Refuse Collection & The Vanguard of Communism...
Discussion
This is the way it's all going. Tits up and resolutely down the sh1tter.
Even during the zenith of trade union rampancy, the early-mid 1970s, I recall the activities of our local bin men.
Your dustbin wasn't just emptied in the time honoured fashion but a hearty yoeoman would bound, hop or indeed tap dance up the household's driveway to the side or rear of the property, haul a metallic recepticle over his back and chirpily whistle all the way back to the dustcart and ceremoniously hurl the contents therein.
Pretty damn simple and very few died in the process.
They were rough, tough but utterly personable, [i]human[/i] characters.
I even remember one bloke giving me a rather scabby and almost certainly diseased, plastic Boeing BAC-111 toy, out of nothing more than the goodness of his heart and the local Lord's cast offs and whilst it fell someway short of the then default Steve Austin character all Tomahawk riding scamps of the era craved, it was nevertheless appreciated.
How times have changed - for the worse.
A month ago, the cabal of revolutionary Sandanistas who dominate our local council resolved upon an inspired course of action intended to return local refuse processing to the heady standards of the (first) civil war.
Whilst they've put on hold the much heralded proposal for open sewers and rampant, bubonic vermin, they are nevertheless determined to ensure the re-emergence of the cult of rotten cabbage and smelling salts.
To wit, our bins will be collected once a fortnight.
Of course, most of our rubbish is to be seperated and neatly arranged into multifarious containers so that the local refuse service don't actually have to [i]do[/i] any work but hey, whoever said taxpayers weren't there to be utterly spanked?
Except that even having stripped out one's glass, plastic and assorted other, predetermined material containers, there is still an amount of unavoidable, honest to God, decaying crap that can only be hoisted into one's grey, dusty bin.
Imagine how, dear reader, I felt, when the Friday morning collection came and went but the mountain of bin bourne, sulphuriating pustulate remained, willfully unattended, the top ajar due to the sheer density of assembled detrius but Brother Robbo McRed and his band of ignoble, work to rule lackeys quite happy to see it remain chez moi for a third, rotting week.
So what aspect of 'the job' had been transgressed by yours truly that the waste should enter a third, putrifying week?
Did the sight of an opened lid constitute some flagrant breach of their regulatory, operational framework, some slight against the unassailable might and right of the Health & Safety edifice?
I don't know but I am quite sure that my outrageous council tax bill will increase unabated.
These workers need protecting from evil, vile bastards like me and I should damn well accept the proletariat's holy quest to dominate and ruinate the realm of Arthur.
At least this seems to be the gist of our local council's approach.
It's a quiet revolution, what's happening in Albion today but a change of profound tumult nevertheless.
At the end of it will be a defenceless state, populated by salivating, murderous orcs.
There is nothing anyone can do about it: the game, like Basil Fawlty's pie, is up.
So the next time you run into a bin man, ask him who he votde for and if the answer seems distasteful, put the miserable dog to the sword.
Have a [i]nice[/i] day!
Even during the zenith of trade union rampancy, the early-mid 1970s, I recall the activities of our local bin men.
Your dustbin wasn't just emptied in the time honoured fashion but a hearty yoeoman would bound, hop or indeed tap dance up the household's driveway to the side or rear of the property, haul a metallic recepticle over his back and chirpily whistle all the way back to the dustcart and ceremoniously hurl the contents therein.
Pretty damn simple and very few died in the process.
They were rough, tough but utterly personable, [i]human[/i] characters.
I even remember one bloke giving me a rather scabby and almost certainly diseased, plastic Boeing BAC-111 toy, out of nothing more than the goodness of his heart and the local Lord's cast offs and whilst it fell someway short of the then default Steve Austin character all Tomahawk riding scamps of the era craved, it was nevertheless appreciated.
How times have changed - for the worse.
A month ago, the cabal of revolutionary Sandanistas who dominate our local council resolved upon an inspired course of action intended to return local refuse processing to the heady standards of the (first) civil war.
Whilst they've put on hold the much heralded proposal for open sewers and rampant, bubonic vermin, they are nevertheless determined to ensure the re-emergence of the cult of rotten cabbage and smelling salts.
