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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catbaffler

Joined: 31 Mar 2009
Posts: 937
Location: Barry

Posted: Tue Feb 15, 11 9:08 am Post subject:

There was a small recycling bay on the edge of our estate but, following complaints from the residents of some of the houses that overlook it about it being a eyesore, mainly due to infrequent emptying plus the nocturnal dumping of unwanted furniture. The solution? - Rather keep tabs on the illegal dumping and emptying the recycling containers more frequently the entire facility has recently been removed!!!

Food waste recycling has just been introduced and communal recepticles for said waste installed in the refuse bays alongside the giant wheelie bins for general household rubbish. However collection of household waste is now fortnightly... I went to deposit some vegetable peelings, etc., in one of the food waste bins but was unable as a fortnight's worth of black bags, many of which clearly contained the recyclable stuff that would previously have gone into the recycling bins - AAARGH!

Mrs R

Joined: 15 Aug 2008
Posts: 7202

Posted: Tue Feb 15, 11 9:12 am Post subject:

I wouldn't envisage it being a rubbish tip - just like existing recycling places, but simply with an extra bin for 'general' waste. We're already separating out compostable stuff, metal, glass and some plastics - there's not a great deal left.

Stupidly, council tips are banning people going in with vans, and charging you to put stuff in. They MUST NOT do that, as nobody cares, they just go dump it somewhere else

The gypsies in gainsborough made a good living being paid to remove rubbish the council couldn't take, and simply leaving it in laybys, so the council had to make special trips out to collect it anyway...

We do pay for rubbish to be collected, but I would be happy to pay the same rate and take the remainder of my rubbish to the recycling, as councils have to make savings somewhere, this will surely help.

Pensioners and the disabled etc perhaps could get a service similar to a bin lorry, but on a smaller scale and ringing up when needed, rather than run on a timetable.

Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Tue Feb 15, 11 9:13 am Post subject:

marigold wrote:

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

Indeed, and then perhaps smaller more efficient vehicles could be used to collect it. It's sad to see so many people still not recycling round here especially as they tend to be the same people who put out vast piles of rubbish each week.

It's also sad to say I can't think of anything that's been done to try and get those people to recycle, heaven forbid getting them to actually reduce waste.

Green Rosie

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

Posted: Tue Feb 15, 11 9:16 am Post subject:

Dances With Cows wrote:

Stupidly, council tips are banning people going in with vans, and charging you to put stuff in. They MUST NOT do that, as nobody cares, they just go dump it somewhere else

I agree. In the UK we had a van and a land rover neither of which was allowed into the tip even when it was our household rubbish that we wanted to recycle/dump.

Not that we fly tipped it I hasten to add.

Mrs R

Joined: 15 Aug 2008
Posts: 7202

Posted: Tue Feb 15, 11 9:16 am Post subject:
of course, waste reduction is always a great help, even to the current system! I don't see that as a reason why this would fail though.

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Tue Feb 15, 11 9:20 am Post subject:

Rob R wrote:

If collection points were near/at retail centres perhaps it would have more of a joined up effect. Given the provision of council tips round here I can't understand why people fly tip at all - some even drive past a tip to fly tip.

In the old days I guess there was more of a culture of returns and even rewards for reusable packaging. Here is an interesting history of waste.

We used to have a neighbour who didn't deal with her families waste. She had two big black wheelie bins, a recycling bin, and a composting bin, but she couldn't manage. Too stupid. I don't mean to sound abusive here, and I should point out that there was no evidence of any kind of mental disability in her or her family, she was just thick, unpleasant, and nasty.

Rather than take the recycling to any of the three or four recycling points within a stones throw of home (literally, if one of our other neighbours houses wasn't there, you could probably have landed a brick in one of the recycling points from her front door), rather than fly tip it, rather than use the ample bins she had effectively, she'd pile the waste up in bin bags in the garden. Of course a mountain of two dozen bin bags or more, containing junk food rotting down, disposable nappies and goodness knows what else, would start to seep. And it attracted beasties. And it was bloody awful.

Waste collections barely manage to stop the worst offenders from turning our streets into open sewers filled with the worst kind of stinking refuse. Imagine what would happen if we didn't have those collections.

Mrs R

Joined: 15 Aug 2008
Posts: 7202

Posted: Tue Feb 15, 11 9:48 am Post subject:
There's always going to be people like that, the example you provided proves that even under the current system, they still manage it. That doesn't strike me as a reason to never change? We'd just have to kick their asses more, and accept that some will always be that way, because they're nobbers. Nobberism will never be completely eradicated.

darkbrowneggs

Joined: 14 Jul 2010
Posts: 663
Location: Worcestershire

Posted: Tue Feb 15, 11 10:25 am Post subject:

It was quite a novelty here when the council introduced a bin service I think around 1961-62. Before then everybody just dumped what they didn't need round the place, but there wasn't that much because any dried fruit type stuff or biscuits were weighed into paper bags, and potatoes were tipped loose in the bottom of the shopping bag or bought by the bag and stored at home.

