Why do we expect our rubbish to be collected?

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Why do we expect our rubbish to be collected?
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marigold

Joined: 02 Sep 2005
Posts: 12458
Location: West Sussex

Posted: Tue Feb 15, 11 7:59 am Post subject:

Bulgarianlily wrote:

The only things that used to be collected were 'dust' i.e. ash, cinders metal etc. Think of the sorted dust heaps of the 'golden dustman' Mr Boffin in Our Mutual Friend that were value enought to be left to him in a will.
https://u.cc.utah.edu/~tsk2/omfpage.html

You beat me to it - an A Level text for me. I might read it again...

"Night soil" was also collected in cities. And spread on surrounding market gardens, I believe. Waste not, want not

Rob R

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 31902
Location: York

Posted: Tue Feb 15, 11 8:00 am Post subject:
I found one from the "Titbits sauce co", not been able to find out much about it, though.

mochyn

Joined: 21 Dec 2004
Posts: 24585
Location: mid-Wales

Posted: Tue Feb 15, 11 8:04 am Post subject:
Last week the old chap found a bottle from the R Evans Aerated Water Works Llanfyllin. I'd love to know where it was sited (the works, not the bottle).

alison
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 29 Oct 2004
Posts: 12918
Location: North Devon

Posted: Tue Feb 15, 11 8:06 am Post subject:

marigold wrote:

Bulgarianlily wrote:

You beat me to it - an A Level text for me. I might read it again...

"Night soil" was also collected in cities. And spread on surrounding market gardens, I believe. Waste not, want not

I think that the pits were also scraped to make salt peter, but I am unsure of the process this took.

Bulgarianlily

Joined: 01 Jun 2008
Posts: 1667
Location: South West Mountains of Bulgaria

Posted: Tue Feb 15, 11 8:25 am Post subject:
I think salt petre came from manure. You could scrap it off the walls of our old barn that had been used for cows for centuries. Our Mutual Friend is a damn good read. I usually re-read most of Dickens by the fire in the winter, and it is the book most packed with action and suspense. The scenes in the lockhouse towards the end of the book is breathtaking (to me!).

paul1963

Joined: 15 Nov 2010
Posts: 2161
Location: No longer active on the forum

Posted: Tue Feb 15, 11 8:25 am Post subject:

Surely the short answer is because we pay for it to be collected through our council tax.

I'm all in favour of minimising rubbish and I suspect the majority of DSers put out far less than the average (iirc another thread asked this and most of you put out next to nought if anything at all).

If rubbish collections were to cease would the amounts of household rubbish decrease? I suspect it might, but there will always be the scumbags who'll dump their stuff all over other peoples property etc.

Last edited by paul1963 on Tue Feb 15, 11 8:26 am; edited 2 times in total

Green Rosie

Joined: 13 May 2007
Posts: 10498
Location: Calvados, France

Posted: Tue Feb 15, 11 8:25 am Post subject:

Rob R wrote:

Bulgarianlily wrote:

Surely it is better for the environment for one special wagon to make the journey than everyone in cars? And what about those without cars?

Only if that same bin wagon delivers your groceries and packaged goods - people manage very well to ship all this crap into their homes without outside help, if you return it on those same journies it is much more efficient than running a bin wagon- it comes to us every week, and we put the bin out every month so three times out of four they are picking up nothing.

I am sure I read once that the environmental damage caused by bin lorries is massive because they are huge vehicles that crawl along stopping and starting all the time. I seem to remember reading that they cause a lot of damage to road surfaces which are not designed to take such heavy vehicles and the cost of running them (and the very frequent tyre changes they need) is very high.

paul1963

Joined: 15 Nov 2010
Posts: 2161
Location: No longer active on the forum

Posted: Tue Feb 15, 11 8:28 am Post subject:

Green Rosie wrote:

Rob R wrote:

Bulgarianlily wrote:

Surely it is better for the environment for one special wagon to make the journey than everyone in cars? And what about those without cars?

You're absolutely right on this. Former FIL ran a fleet of them some years back and I used to hear about it chapter and verse.

