Local recycling centres
Discussion
For anyone interested….
The economics of waste and recycling are marginal. Each home in the UK contributes around £60 - £80 a year from council tax for ‘Waste Services’ which includes the collection of waste and recycling, litter picking, HWRCs, graffiti removal and cemeteries and crematoria. The cost of tipping one tonne of waste into a landfill depends on where you are in the country but typically is in the £120 - £180 mark (last time I looked, London was over £200 per tonne). Each home produces around a tonne of waste each year.
The financial imbalance is addressed through recycling – which both saves on landfill costs and generates revenue, producing energy from waste – which again creates savings and revenue but is not suitable for use everywhere – and refuse derived fuel – extracting fuel from non-recyclable waste. Either way, the financials operate on a very narrow margin which explains why some authorities have introduced controls and charges for things like garden waste collection and the use of HWRCs.
Much of all this also depends upon export. A lot of our waste is exported to places like Germany and Austria where it’s used as a fuel, refuse derived fuel goes to Scandinavia and a lot of recycling is exported to places like Italy and Eastern Europe. All of this contributes £4billion annually to the British economy and all of it is dependent upon pan EU regulatory controls which have yet to be fully addressed in terms of Brexit. If this results in higher costs to administer those regulations then this will trickle down to local authorities. The government have started to look at imposing additional financial obligation on the producers of packaging waste although there are concerns that this could end up being passed onto consumers. Until all this is properly sorted, local authorities are naturally conservative in their approach to service costs. Tighter controls on what items end up in HWRCs is one example of this as any variance can negatively impact on the operational finances. There are of course many ways to achieve this and some are better than others.
Couple of other points in response to a few comments from some:
There is no evidence from anywhere that suggests restrictions on HWRC usage results in fly-tipping. If you are the sort of person inclined to fly-tip, you’ll fly-tip. If not, you will not.
Some have pointed to certain liberal / left / green tendencies as reason for the way we are required to deal with our waste. It’s actually rooted in Conservative policy. It was John Gummer, then Minister of Environment under the Major government in the 90s that ratified the EU landfill directive into UK legislation and launched the Landfill Tax to enable the diversion of waste from landfill. Successive governments have maintained the course intended from that initial directive commitment.
The economics of waste and recycling are marginal. Each home in the UK contributes around £60 - £80 a year from council tax for ‘Waste Services’ which includes the collection of waste and recycling, litter picking, HWRCs, graffiti removal and cemeteries and crematoria. The cost of tipping one tonne of waste into a landfill depends on where you are in the country but typically is in the £120 - £180 mark (last time I looked, London was over £200 per tonne). Each home produces around a tonne of waste each year.
The financial imbalance is addressed through recycling – which both saves on landfill costs and generates revenue, producing energy from waste – which again creates savings and revenue but is not suitable for use everywhere – and refuse derived fuel – extracting fuel from non-recyclable waste. Either way, the financials operate on a very narrow margin which explains why some authorities have introduced controls and charges for things like garden waste collection and the use of HWRCs.
Much of all this also depends upon export. A lot of our waste is exported to places like Germany and Austria where it’s used as a fuel, refuse derived fuel goes to Scandinavia and a lot of recycling is exported to places like Italy and Eastern Europe. All of this contributes £4billion annually to the British economy and all of it is dependent upon pan EU regulatory controls which have yet to be fully addressed in terms of Brexit. If this results in higher costs to administer those regulations then this will trickle down to local authorities. The government have started to look at imposing additional financial obligation on the producers of packaging waste although there are concerns that this could end up being passed onto consumers. Until all this is properly sorted, local authorities are naturally conservative in their approach to service costs. Tighter controls on what items end up in HWRCs is one example of this as any variance can negatively impact on the operational finances. There are of course many ways to achieve this and some are better than others.
Couple of other points in response to a few comments from some:
There is no evidence from anywhere that suggests restrictions on HWRC usage results in fly-tipping. If you are the sort of person inclined to fly-tip, you’ll fly-tip. If not, you will not.
Some have pointed to certain liberal / left / green tendencies as reason for the way we are required to deal with our waste. It’s actually rooted in Conservative policy. It was John Gummer, then Minister of Environment under the Major government in the 90s that ratified the EU landfill directive into UK legislation and launched the Landfill Tax to enable the diversion of waste from landfill. Successive governments have maintained the course intended from that initial directive commitment.
WindyCommon said:
StevieBee said:
Each home in the UK contributes around £60 - £80 a year from council tax for ‘Waste Services’
Thank you for your post - I’m interested.How is the £60-£80 determined?
