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There is an article on the BBC News website suggesting that people are now generally supportive of charges for disposing of rubbish, particularly charges where there is more than usual or no recycling.
Well… yes, but…
Firstly we already pay the council handsomely to take the rubbish away. I know that then council provides other services, lots of them, but frankly apart from the waste disposal and street lighting/maintenance, I don’t use the rest directly, though I acknowledge the indirect benefits of the various environmental health departments that make it so much harder for local restaurants to poison me with salmonella and rat droppings and so forth.
If waste management is handled properly, a council should be able to turn a profit on the disposal of recycled waste and they should approach it from that angle rather than squeezing yet more cash from the rate payer. All the council should have to do is provide the facilities, such as green bins for bio-waste, black bins for general waste and maybe arrange collections for plastics and metal, which can go in the same bin, frankly. It’s a myth that you need to separate them out since anyone who has ever seen a recycling company collect stuff is aware that it all gets thrown in together after you have carefully sorted it and the machines at the recycling centre shake it all up: the metals go to the bottom, the plastics come to the top et voilà, it’s sorted. Just go down the back of your eco-minded place of employment and watch the buggers collect the rubbish. You’ll see what I mean.
Furtle and I attempted to get an extra bin for the Carpathia. Barnet Council wanted to charge £50 for the additional bin and threatened never to collect our rubbish in any form ever again if we didn’t use it properly. We decided not to take advantage of their generous scam and continue to overload our existing bin. A bin, I might add that we share with our landlords downstairs and which allows no facility for recycling. If we want to recycle, we have to do it ourselves and remove the rubbish down to the various bottle banks and card/paper collection points. So, generally speaking, we don’t. But if we had a green bin, we probably would.
Manufacturers too, need to be aware. It’s all very well charging the general public for waste disposal, but much of that waste is generated by the marketing culture that insists on packaging your new toothbrush in a cellophane-covered box big enough to get your head in. It’s unnecessary and lazy of them. Cut down on packaging and a lot of waste will never be generated. They could probably flog stuff cheaper, too.
Anyway the point is, any charges for waste removal should be looked at carefully. If the facilities are there and they should be, recycle. If the facilities are not, then we should not be charged extra for not receiving the service we are already paying for.
Well… yes, but…
Firstly we already pay the council handsomely to take the rubbish away. I know that then council provides other services, lots of them, but frankly apart from the waste disposal and street lighting/maintenance, I don’t use the rest directly, though I acknowledge the indirect benefits of the various environmental health departments that make it so much harder for local restaurants to poison me with salmonella and rat droppings and so forth.
If waste management is handled properly, a council should be able to turn a profit on the disposal of recycled waste and they should approach it from that angle rather than squeezing yet more cash from the rate payer. All the council should have to do is provide the facilities, such as green bins for bio-waste, black bins for general waste and maybe arrange collections for plastics and metal, which can go in the same bin, frankly. It’s a myth that you need to separate them out since anyone who has ever seen a recycling company collect stuff is aware that it all gets thrown in together after you have carefully sorted it and the machines at the recycling centre shake it all up: the metals go to the bottom, the plastics come to the top et voilà, it’s sorted. Just go down the back of your eco-minded place of employment and watch the buggers collect the rubbish. You’ll see what I mean.
Furtle and I attempted to get an extra bin for the Carpathia. Barnet Council wanted to charge £50 for the additional bin and threatened never to collect our rubbish in any form ever again if we didn’t use it properly. We decided not to take advantage of their generous scam and continue to overload our existing bin. A bin, I might add that we share with our landlords downstairs and which allows no facility for recycling. If we want to recycle, we have to do it ourselves and remove the rubbish down to the various bottle banks and card/paper collection points. So, generally speaking, we don’t. But if we had a green bin, we probably would.
Manufacturers too, need to be aware. It’s all very well charging the general public for waste disposal, but much of that waste is generated by the marketing culture that insists on packaging your new toothbrush in a cellophane-covered box big enough to get your head in. It’s unnecessary and lazy of them. Cut down on packaging and a lot of waste will never be generated. They could probably flog stuff cheaper, too.
Anyway the point is, any charges for waste removal should be looked at carefully. If the facilities are there and they should be, recycle. If the facilities are not, then we should not be charged extra for not receiving the service we are already paying for.