Carrier bags of any description were pretty well unheard of. Tea was made into a little packet and neatly tied with string. Sugar weighed into blue paper bags. Bottles all had deposits on and jam jars had many years of recycling in the home ahead of them.

We had our own personal rubbish tip in the shrubbery which had been used for many many years, and as children we dug out oystershells, ink pots and white china Dundee Marmalade jars. Although I had it bulldozed out it still yields bits, just this week a shard of 18th C china emerged. The largest thing I found was a wheelbarrow

I follow the old ways with the exception I now take it to the recycling depot (when I am going that way) and since the council introduced a recycling bin some time last year, not only have I put nothing out, I have not produced one bag of waste for them to take either.

all the best
Sue

Dee J

Joined: 22 May 2005
Posts: 342
Location: West Devon

Posted: Tue Feb 15, 11 10:29 am Post subject:

For the fortunate among us... myself included, with land to grow food and keep animals, space to compost, a Rayburn to incinerate stuff, good health and a means of transport... organised waste collection is a luxury we could currently cope without...

But for someone without those priveledges, life can be difficult. If you live in a densely crowded urban area, with no outside space, waste management can be a real problem - especially with food waste and food contaminated packaging waste. I wouldn't fancy trying to carry a weeks worth of a families waste to the supermarket prior to shopping - especially if its been festering in a warm bin all week!

Counting my blessings

Dee

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Tue Feb 15, 11 10:30 am Post subject:

Dances With Cows wrote:

There's always going to be people like that, the example you provided proves that even under the current system, they still manage it. That doesn't strike me as a reason to never change? We'd just have to kick their asses more, and accept that some will always be that way, because they're nobbers. Nobberism will never be completely eradicated.

Think of it as a bell curve; the people I described are way at one end. If we shift the line on the bell curve where more people will be likely to act like gits, the likelyhood is that we get a lot more people who won't handle their own waste. As we're not going to kick their asses for not dealing with their own waste (really, ain't going to happen), we'd be left with an awful mess.

toggle

Joined: 30 Dec 2006
Posts: 11622
Location: truro

Posted: Tue Feb 15, 11 11:17 am Post subject:

gz wrote:

1842 England Edwin Chadwick's Report of an Inquiry into the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain linked disease to filthy environmental conditions. The "age of sanitation" begins. )

ty. for the reminder need to grab a copy of that

Rob R

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 31902
Location: York

Posted: Tue Feb 15, 11 11:24 am Post subject:

marigold wrote:

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.

Why logistical problems? The same as most people go to supermarkets with an empty car so too do delivery lorries leave with empty trailers. I know some take waste cardboard and pallets back with them. Supermarkets and most shops are already delivered to by large lorries, so access shouldn't be a problem at all.

Rob R

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 31902
Location: York

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

Dee J wrote:

I wouldn't fancy trying to carry a weeks worth of a families waste to the supermarket prior to shopping - especially if its been festering in a warm bin all week!

That's kind of the point I was trying to make- you're not supposed to like it (or even go to the supermarket, for that matter

). People don't want to carry their food and packaged goods home, but they do it.

All these comparisons with history are kind of missing the point too - never should we revert to how it used to be, but look for ways to improve with the technology and knowledge we have gained since. The provision must still be there to deal with waste and other ways of incentivising less waste. We could start by sacking food hygiene inspectors who think the best way to solve food hygiene problems is to wrap everything in plastic.

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Tue Feb 15, 11 11:43 am Post subject:

Rob R wrote:

All my shopping is done by bike. I don't relish the thought of riding back to the shop with a rucksack full of compostables.

Better to reduce the amount of carp people buy IMHO. Why the heck do so many people need a whole car load of over-packaged junk every week?

robkb

Joined: 29 May 2009
Posts: 4205
Location: SE London

Posted: Tue Feb 15, 11 12:13 pm Post subject:

cab wrote:

All my shopping is done by bike. I don't relish the thought of riding back to the shop with a rucksack full of compostables.

My thoughts too. I shop by car (a family of four's weekly shop doesn't fit in a rucksack!!) and don't really fancy filling my boot with last week's rubbish before refilling it with this week's food. Rob's comment about the possibility of rubbish collections and food deliveries being made by the same vehicle is a good idea in principle but would you really be happy with trash and food being stored in the same truck?

And it's completely impracticable in a built-up area - my road has roughly 300 houses in it, and is one of about 20 roads that the dustcart goes to on a Thursday morning. The truck to deliver food to 6000 houses would be so big it wouldn't fit down the roads. And you'd need to wait for the delivery depending on where you are on the route - sometimes our bins get emptied at 6am, but if the route gets reversed it's more like 1pm.

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