To wit, our bins will be collected once a fortnight.
Of course, most of our rubbish is to be seperated and neatly arranged into multifarious containers so that the local refuse service don't actually have to [i]do[/i] any work but hey, whoever said taxpayers weren't there to be utterly spanked?
Except that even having stripped out one's glass, plastic and assorted other, predetermined material containers, there is still an amount of unavoidable, honest to God, decaying crap that can only be hoisted into one's grey, dusty bin.
Imagine how, dear reader, I felt, when the Friday morning collection came and went but the mountain of bin bourne, sulphuriating pustulate remained, willfully unattended, the top ajar due to the sheer density of assembled detrius but Brother Robbo McRed and his band of ignoble, work to rule lackeys quite happy to see it remain chez moi for a third, rotting week.
So what aspect of 'the job' had been transgressed by yours truly that the waste should enter a third, putrifying week?
Did the sight of an opened lid constitute some flagrant breach of their regulatory, operational framework, some slight against the unassailable might and right of the Health & Safety edifice?
I don't know but I am quite sure that my outrageous council tax bill will increase unabated.
These workers need protecting from evil, vile bastards like me and I should damn well accept the proletariat's holy quest to dominate and ruinate the realm of Arthur.
At least this seems to be the gist of our local council's approach.
It's a quiet revolution, what's happening in Albion today but a change of profound tumult nevertheless.
At the end of it will be a defenceless state, populated by salivating, murderous orcs.
There is nothing anyone can do about it: the game, like Basil Fawlty's pie, is up.
So the next time you run into a bin man, ask him who he votde for and if the answer seems distasteful, put the miserable dog to the sword.
Have a [i]nice[/i] day!
What he said, they have done the same thing around here too, it starts on Wednesday. Main bin emptied once a fortnight, wont be collected if its got the wrong sort of rubbish in it either. We now have several coloured boxes that are to be put out in the correct rotation on the correct day fortnightly.
They can sod off.
I will take all my rubbish to the local tip myself, and my wheelie bin is going to be filled with concrete and bolted to the middle of the pavement outside our house as a monument to my protest.
I wouldnt mind, but I bet if a proper study of the whole environmental considerations were made, it wouldnt surprise me if there is no net benefit, or even an increase in terms of environmental damage.
I wonder if I could build my own incinerator in the garden?
They can sod off.
I will take all my rubbish to the local tip myself, and my wheelie bin is going to be filled with concrete and bolted to the middle of the pavement outside our house as a monument to my protest.
I wouldnt mind, but I bet if a proper study of the whole environmental considerations were made, it wouldnt surprise me if there is no net benefit, or even an increase in terms of environmental damage.
I wonder if I could build my own incinerator in the garden?
Twenty years ago, I used to leave my pile of (flattened) cardboard boxes outside my business premises, and the local council (Bury) used to happily pick them up free, three times a week......
Now, not only do I have to take them to the local "civic amienity centre" myself, but I get CHARGED for the privilige to boot.......
Now, not only do I have to take them to the local "civic amienity centre" myself, but I get CHARGED for the privilige to boot.......
Round here we now have 3 bins for specific items, having initially tried to play the game and seperate items I discovered that the fortnightly recycling collection was inadequate when my bin was left as the lid was ajar. I now put everything in black sacks and use the bin that is least full.
Their latest wheeze is to compel everyone to seperate their garden waste so that the council can compost it and resell the compost (no doubt for a profit that won't be reflected in our council robbery bill.) I have already taken the liberty of recycling this bin into a far more useful beer cooler.
Their latest wheeze is to compel everyone to seperate their garden waste so that the council can compost it and resell the compost (no doubt for a profit that won't be reflected in our council robbery bill.) I have already taken the liberty of recycling this bin into a far more useful beer cooler.
Same here too.
They decided that we had to leave our rubbish in bags at the end of our drives to make it easier for the bin men.
Obviously the council tax went up, to reflect the reduced service.
