crates and that's especially true of anyone living in a block of flats or in an apartment.
Many towns and cities have municipal sites where you can drive your own rubbish to but that defeats the argument because it assumes everyone has access to a car, they want you to use your own cars less so this is adding to the problem. Having to get rid of rubbish this way can also have people saying "I can't be bothered!"
In my own case I am allowed to put out paper, glass and tins/cans. That's it! If they would allow plastic(such as milk bottles)and cardboard. I could reduce the main rubbish even more. Some areas do. My own area does not.
By chance, I managed to talk to a person promoting recycling at the local library about a week ago. And discovered that collection of plastic and cardboard is likely to come to our area and has been considered. Hurrah!
The bad news is that there is a kind of pilot scheme being tried out by two councils on the furthest outskirts of their areas and if successful(why wouldn't it be)it will introduced in stages and work its way inward. How long is it likely to take to reach my area? This person suggested we are talking of around 4 years!
I understand that many things do take time to introduce but I must admit to being quite surprised at the length of time being suggested here with all the publicity being given to this in the media.
Funnily, enough in the local free sheet as I found this out myself, someone who has moved into my town from another part of the country had put out plastic and seen the recycle person picking it out of the recycle crate and placing it in the main bin. When asked why he said "We don't take plastic love!" So she was asking in her letter...why not!
We are being told how successful the scheme is in this area. Really?
Probably, on the back of protecting the environment and finding a way of tyeing it into the subject of Global Warming. On the grounds of trying to reduce the carbon emissions that many scientists see as the threat and cause of this problem. To some extent there is truth that landfill is not the best way to get rid of rubbish either and space allowed for this practise is reducing.
Here, in Europe laws have been passed by the European Parliament that will affect member states that will see Governments putting pressure on local councils and authorities to find ways to encourage them to make the population reduce how much is thrown out and what is thrown away.
This could result in householders being fined for putting out too much rubbish, reductions in the frequency of how often a collection of rubbish is taken away(some councils have tried to reduce the weekly collection to fortnightly)
It is believed that reducing the main collection can force householders to take up recycling. I am fortunate in that the design of my home allows our wheelie bin and recycling crate to be hidden from view in an enclosed passage that runs alongside the house. And because I do recycle what I am allowed to, less is being put into the main rubbish collection, little food is wasted(and if there is something we are unable to finish off, it's given to the birds that visit the garden as its mainly fruit and bread)
Because of this we have managed to make it so our main bin only needs emptying fortnightly(or shall I say, we could put it out weekly but it would only be half full)Smells and vermin are no trouble because of the passage being enclosed and we line the bin with a big rubbish bag, spray the bin with a antibacterial product and then over the weeks add one or two normal sized bags fastened closed. An odd few things that are not food can go in separately without causing a health hazard. Some people can turn household waste into something that can improve the garden.
The downside is that some people just can't be bothered to recycle. That doesn't help the rest of the population as this will give authorities the chance to introduce taxes and fines that could affect everyone. There is also(understandably)a back lash against these measures as in the UK we pay something called a Council Tax and this goes towards what would be called public services such as education, police, fire, environmental matters such as rubbish collection and so on. So to charge more for collection of rubbish or to reduce the service is seen as not acceptable.
As people, will say what am I paying my taxes for if the service offered is less acceptable or you are going to change additional fees?
Some households no matter how they try to reduce their rubbish are at a disadvantage because there are more than two people living there. Also, house designs are not friendly in that they are suitable for storage of many bins and crates and that's especially true of anyone living in a block of flats or in an apartment.
Many towns and cities have municipal sites where you can drive your own rubbish to but that defeats the argument because it assumes everyone has access to a car, they want you to use your own cars less so this is adding to the problem. Having to get rid of rubbish this way can also have people saying "I can't be bothered!"
In my own case I am allowed to put out paper, glass and tins/cans. That's it! If they would allow plastic(such as milk bottles)and cardboard. I could reduce the main rubbish even more. Some areas do. My own area does not.
By chance, I managed to talk to a person promoting recycling at the local library about a week ago. And discovered that collection of plastic and cardboard is likely to come to our area and has been considered. Hurrah!
The bad news is that there is a kind of pilot scheme being tried out by two councils on the furthest outskirts of their areas and if successful(why wouldn't it be)it will introduced in stages and work its way inward. How long is it likely to take to reach my area? This person suggested we are talking of around 4 years!
I understand that many things do take time to introduce but I must admit to being quite surprised at the length of time being suggested here with all the publicity being given to this in the media.
Funnily, enough in the local free sheet as I found this out myself, someone who has moved into my town from another part of the country had put out plastic and seen the recycle person picking it out of the recycle crate and placing it in the main bin. When asked why he said "We don't take plastic love!" So she was asking in her letter...why not!
We are being told how successful the scheme is in this area. Really?
posted by The Great Gildersleeve | 2:34 pm
3 Comments:
Well, where I am they have finally decided to go fortnightly and with a big family it looks like I am going to have another grey bin :-(. I recycle what I can, but even though they have decided to make our blue bucket fortnightly too (paper, cardboard, telephone directories etc.), I still have no facilities nearby to deal with the plastic and cans, glass - it would mean driving to our nearest recycling point (we do have one nearby but that only takes bottles etc.) I have my own compost heap so vegetation etc., is no problem there. The problem I have is the plastic milk cartons - there is rather a lot of milk drunk in this household and because they a big and bulky they are a pain to store when empty. Maybe my council will get round to giving me another bucket for these plastic things and cans etc., there has been talk about it but have heard nothing of late.
Lx
Then again, how many more bins/crates should you be expected to store? How practicle is it. And you've hit the same problem about plastic and in particular milk bottles. And worse than that you are not allowed to put out cans or glass.
Also, whereas you can put telephone directories in your recycle bucket...we cannot do that yet.
If we were to switch to cardboard milk cartons, for now we are both stuck with a recycle scheme that does not take cardboard.
I did not mention that years ago a private firm was first in this area to take bundled/saved newspapers and magazines for recycling before the Government or councils thought of it. They were reliable and never failed to collect.
Being private they made a profit and it was not an additional service expected from the local authority and did not add any expense. And the council decided to stop the company.
Good post Gildy, I think everyone shuld recycle but I also think that NOBODY should be forced/fined to recycle.You'r lucky but my children and their mum fill a wheely bin every week with no problem at al...wait for it...they also part out glass, tin, cardboard, plastic (ie mlik containers) newspaper and even oragnic waste in its own brown conatiner...fine except she doesn't drive and they don't collect so every time I go back I do trips to the local dump (now Gestapo run where they serach bags etc to ensure no decent stuff is thrown in the 'cannot be recycled' skip. Last time I took 54 bags full (binliner and normal plastic bag size)
This is no joke as all that builds up, this will attract rats and othe rvermin, the council don't collect and they don't provide special bins (only teh normal wheely bin) If they ar going to start fining peopel they need to provide teh means to recycle, if not they get a load of 'Poll Tax' martyrs ove rrecycling...and I'll be there in support.
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