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Woooosh, straight over your head.
They already do charge for rubbish collection, albeit it's not a line item on your council tax bill.
Personally I'd rather take a second to think before throwing things away and keep the bill as low as it could be. Creating jobs in the public sector is what Labour got ridiculed for, and it wouldn't solve the problem of throwing everything into one pot contaminating items that could be recycled.
I'm not fully aware of the legalities of recycling or not, as far as I know you have the right to throw everything into one bin, but as a result of that you have the right to then take that bin to the tip yourself when it doesn't get collected.
Associate
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Going through my post history to check up on me some more?
That involves effort. The tip near me is shut at weekends I believe so I would have to go in the week, I am too busy working in the week :/ I believe they fine you if you don't do it anyway?
Soldato
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Firstly it's not the law that you have to recycle, secondly as pointed out sorting out the waste at the other end maybe the dream of lazy people who can't get their head around having more than one bin; but it is massively inefficient, would create more landfill (because recyclable items would be destroyed in the mix, think pouring left-over curry over waste paper) and would be very expensive. Can you imagine how many people you'd need to sit their and manually sort every single household's rubbish, all because people can't be bothered to make a simple decision about what bin to throw something into at the point of disposal?
We had a chap e-mail us last week who claimed he "didn't believe in recycling" and wanted to know if it was illegal to not recycle. So I'll give you the same reply as he got. It is not illegal to refuse to recycle or to deliberately put recyclable items in your landfill bin. The other way round though (deliberately contaminating your recycling bins with landfill waste) can result in an Section 46 being issued and potentially a fine.
The local authority can also dictate how they collect your waste, what in, how much capacity you get and how often we collect it. This means in affect we can make it extremely hard for you to not recycle by giving a small landfill bin and a large recycling one. If you don't want to use the latter you can either reduce you waste output so you only produce 180 litres of landfill a fortnight and/or you can take anything above that to the tip yourself.
So in short, we cannot take legal action against anyone who doesn't want to recycle but we can take legal action against anyone who tries to contaminate recycling and make it very hard for you to not recycle via what bins you are issued.
You'd be surprised doing my job at some of the efforts some people will go to not recycle, in almost all cases they are using more energy and causing themselves more frustration than if they just used their bins correctly.
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I don't know how many bins you have, but Cornwall County Council give us the following:
Black bins for waste disposal, maximum of about three, any more they leave it. Put grass in it they leave that too.
Black plastic crate for bottles
Blue sack for plastics
Orange sack for cardboard/paper
Red sack for dog poo etc
So it isn't just 2 different bins, and they come at different times of the week, bin day is Thursday, Recycling day is Monday morning at around 7:30am, honestly it is a lot more confusing than just having 2 different bins.
Black bins for waste disposal, maximum of about three, any more they leave it. Put grass in it they leave that too.
Black plastic crate for bottles
Blue sack for plastics
Orange sack for cardboard/paper
Red sack for dog poo etc
So it isn't just 2 different bins, and they come at different times of the week, bin day is Thursday, Recycling day is Monday morning at around 7:30am, honestly it is a lot more confusing than just having 2 different bins.
Soldato
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The number of bins isn't your council's fault but the MRF centres they use. It wouldn't matter who picked up your waste (council or private contractor) they are all at the behest of the tips ultimately who have the power to reject entire loads (with ours if it is found that more than 5% has the wrong items in and the whole lots gets sent off to landfill) and are restricted by the technology in their plant. Sounds like yours need an upgrade.
The mixed days though is silly, that is your council's fault and as someone who designed the schedules and rounds for our area I'd never encourage a system based on different days. Where I live it's 1 day (Tue-Fri) for all services.
At ours we issue the average house (up to 5 people).....
* 1 180L Landfill Bin (collected fortnightly, sidewaste is not taken)
* 1 360L Commingled Recycling Bin (collected on the alternate fortnight, takes everything from paper to tin foil, up to 80% of your household waste can go in it you can also put out as much sidewaste as you like providing it is in an appropriate container)
* 1 23L Food Caddy (collected weekly)
You can also subscribe for £36 a year for a brown bin for garden waste (collected fortnightly).
Personal I use a home composter for food and garden waste so only use the landfill and recycle bins.
If you want a larger landfill bin a Field Officer will visit your home and you have to convince them you have the need.
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We don't actually get bins though (for the landfill) we are told to just leave the binbags on the pavement, because of the so much early pickup on a monday morning, everyone leaves it out on Sunday night....so cats rip them to pieces and the council won't pick up any strewn litter, which is just lovely. We used to have proper round black bins but someone nicked them all, the council gave us some more and they got nicked too, so i guess they just gave up :/
Soldato
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Seems you live in a part of the world where waste isn't a priority, I know Southampton and Portsmouth have awful records on waste too.
Whilst I work for a city council, we are surrounded by high performing rural council areas which means we have the pressure to compete with them. It's odd, when I see places on TV that still have black bags out on the street I keep thinking I'm watching something from the 80s
.I rarely use my green landfill bin, the only thing that goes in there really are crisp packets and tissues, everything else goes in loose in the blue recycling bin and food goes into my composter. So no cats or foxes trying to get into my bins because there's no rotting food in there.