I don't agree with it, but I can see their argument, when it comes to houses with long drives. The thing is though, my drive is short enough that you can just about park a Fiesta on it (and all the others around here). At the end of the drive is a bin cupboard, that was presumably built to store rubbish in such a way that the local cats and foxes don't distribute the rubbish across next doors garden.
That happens anyhow now, and our road looks like a landfill site (with recycling in separate boxes). The frequency of service is reducing, but since they don't come and get my rubbish any more I just take it to the tip myself.
I do a fair bit of DIY, so I go to the tip with scrap quite a bit, but it is noticable how much bigger the queues at the tip have become. Sometimes I have to wait more than half an hour just to get in.
I suspect I'm not the only one that does their own recycling now.
It's amazing. The way we are. Whatever goes on, systems that have worked for years are being scrapped, and the end game is yet another traffic jam.
They decided that we had to leave our rubbish in bags at the end of our drives to make it easier for the bin men.
Obviously the council tax went up, to reflect the reduced service.
I don't agree with it, but I can see their argument, when it comes to houses with long drives. The thing is though, my drive is short enough that you can just about park a Fiesta on it (and all the others around here). At the end of the drive is a bin cupboard, that was presumably built to store rubbish in such a way that the local cats and foxes don't distribute the rubbish across next doors garden.
That happens anyhow now, and our road looks like a landfill site (with recycling in separate boxes). The frequency of service is reducing, but since they don't come and get my rubbish any more I just take it to the tip myself.
I do a fair bit of DIY, so I go to the tip with scrap quite a bit, but it is noticable how much bigger the queues at the tip have become. Sometimes I have to wait more than half an hour just to get in.
I suspect I'm not the only one that does their own recycling now.
It's amazing. The way we are. Whatever goes on, systems that have worked for years are being scrapped, and the end game is yet another traffic jam.
Hang on a minute take it we talking about Rubbish here.
Just a few points we are short of space to dump stuff we produce millions of tons of waste each year and this has to be disposed of somewhere ?
What really gets my goat is that more use is not made of the methane from landfill sites in Sweden then use it to generate steam which is then feed a turbine generating electricity the remaining water is piped to residents piping hot.
This mean cheaper electicitiy than we get in the UK.
Just a few points we are short of space to dump stuff we produce millions of tons of waste each year and this has to be disposed of somewhere ?
What really gets my goat is that more use is not made of the methane from landfill sites in Sweden then use it to generate steam which is then feed a turbine generating electricity the remaining water is piped to residents piping hot.
This mean cheaper electicitiy than we get in the UK.
The thing is, comparing waste collection these days with waste collection 30-40 years ago is futile. The sheer weight of unneccesary packaging used today is the main cause of the problem.
I'm willing to bet that most people have a dustbin full of plastic items. Cardboard, paper, glass, metal, they're all dead simple to separate without human intervention - plastic however you can't really do much with.
The solution is not to penalise the everyday fella for not sorting his waste, the solution is to penalise the food producers for using too much packaging.
Lets have a return to meat being sold in greaseproof brown paper bags. Milk being sold in glass bottles. Bottles of pop being 10p refundable. Lets do away with shopping bags, since 90% of supermarket custom is from cars lets give people cardboard boxes and paper bags like they do in the US.
Mind you, there is a certain amount of lazyness these days - I have a tub for glass/plastic, I chucked my old alternator into it (in a plastic bag), along with all the tins/glass etc. They emptied the paper from the accompanying blue bag, but left all the glass/metal in the box, all because I'd not removed the plastic bag that held the alternator. Pathetic.
If it happens again, I will be dumping it on the town hall steps.
I'm willing to bet that most people have a dustbin full of plastic items. Cardboard, paper, glass, metal, they're all dead simple to separate without human intervention - plastic however you can't really do much with.
The solution is not to penalise the everyday fella for not sorting his waste, the solution is to penalise the food producers for using too much packaging.
Lets have a return to meat being sold in greaseproof brown paper bags. Milk being sold in glass bottles. Bottles of pop being 10p refundable. Lets do away with shopping bags, since 90% of supermarket custom is from cars lets give people cardboard boxes and paper bags like they do in the US.