StevieBee said:
There is no evidence from anywhere that suggests restrictions on HWRC usage results in fly-tipping. If you are the sort of person inclined to fly-tip, you’ll fly-tip. If not, you will not.
Hopefully that holds in the face of increasing costs.A little while back I refenced one side of my garden and took the old fencing panels, posts, offcuts etc to the HWRC where they would presumably be burnt for energy or recycled in some way which seemed to me to be the best thing I could do for the environment. Now adding in the additional per-item charges which would have been probably around £80-£100 I'd just burn it instead in the future. Would save me the time and effort of cutting it up to fit in the car, loading the car, driving there and back and then cleaning the car out afterwards too!
StevieBee said:
For anyone interested….
The economics of waste and recycling are marginal. Each home in the UK contributes around £60 - £80 a year from council tax for ‘Waste Services’ which includes the collection of waste and recycling, litter picking, HWRCs, graffiti removal and cemeteries and crematoria. The cost of tipping one tonne of waste into a landfill depends on where you are in the country but typically is in the £120 - £180 mark (last time I looked, London was over £200 per tonne). Each home produces around a tonne of waste each year.
The financial imbalance is addressed through recycling – which both saves on landfill costs and generates revenue, producing energy from waste – which again creates savings and revenue but is not suitable for use everywhere – and refuse derived fuel – extracting fuel from non-recyclable waste. Either way, the financials operate on a very narrow margin which explains why some authorities have introduced controls and charges for things like garden waste collection and the use of HWRCs.
Much of all this also depends upon export. A lot of our waste is exported to places like Germany and Austria where it’s used as a fuel, refuse derived fuel goes to Scandinavia and a lot of recycling is exported to places like Italy and Eastern Europe. All of this contributes £4billion annually to the British economy and all of it is dependent upon pan EU regulatory controls which have yet to be fully addressed in terms of Brexit. If this results in higher costs to administer those regulations then this will trickle down to local authorities. The government have started to look at imposing additional financial obligation on the producers of packaging waste although there are concerns that this could end up being passed onto consumers. Until all this is properly sorted, local authorities are naturally conservative in their approach to service costs. Tighter controls on what items end up in HWRCs is one example of this as any variance can negatively impact on the operational finances. There are of course many ways to achieve this and some are better than others.
Couple of other points in response to a few comments from some:
There is no evidence from anywhere that suggests restrictions on HWRC usage results in fly-tipping. If you are the sort of person inclined to fly-tip, you’ll fly-tip. If not, you will not.
Some have pointed to certain liberal / left / green tendencies as reason for the way we are required to deal with our waste. It’s actually rooted in Conservative policy. It was John Gummer, then Minister of Environment under the Major government in the 90s that ratified the EU landfill directive into UK legislation and launched the Landfill Tax to enable the diversion of waste from landfill. Successive governments have maintained the course intended from that initial directive commitment.
You clearly know what you are talking about - which if you are not careful is likely to get you banned.The economics of waste and recycling are marginal. Each home in the UK contributes around £60 - £80 a year from council tax for ‘Waste Services’ which includes the collection of waste and recycling, litter picking, HWRCs, graffiti removal and cemeteries and crematoria. The cost of tipping one tonne of waste into a landfill depends on where you are in the country but typically is in the £120 - £180 mark (last time I looked, London was over £200 per tonne). Each home produces around a tonne of waste each year.
The financial imbalance is addressed through recycling – which both saves on landfill costs and generates revenue, producing energy from waste – which again creates savings and revenue but is not suitable for use everywhere – and refuse derived fuel – extracting fuel from non-recyclable waste. Either way, the financials operate on a very narrow margin which explains why some authorities have introduced controls and charges for things like garden waste collection and the use of HWRCs.
Much of all this also depends upon export. A lot of our waste is exported to places like Germany and Austria where it’s used as a fuel, refuse derived fuel goes to Scandinavia and a lot of recycling is exported to places like Italy and Eastern Europe. All of this contributes £4billion annually to the British economy and all of it is dependent upon pan EU regulatory controls which have yet to be fully addressed in terms of Brexit. If this results in higher costs to administer those regulations then this will trickle down to local authorities. The government have started to look at imposing additional financial obligation on the producers of packaging waste although there are concerns that this could end up being passed onto consumers. Until all this is properly sorted, local authorities are naturally conservative in their approach to service costs. Tighter controls on what items end up in HWRCs is one example of this as any variance can negatively impact on the operational finances. There are of course many ways to achieve this and some are better than others.
Couple of other points in response to a few comments from some:
There is no evidence from anywhere that suggests restrictions on HWRC usage results in fly-tipping. If you are the sort of person inclined to fly-tip, you’ll fly-tip. If not, you will not.