If packaging were to be reduced, waste would be reduced accordingly.

Green Rosie

Joined: 13 May 2007
Posts: 10498
Location: Calvados, France

Posted: Tue Feb 15, 11 8:29 am Post subject:

Gawber wrote:

Here in Spain we have communal bins in the village where you take your rubbish as and when required, the same happens with recylcing. In our village of about 30 people we have at least 4 collection points dotted around. They empty the communal rubbish every two days and the recycling about once per fortnight. Works well.

I think that sounds like a brilliant idea - we have the same for recycling - every small village and at other spots in between villages there are recycling bins and only some communes have doorstep recycling collection. I would however be very interested to know how the rate of recycling varies between this type of collection and doorstep collection.

marigold

Joined: 02 Sep 2005
Posts: 12458
Location: West Sussex

Posted: Tue Feb 15, 11 8:34 am Post subject:

Bulgarianlily wrote:

Our Mutual Friend is a damn good read. I usually re-read most of Dickens by the fire in the winter, and it is the book most packed with action and suspense. The scenes in the lockhouse towards the end of the book is breathtaking (to me!).

I've never actually read it as a book. Reading it as a set text was a most unpleasant experience which turned me right off Dickens. Gawd knows why I thought that the fact that I loved reading meant that it was a good idea to do English A Level! Not that I got the A Level in the end...

Bernie66

Joined: 14 Jan 2005
Posts: 13967
Location: Eastoft

Posted: Tue Feb 15, 11 8:36 am Post subject:

Relying on the general public to dispose of their own waste in this way sadly wouldn't work- a tax based on waste quantity wouldn't either. Fly tipping etc would increase, guaranteed.
Maybe some form of "excess packaging" tax or "unrecycleable packaging" tax is the way instead. And also a demand on the place of sale of a product being able to recycle back their packaging type.
Re-useable rather than recycleable is probably a better target though.

marigold

Joined: 02 Sep 2005
Posts: 12458
Location: West Sussex

Posted: Tue Feb 15, 11 8:40 am Post subject:
Talking of night soil and rubbish collections - there would be a lot less waste to collect if disposable nappies and sanitary towels were banned.

Barefoot Andrew
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 21 Mar 2007
Posts: 22780
Location: In the 17th century

Posted: Tue Feb 15, 11 8:46 am Post subject:
All the problems raised above are worthy points, but I like Rob's idea and it could work for me. I already take all my recycling to Sainsbury's anyway and yes, it does build up sometimes, leaving me wondering where to store it. Without much effort or inconvenience I could dispose of my one small rubbish bag per week similarly. A.

Bulgarianlily

Joined: 01 Jun 2008
Posts: 1667
Location: South West Mountains of Bulgaria

Posted: Tue Feb 15, 11 8:52 am Post subject:

Sadly there is as yet no formal recycling here in Bulgaria, other than the highly organised Roma horse and cartmen. All villages have lidded skips with folding metal doors on the top, which are emptied by the local authorities, but only on to land dumps where the plastic gets blow by the wind into the nearest water course. It is no hardship to walk to the nearest skip with rubbish. For a village of 250 people there are three skips, each near a water spring where drinking water is collected.

marigold

Joined: 02 Sep 2005
Posts: 12458
Location: West Sussex

Posted: Tue Feb 15, 11 8:53 am Post subject:

Barefoot Andrew wrote:

All the problems raised above are worthy points, but I like Rob's idea and it could work for me.

I already take all my recycling to Sainsbury's anyway and yes, it does build up sometimes, leaving me wondering where to store it. Without much effort or inconvenience I could dispose of my one small rubbish bag per week similarly.

A.

Personally I don't fancy having a rubbish tip next to the place where I buy my food. I too only generate a small bag or two per week (mostly clean plastic), but my neighbours with kids generate overflowing bins of rubbish which stinks and seethes in hot weather. You'd need a constant flow of lorries in and out of the collection place to remove the stuff which would cause all sorts of logistical problems.

IMO the key to the problem is in reducing the amount of stuff that is bought to be thrown away.

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