Mind you, there is a certain amount of lazyness these days - I have a tub for glass/plastic, I chucked my old alternator into it (in a plastic bag), along with all the tins/glass etc. They emptied the paper from the accompanying blue bag, but left all the glass/metal in the box, all because I'd not removed the plastic bag that held the alternator. Pathetic.
If it happens again, I will be dumping it on the town hall steps.
derestrictor said:
Even during the zenith of trade union rampancy, the early-mid 1970s, ......
......Your dustbin wasn't just emptied in the time honoured fashion but a hearty yoeoman would bound, hop or indeed tap dance up the household's driveway to the side or rear of the property, .......
.....the cabal of revolutionary Sandanistas who dominate our local council resolved upon an inspired course of action intended to return local refuse processing to the heady standards of the (first) civil war. ...
...... mountain of bin bourne, sulphuriating pustulate remained, willfully unattended, the top ajar due to the sheer density of assembled detrius but Brother Robbo McRed and his band of ignoble, work to rule lackeys quite happy to see it remain chez moi for a third, rotting week. .....
.....vile bastards like me and I should damn well accept the proletariat's holy quest to dominate and ruinate the realm of Arthur.........
Have a nice day!
Derestrictor, I love your posts but I always have the feeling that you were very hungry and for some reason ate a dictionary, got bad indigestion then somehow threw up into a post.
Do you write your company memo's? That has got to be a laugh!!
we have this sytem in south glos, it is the pits. In the summer your green bins is full of garden waste and compostable items, the grey bin is overflowing by week two and the box for newspaper glass and washed tins is like wise. We now have three lorries collecting and open hostility to the bin men who now have some power and depending on who you are take everything or nothing. It is a sight seeing grown people running round on bin days seeing if they can put a bit more in someone elses bin, cause if the lid is ajar it is not emptied.
The council teel us it is for our own good as landfill is scarce but around here we have loads of old quarries, one just up the road which will take 50 years to fill but no we have to take it elsewhere. Bristols waste goes by train to somewhere where it is buried. Bristol used to have an incinerator at Avonmouth which was closed due to the greenies.
My tip is bribe the bin men with a hearty Christmas gift and like me everything you put in the bin will be taken with no problems at all whatever day it is.
The council teel us it is for our own good as landfill is scarce but around here we have loads of old quarries, one just up the road which will take 50 years to fill but no we have to take it elsewhere. Bristols waste goes by train to somewhere where it is buried. Bristol used to have an incinerator at Avonmouth which was closed due to the greenies.
My tip is bribe the bin men with a hearty Christmas gift and like me everything you put in the bin will be taken with no problems at all whatever day it is.
Yes, we're on 2-weekly now, so that the bin is overflowing and stinking come collection time. Still, with house re-valuation, we can no doubt look forward to a vast increase in council tax to pay for reduced services. 
Apparently, there's also a new collection "system" (according to the council). I just wonder what this new system actually is because, a few weeks ago, some glass fell out of a bin and smashed on the road. Not one attempt was made to sweep it up, the morons just carried on, presumably happy in their simple world. Maybe the issue of a dustpan and brush would necessitate the payment of a special allowance, or is just too complex a manoeuvre to assimilate into the daily routine.
Apparently, there's also a new collection "system" (according to the council). I just wonder what this new system actually is because, a few weeks ago, some glass fell out of a bin and smashed on the road. Not one attempt was made to sweep it up, the morons just carried on, presumably happy in their simple world. Maybe the issue of a dustpan and brush would necessitate the payment of a special allowance, or is just too complex a manoeuvre to assimilate into the daily routine.
parrot of doom said:
The thing is, comparing waste collection these days with waste collection 30-40 years ago is futile. The sheer weight of unneccesary packaging used today is the main cause of the problem.
30 or 40 years ago many of us still had coal fires and tht's where we disposed of a great deal of our household rubbish.
The bins didn't get as full, but they were bloody heavy because they were made of galvanised steel and full of ash and cinders.
Equal oppotunities wasn't an issue and the health and safety fairy hadn't been conceved.