That's why it annoys me when Eric Pickles keeps banging on about bringing back weekly collections. You only need it for food waste, once you get that once a week what is the problem with the rest waiting a fortnight?
I wish it was like that..its not though..I have three different bins and a black box. if the wrong thing is in the wrong bin they simply don't take it, unless its in the general waste bin, they always empty that one, but then most of our rubbish goes into black-sacks and then into the bin so they wouldn't know one from the other anyway without opening them all up. we also only have a small window to put the bin out..it cannot be the day before (night is ok) and they must be taken back in before the next day after collection. which can be a pain, especially if you are catching a early flight or something. I would rather pay more for a more flexible and less draconian service.
I do however recycle as a rule..I simply don't like doing it and would like the option to pay for a service (such as that offered by WasteConcern) where I don't have to. Unfortunately under the current monopoly I am restricted by what the council wants rather than what the consumer wants. I take most of my non-food/packaging rubbish to the local tip myself anyway.
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Seems you live in a part of the world where waste isn't a priority, I know Southampton and Portsmouth have awful records on waste too.
Whilst I work for a city council, we are surrounded by high performing rural council areas which means we have the pressure to compete with them. It's odd, when I see places on TV that still have black bags out on the street I keep thinking I'm watching something from the 80s
I rarely use my green landfill bin, the only thing that goes in there really are crisp packets and tissues, everything else goes in loose in the blue recycling bin and food goes into my composter. So no cats or foxes trying to get into my bins because there's no rotting food in there.
That's why it annoys me when Eric Pickles keeps banging on about bringing back weekly collections. You only need it for food waste, once you get that once a week what is the problem with the rest waiting a fortnight?
Food composter?
I don't like the idea of having a slop bucket (if the council brings that in) so what is a food composter, how does it work, what are the advantages and disadvantages and which one would you recommend for a household of 3 adults and one teenager?
Soldato
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The thing is though you are a victim of common ignorance and therefore your conclusion of a paid service being better is misplaced. Before you jump at me, that is certainly not an insult, I wouldn't expect anyone who doesn't work in the sector to either know or care about what happens to your waste after we collect it and the numerous regulatory and financial ins-and-outs that surround it.
Everything you've mentioned above isn't done by your council because they like imposing rules or enjoy seeing you waste your time. They are simply conforming the rules of your local MRF and local by-laws, niether of which would be got around by a private contractor.
If your local recycling plant (a private entity I may add) doesn't have the technology to accept mixed recyclate, then whomever collects it must conform to their rules (unless they either build their own MRF or create a waste transfer centre where they can sort it, both of which are prohibitively expensive).
As for bins being out on the street, that is a legal issue and no private provider could get around the law. It's not the council enforcing a rule for some unnecessary bureaucratic reason, it's a general law that prevents people from just dumping items long term out on the public highway. A private company maybe able to offer you days you choose but you still wouldn't be allowed to leave it out for long periods once it had been cleared.
In the 5 years I've worked in this sector I've not seen single person fined for leaving their bin out anyway. We had one case where a guy was storing his bin actually on the road who we had to ask not to after complaints from other residents and he obliged.
They're pretty common, I have the one pictured next to the FAQ banner...
http://www.recyclenow.com/home_composting/
Now to be fair doing it at home you can't put cooked food in there (although I do if it is vegetables) so it's mostly veg skins and split tea bags. You can put anything into the council issued "slop bucket" as you politely call it. What our council do is to give residents a 7L container for short term storage and a 23L (which lock to keep animals out) container for presentation, meaning you don't have to have a week's worth of rotting food sat in your kitchen.
It's a pure joke this country, telling you what and can't do with your bins, i work away from home from time to time, and saying you can't put it out here and then and must take it back in on a given time scale is pure laughable, i received a red letter from my council for a late payment in council tax saying i must budget better lolololol who are they to tell me about who i pay first
Soldato
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In most cases they are the council's bins, but don't let that get in the way of your rant.
So.
Sorry but excuse me? ' I think I am better than you yes?' Ha you have me in stitches.... Are you 12 and think your back in the playground? I think I'm better than you LOL child.
Just be because you have x y and z does not make you a better person, you sound very spoilt and bitter. You live the life you are delt with and just becasue he may be on Benefits which does not give you any right to belittle somebody else.
My word, are you the type to slam a door in somebodys face while one opens one for you? Get a grip.
Sorry but the way you come across in your posts have me in stiches. Do people in real life exist like you? Becasue I Certainly have not come across an individual quite like you.
Stop feeding him, jesus christ, every thread ends up the same way when this happens. We're sort of getting down to discussing recycling methods that local authorities use and whether the private sector and any perceived competition that brings could do a better job at it, let's not drive it off a cliff.
I have to say, it annoys me that in Oxford you can put all of your recycling in one bin, but in Bristol you have to separate it and they are really funny about it if you mix it up (e.g. if you put two carrier bags, one with cardboard and one with plastics, in the same box, they won't take in). I concede that it's hardly effort, but it does put me off with the faff. I'm sure that a lot of money is wasted paying people to sort it in Oxford though!