Some have pointed to certain liberal / left / green tendencies as reason for the way we are required to deal with our waste. It’s actually rooted in Conservative policy. It was John Gummer, then Minister of Environment under the Major government in the 90s that ratified the EU landfill directive into UK legislation and launched the Landfill Tax to enable the diversion of waste from landfill. Successive governments have maintained the course intended from that initial directive commitment.
I do take your point that there are some people who are simply inclined to fly tip and will most likely fly tip even if the recycling centres were free to use. However having had a lot of work done to my house over the last 5 years it is clear that the building contractors pay not insubstantial fees to get rid of the building waste - and of course this is passed on to client.
Logically this means that some builders can provide a cheaper quote by simply deciding to lob the waste in the local stream.
If there were no cost to recycling their waste then surely some of these builders would be less likely to fly tip?
my local recycling centre wants more to recycle a sheet of plasterboard, than such a sheet costs.
Local plasterers are now reluctant to buy their own materials for site, and what they do buy the waste ends up in their black bins for landfill.
If you think about it, for green credcentials to be maximised, we should all really be recycling stuff at our "local" tip, the ones we have have to out up with the traffic and smell of! Even if this is across the country border, there should be a system to allow local people to use out of area tips, to save them travelling larger distances to centres in their own county.
its just common sense.
Local plasterers are now reluctant to buy their own materials for site, and what they do buy the waste ends up in their black bins for landfill.
If you think about it, for green credcentials to be maximised, we should all really be recycling stuff at our "local" tip, the ones we have have to out up with the traffic and smell of! Even if this is across the country border, there should be a system to allow local people to use out of area tips, to save them travelling larger distances to centres in their own county.
its just common sense.
TorqueDirty said:
You clearly know what you are talking about - which if you are not careful is likely to get you banned.
I do take your point that there are some people who are simply inclined to fly tip and will most likely fly tip even if the recycling centres were free to use. However having had a lot of work done to my house over the last 5 years it is clear that the building contractors pay not insubstantial fees to get rid of the building waste - and of course this is passed on to client.
Logically this means that some builders can provide a cheaper quote by simply deciding to lob the waste in the local stream.
If there were no cost to recycling their waste then surely some of these builders would be less likely to fly tip?
Possibly. But the same principle applies in that there are those companies that are inclined to fly-tip and those that are not. Fines are un-capped and very very high if caught and owners can be imprisoned as well.I do take your point that there are some people who are simply inclined to fly tip and will most likely fly tip even if the recycling centres were free to use. However having had a lot of work done to my house over the last 5 years it is clear that the building contractors pay not insubstantial fees to get rid of the building waste - and of course this is passed on to client.
Logically this means that some builders can provide a cheaper quote by simply deciding to lob the waste in the local stream.
If there were no cost to recycling their waste then surely some of these builders would be less likely to fly tip?
Businesses don't contribute to the cost of waste services as we do through our council tax. The reason is that it's impossible for any local authority to provide a homogenous service to businesses as they produce a huge variety of waste in terms of type and quantity. So businesses have to pay for a service that suits their particular need.
Building waste does have a value but not a lot unless you're operating on a massive scale. The cost of dealing with the waste remains so if the company isn't going to pay, who is? And why should they get free waste services when a restaurant, accounting firm or any other business has to?
TorqueDirty said:
You clearly know what you are talking about - which if you are not careful is likely to get you banned.
The cognitive dissonance gang will be along soon, I'm sure! 
Steviebee clearly has a lot of knowledge in the subject but disposal of waste needs looking at as a whole.
A big chunk of the cost of disposing of waste is landfill tax, upto £95 per tonne which councils have to pay. Where they incinerate waste there is also a tax as well which impacts on councils.
Reducing waste is good so long as that waste has a value over the cost of collection if separated and is used afterwards not just stored until the site mysteriously catches fire as these sites appear to do regularly.
You say there is no evidence of increased fly tipping, well I can say in London we often get fly tipping on our sites and that has increased in the last two years, we may be unlucky but the police certainly are not interested.
In Cardiff outside our depot everyday rubbish is tipped and once a week the council come along and scoop it up yet have done nothing to pursue the criminals even when we offer CCTV footage.
Driving around South Glos there appears to be an increase in rubbish tipped but as it is in farmers field I suspect they just either pay to have it cleared or dig a hole and bury it themselves and that will possibly not be recorded.
S Glos reduced the size of bins by half and charge for green bin collection on top of your rates, was always free. You are correct some will always fly tip but others will seek out local people to do it. These often produce a card showing they are legal which turn out to be fake as many homeowners are too trusting or lured by a cheap price ask no questions.