Refuse collection was the preserve of the big strong lads who'd been in the bottom set at school.
parrot of doom said:
The thing is, comparing waste collection these days with waste collection 30-40 years ago is futile. The sheer weight of unneccesary packaging used today is the main cause of the problem.
I'm willing to bet that most people have a dustbin full of plastic items. Cardboard, paper, glass, metal, they're all dead simple to separate without human intervention - plastic however you can't really do much with.
The solution is not to penalise the everyday fella for not sorting his waste, the solution is to penalise the food producers for using too much packaging.
Lets have a return to meat being sold in greaseproof brown paper bags. Milk being sold in glass bottles. Bottles of pop being 10p refundable. Lets do away with shopping bags, since 90% of supermarket custom is from cars lets give people cardboard boxes and paper bags like they do in the US.
Wise word PoD
Nothing new here. About 15 years ago I had a long bout of too and fro corespondance with the local authority refuse department. I wanted to throw my garden away to make room for a sinful garage. Council would have been happy if it was for a crack house but it was to store my first and hard won Porsche. In all I needed to tip 90 tonnes of soil in order to get the garden back to street level. Eventually the concil agreed to allowing me to tip for free, (IE for no more than my council tax) provided I did the whole job myself. I hired a digger, skid loader and 7.5 tonne tipper for the weekend and set to work. I arrived at the tip with my letter giving me permission to be met with some chunnering and much scratching of heads and a few phone calls I was eventually allowed to tip my first load after it had been weighed.
From then it was pretty plain sailing for the whole weekend a freindly chap duly weighed my loads and waved me through. I finally filled the tipper with my last load late on the Sunday evening and decided I would take it first thing Monday morning. I needed to have the truch back by 9 so I arrived at the tip at 7 complete with letter as I assumed the day staff may have changed. I was greeted by a huge female of Russian appearance. She would have made the olympics but instead she had chosen a career in torture. On leaving the Gulag she landed in sunny Manchester and was immeiately given a job as a revenue inpector. She told me I was a criminal and after I had tipped my load she presented my with an invoice for £48000.00 for the 96 tonnes at £500.00 per tonne.
It was one of my better put downs, I must admit. She was clearly expecting me to break down and become apopleptic with rage. I simply smiled and said "I am now out of the loop really, my home is worth a little more than that but its mortgaged you see and you had best take it up with the Bank. She looked crestfallen at not being able cause the distress she had planned.
Eventually after several demands for more than my entire worth, I got a letter saying they were waving the charge on the basis of having issued it in error. The office wallahs did not seem to understand I had no interest their dilemma.
Deristrictor you are right about the lust for communism to be revived, but I honestly think there are enough people who hate them to put sufficient spanners in the works.
From then it was pretty plain sailing for the whole weekend a freindly chap duly weighed my loads and waved me through. I finally filled the tipper with my last load late on the Sunday evening and decided I would take it first thing Monday morning. I needed to have the truch back by 9 so I arrived at the tip at 7 complete with letter as I assumed the day staff may have changed. I was greeted by a huge female of Russian appearance. She would have made the olympics but instead she had chosen a career in torture. On leaving the Gulag she landed in sunny Manchester and was immeiately given a job as a revenue inpector. She told me I was a criminal and after I had tipped my load she presented my with an invoice for £48000.00 for the 96 tonnes at £500.00 per tonne.
It was one of my better put downs, I must admit. She was clearly expecting me to break down and become apopleptic with rage. I simply smiled and said "I am now out of the loop really, my home is worth a little more than that but its mortgaged you see and you had best take it up with the Bank. She looked crestfallen at not being able cause the distress she had planned.
Eventually after several demands for more than my entire worth, I got a letter saying they were waving the charge on the basis of having issued it in error. The office wallahs did not seem to understand I had no interest their dilemma.
Deristrictor you are right about the lust for communism to be revived, but I honestly think there are enough people who hate them to put sufficient spanners in the works.
