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Hairyloon

Joined: 20 Nov 2008
Posts: 15461
Location: Today I are mostly being in Yorkshire.

Posted: Mon Jun 07, 10 5:16 pm Post subject:

Treacodactyl wrote:

I think power generating rats fed on refuse is a little too far fetched to me...

Well yes, that bit was tending towards silliness (OTOH, why wouldn't it work), but they would be a very efficient way of converting refuse into protein... and leave the remaining refuse cleaner ready for sorting.

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Mon Jun 07, 10 5:17 pm Post subject:

Rob R wrote:

Err no, these measures get people to recycle more of what they do produce, which is far better as far as the big picture goes than dumping it on someone elses doorstep for them to pay to dispose of.

Although as much of said waste is food waste or difficult to recycle laminated plastic and foil, its only a small improvement. If the big picture is 'reduce, reuse and recycle' then this only targets a little bit of it. Far better? Not at all. A little better, maybe. But the opportunity is there to do something really very positive; this isn't it.

Quote:

This system might not be perfect, granted, but it is an improvement. It's not just a rural issue, but it is predominately one, because tippers are less likely to be caught out here and there are far more 'sites' available for them.

I don't believe that its predominantly a rural problem. Its different (people travelling further to dump larger volumes as opposed to smaller, more frequent dumping), but wandering around a lot of urban areas I've seen a heck of a lot of waste dumped in a heck of a lot of places. There is never a shortage of places to tip waste in a town.

Quote:

The ones that bother me most are not the rubbish tippers though (at least there is a chance they'll leave their address in said rubbish), they are the idiots who block drains with leaves they have collected from their own street/garden . We had one who was quite easy to trace- he used to tip his lawn clippings and leaves over the fence into our field. As the pile got bigger and bigger it started to encroach into the field itself. So Paul got the loader and scooped them all up, and tipped the whole lot back over his fence! He hasn't done it again.

Yeah, sadly common. There must be a dozen gardens on my regular foraging routes where footpaths are marred by waste just hurled over the fence of someones garden

gz

Joined: 23 Jan 2009
Posts: 9000
Location: Ayrshire, Scotland

Posted: Mon Jun 07, 10 5:55 pm Post subject:
[quote="Treacodactyl"][quote="JB"][quote="Treacodactyl"]What's the solution thought? I thought most people, including DS users, were against pay per throw?[/quot but I don't think there are any plans to collect kitchen waste or encourage people to reduce it.[/quote We have a waste food caddy, collected once a week. (I have a spare one which is used for carrying waste to the compost heap!)

Rob R

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 31902
Location: York

Posted: Mon Jun 07, 10 6:02 pm Post subject:

If you were (potentially) going to have to pay more to have it removed from your property you'd probably have a different perspective upon how much better it is. I agree that more could be done though, but I do believe this is a step in the right direction, instead of a step backwards, as was in the pipeline.

I too have lived in urban areas for short periods of time (college) and people did dump small amounts of stuff regularly, but the council also cleared it up regularly so no, I don't accept that it is it equally an urban problem. There are plenty of places in town to dump, but those places only remain so because it is then taken away, that doesn't happen out here and we bin it (or scrap it). I would greatly resent having to pay to dispose of that rubbish under the now scrapped proposals, and if it were as big a problem for you, so would you.

I guess in an urban situation, the council clearing it up aside, there are more people dumping small amounts, but there are also more owners of 'sites' to spread it out across, so it is a pain for everyone but only a relatively small pain. Owners in rural areas own more 'sites', so they personally have to dispose of more (and, as you rightly pointed out, sometimes in greater quantities, however throwing a carrier bag or even single items from a car window means we also get the small amounts too). I don't mind clearing up and keeping the place tidy but I can't afford to pay for other peoples rubbish, although I would still collect it.

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Mon Jun 07, 10 6:16 pm Post subject:

Rob R wrote:

I too have lived in urban areas for short periods of time (college) and people did dump small amounts of stuff regularly, but the council also cleared it up regularly so no, I don't accept that it is it equally an urban problem.

You were lucky. Its a battle of wills to get ours to collect fly tipped waste; I've seen them turn up to collect a dumped trailer full of waste that had been there for months, take the trailer, leave the waste, and have to issue another job for that. Our council is about as much use as a mackerel in a gunfight when it comes to this kind of thing.

Rob R

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 31902
Location: York

Posted: Tue Jun 08, 10 1:55 pm Post subject:
Funny, I've never actually travelled into/through Cambridge but now I'm imagining it must be a pretty skanky place to live- it being the famous university city I just jumped to the wrong conclusion.