It is a fine line councils tread with charging and that being abused and increasing fly tipping
A big chunk of the cost of disposing of waste is landfill tax, upto £95 per tonne which councils have to pay. Where they incinerate waste there is also a tax as well which impacts on councils.
Reducing waste is good so long as that waste has a value over the cost of collection if separated and is used afterwards not just stored until the site mysteriously catches fire as these sites appear to do regularly.
You say there is no evidence of increased fly tipping, well I can say in London we often get fly tipping on our sites and that has increased in the last two years, we may be unlucky but the police certainly are not interested.
In Cardiff outside our depot everyday rubbish is tipped and once a week the council come along and scoop it up yet have done nothing to pursue the criminals even when we offer CCTV footage.
Driving around South Glos there appears to be an increase in rubbish tipped but as it is in farmers field I suspect they just either pay to have it cleared or dig a hole and bury it themselves and that will possibly not be recorded.
S Glos reduced the size of bins by half and charge for green bin collection on top of your rates, was always free. You are correct some will always fly tip but others will seek out local people to do it. These often produce a card showing they are legal which turn out to be fake as many homeowners are too trusting or lured by a cheap price ask no questions.
It is a fine line councils tread with charging and that being abused and increasing fly tipping
spaximus said:
Steviebee clearly has a lot of knowledge in the subject but disposal of waste needs looking at as a whole
I do .... and couldn't agree more!spaximus said:
It is a fine line councils tread with charging and that being abused and increasing fly tipping
Whilst I can explain (and understand) the reasoning behind charging, it doesn't mean to say that I agree with it.My particular field within waste management is Behaviour Change Communication and I'm regularly asked to provide expert insight into the likely public perception to charging and other restrictions and my stock reply is; "don't". It creates an unnecessary barrier to people who would otherwise be happy to use different bins at the HWRC for different things and contribute to the 'greater good' - but not if they have to jump through hoops.
The problem is that councils see things in black and white. The Land Rover issue is a prime example. These are classified (in their eyes) as commercial vehicles, ergo; if you have one, you run a business, which of course is not necessarily the case. Whereas many pick ups are classified as sports utility so so are seen as recreational. You could also fill the average people carrier with more waste than you could hope to fill the back of an old Landy with!
Councils also see borders as 'hard'. You could live 500m away from a HWRC but live in the neighbouring borough so not be entitled to use it but your nearest 'official one' could be 10 miles away. It's completely daft but local authorities exist on a process of box-ticking and risk minimisation which is fine but limits the ability to see the bigger picture.
There are ways to assign the costs for using HWRCs far more elegantly and easily than is the case currently.
I always think there is an excellent opportunity for young offenders to do their community service at tips, sorting stuff
Each be given a pile of s
te to sort and if there are issues with it (wrong sorting) their day of work isn’t knocked off their total. If they don’t turn up etc, they get extra days added
Would give them purpose and help focus their minds rather than the usual issues that drag em down
Each be given a pile of s
te to sort and if there are issues with it (wrong sorting) their day of work isn’t knocked off their total. If they don’t turn up etc, they get extra days addedWould give them purpose and help focus their minds rather than the usual issues that drag em down
this is the charges for dumping in a Bucks Council refuse centre
https://www.buckscc.gov.uk/media/4514355/non-house...
£10 to dump a toilet or £20 a boiler. Take a shed and that will be £17.50
https://www.buckscc.gov.uk/media/4514355/non-house...
£10 to dump a toilet or £20 a boiler. Take a shed and that will be £17.50
Sonie said:
this is the charges for dumping in a Bucks Council refuse centre
https://www.buckscc.gov.uk/media/4514355/non-house...
£10 to dump a toilet or £20 a boiler. Take a shed and that will be £17.50
That’s bloody ridiculous! It’s all free here for domestic stuff (Cumbria). How can that possibly encourage recycling/discourage fly tipping?https://www.buckscc.gov.uk/media/4514355/non-house...
£10 to dump a toilet or £20 a boiler. Take a shed and that will be £17.50
Sonie said:
this is the charges for dumping in a Bucks Council refuse centre
https://www.buckscc.gov.uk/media/4514355/non-house...
£10 to dump a toilet or £20 a boiler. Take a shed and that will be £17.50
Interesting, I’m going to stop complaining about my tip!https://www.buckscc.gov.uk/media/4514355/non-house...
£10 to dump a toilet or £20 a boiler. Take a shed and that will be £17.50
The vast majority of that I’d Ben smashing up and binning over a few weeks!
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