Yes, there is entirely too much packaging. I understand that some products need more protection from damage, but the tough plastic that encased my USB cable hub was almost impossible to cut through, let alone open to retrieve my purchase. This was overkill, both in the amount of trash and in the strength of material. Manufacturers should be penalized for creating more trash. However, they have more powerful lobbyists than you and I so the government has chosen to encourage us to stamp down our garbage in the can, or force us to try to use fewer goods.
Sorting garbage by hand is a costly waste of time. With all the industrial technology in place to create more stuff, there must be some way to collect all bulk trash, grind it up, pulverize it, mechanically and chemically separate it, use the organics for biomass fuel, recycle the glasses and metals. There's some economies of scale, and we certainly make enough garbage for it to be worth it, imo. It's hard for me to understand why trash management isn't more industrialized so that recovered materials can be sold back to manufacturers. It certainly beats the cost of enforcement of regulations designed to allow the government to do even less while collecting even more of our money. Well, eventually, we will have so much pollution and so few remaining resources that we will be forced to mining our trash heaps. Trash will be the only thing left.
Sorting garbage by hand is a costly waste of time. With all the industrial technology in place to create more stuff, there must be some way to collect all bulk trash, grind it up, pulverize it, mechanically and chemically separate it, use the organics for biomass fuel, recycle the glasses and metals. There's some economies of scale, and we certainly make enough garbage for it to be worth it, imo. It's hard for me to understand why trash management isn't more industrialized so that recovered materials can be sold back to manufacturers. It certainly beats the cost of enforcement of regulations designed to allow the government to do even less while collecting even more of our money. Well, eventually, we will have so much pollution and so few remaining resources that we will be forced to mining our trash heaps. Trash will be the only thing left.
Just a few points to make on this one in ddefence of councils.
Your Council Tax contribution towards refuse removal is likely to be in the region of 40-50p per week.
Your Council has EU targets to meet,
EU Directive
The UK Government has a legal obligation under the European Union Landfill directive to cut by 35% the 1995 level of biodegradable municipal waste put into landfill by 2020.
Strict targets have been set for landfill quotas and if Councils exceed them they will be fined at a rate of upto £1.50 per tonne. I live near York and York residents produce about 100,000 tonnes of rubbish each year. This figure is growing by about 3% a year. By 2025 it's estimated there will be twice as much waste to deal with. You can take a rough guess guess how big some of these fines might be if nothing is done, you can also take a guess at who will be paying.
It is a simple fact that we have to recycle and the easiest way for this to be done is at source, ie by us. Council finances are tight and in order to collect more recyclabe materials they have to have more transport runs, so this is why many councils are now doing alternate week collections. As new vehicles are purchased (a new refuse vehicle can cost up to £100k) that have multiple compartments, then weekly copllections of all may be possible, but you will still need to seperate teh waste out.
On another point raised, it is now a legal requirement for all methane emmisions from landfill to be collected. I would actually reccomend visiting a landfill site, the technology required to operate one is immense.
Here endeth the lesson.
Your Council Tax contribution towards refuse removal is likely to be in the region of 40-50p per week.
Your Council has EU targets to meet,
EU Directive
The UK Government has a legal obligation under the European Union Landfill directive to cut by 35% the 1995 level of biodegradable municipal waste put into landfill by 2020.
Strict targets have been set for landfill quotas and if Councils exceed them they will be fined at a rate of upto £1.50 per tonne. I live near York and York residents produce about 100,000 tonnes of rubbish each year. This figure is growing by about 3% a year. By 2025 it's estimated there will be twice as much waste to deal with. You can take a rough guess guess how big some of these fines might be if nothing is done, you can also take a guess at who will be paying.
It is a simple fact that we have to recycle and the easiest way for this to be done is at source, ie by us. Council finances are tight and in order to collect more recyclabe materials they have to have more transport runs, so this is why many councils are now doing alternate week collections. As new vehicles are purchased (a new refuse vehicle can cost up to £100k) that have multiple compartments, then weekly copllections of all may be possible, but you will still need to seperate teh waste out.
On another point raised, it is now a legal requirement for all methane emmisions from landfill to be collected. I would actually reccomend visiting a landfill site, the technology required to operate one is immense.
Here endeth the lesson.
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