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Tue Jun 08, 10 1:59 pm Post subject:

Rob R wrote:

Funny, I've never actually travelled into/through Cambridge but now I'm imagining it must be a pretty skanky place to live- it being the famous university city I just jumped to the wrong conclusion.

It isn't so much skanky as extraordinarily badly run. The middle is very clean, very well kept and most pleasant. Get outside of that and its still pretty good, but thats rather in spite of the pathetic nature of the City council; fly tipping is an obvious example of where they're useless. Typically the lag time between me reporting some fly tipped waste and it being collected has been about three weeks, optimistically it might happen in a fortnight. For a city thats decidedly naff. It means that by the time one lot has been collected, there may well be more lots to pick up. And yes, you do see council 'rangers' passing one lot of fly tipping to collect another nearby, i.e. only collecting the one on their list.

Still a fine city to live in, but in my opinion fly tipping here is a particularly bad problem.

Rob R

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 31902
Location: York

Posted: Tue Jun 08, 10 2:04 pm Post subject:
I never report fly tipped waste any more, it just isn't worth me wasting my time. You're far better off taking out what is useful and binning the rest, rather than report it and be constantly frustrated that it never gets collected, or because it's in the ditch and not on public property it is your responsibility.

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Tue Jun 08, 10 5:32 pm Post subject:

Rob R wrote:

I never report fly tipped waste any more, it just isn't worth me wasting my time. You're far better off taking out what is useful and binning the rest, rather than report it and be constantly frustrated that it never gets collected, or because it's in the ditch and not on public property it is your responsibility.

I've discovered that if I drag it from the green areas on to the pavements, or from a street managed by one part of the council to the roadside, and then report it, the same people turn up and collect the same waste but in a shorter time. Naturally to do so is illegal, but not to do so seems bloody stupid (almost as bloody stupid as the fact that the same waste is collected by the same people from near as dammit the same location, but with an extra week or three delay).

Rob R

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 31902
Location: York

Posted: Tue Jun 08, 10 7:25 pm Post subject:
I wonder how far I'd have to drag it to get someone to collect it, historic York, perhaps Not all fly tipping is so bad though- someone dumped a perfectly useful wooden bed during the winter- we cooked on that for a good while.

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Tue Jun 08, 10 9:20 pm Post subject:
All the wood for the bird table out front was scavenged from fly-tipped material. I was monstrously p144es off a week after making it, when I found a fly-tipped bird table.

Pilsbury

Joined: 13 Dec 2004
Posts: 5645
Location: East london/Essex

Posted: Tue Jun 08, 10 10:12 pm Post subject:

At several of our Tesco stores there a are large recyceling units, you put your club card in and then feed your recyceling into the opening one peice at a time, it somehow checks what it is made off and trundles it down a belt inside the machine to be deposited in the correct bin to be recycled.
When they first started you got 1/2 a point for a glass bottle, 1/2 a point for a steel can and 1 point for the aluminium cans and nothing but a thank you for the plastic, now we took all our recycleing there for a fewe months and got a good few points then they suddenly scrapped all points except 1/2 a point for a aluminium can and it wasnt worth our time so we just sent it to the council recyceling unit now but how about the councils installing the machines and giving people a card to collect points on, it might just be credits to use for services such as collecting a sofa or removing a bees nest or paying libaray fines, no real cash value as such but it would mean less waste to collect and higher recycleing revenue and should at least help encourage people to try a bit more.

Bebo

Joined: 21 May 2007
Posts: 12590
Location: East Sussex

Posted: Tue Jun 08, 10 10:45 pm Post subject:

Rob R wrote:

What we really need are a few more rag and bone men...

My great-grandad was a rag and bone man. Never knew him, but my mum remembers getting a ride on this horse and cart when she was little.

jamanda
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 22 Oct 2006
Posts: 35104
Location: Devon

Posted: Tue Jun 08, 10 10:48 pm Post subject:

Bebo wrote:

Rob R wrote:

What we really need are a few more rag and bone men...

My great-grandad was a rag and bone man. Never knew him, but my mum remembers getting a ride on this horse and cart when she was little.

That's cool. I remember the raggaboooone man brightening up my English lit lessons every week. (He drove his horse down the road yelling outside the window rather than coming in and spouting Shakespeare)

Rob R

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 31902
Location: York

Posted: Wed Jun 09, 10 7:57 am Post subject:

cab wrote:

All the wood for the bird table out front was scavenged from fly-tipped material. I was monstrously p144es off a week after making it, when I found a fly-tipped bird table.

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