I just like the hustle and bustle, and being able to do so much on a whim. I know it's a very subjective thing though.
Fly-tipping
- Thread starter stockhausen
- Start date
- Joined
- 30 Jul 2006
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- 12,130
I would certainly agree that restricting the hours that recycling centres are open makes little sense.
When people end up dumping rubbish by the roadside or down some obscure country lane, someone from the council is likely to have to go out and clear it up. It would seem to make more sense if the recycling centres were to remain open seven days a week and for significantly longer hours - it is not as if they require vast numbers of highly trained staff to tell you to put it "in that skip" or "over there".
Regardless of the opening hours of recycling centres, selfish people in this country still seem predisposed to casually discarding unwanted drinks cans and bottles, food wrappers and animal faeces wherever they fancy rather than taking it home or putting it in a bin.
Don't tell me, they have also introduced bylaws to discourage the use of garden bonfires!
Our local tip has made it so awkward to take waste (short opening hours, half the time closed even during opening hours, no vans, no trailers etc etc) it is practically encouraging people to dump their rubbish somewhere else. There's one layby on the way to work that almost always has something dumped there, from black bags of rubbish to settees, and everything in between.
Man of Honour
- Joined
- 29 Mar 2003
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- 57,605
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- Stoke on Trent
I was very close to fly tipping a couple of years ago so I can understand the frustration of some people.
I'd hired a Luton van and 8 of us filled it with rubbish from my youngest's new house, we then took it to the Hanford Household Waste Recycling Centre and set about emptying it. We then came to all the house bricks/tiles that had been left by the former owner and we were going to transfer them into a very large skip where the amount we had would look nothing in it. A jobsworth came flying over saying we are only allowed x amount so we'll have to take it to another place where we will have to pay and it should be open. We get there and it is shut and we have a Luton van full of bricks that needs to go back in a couple of hours. We were up a lane where there are no prying eyes and it would be easy to tip them all out by the hedges but we didn't and the bricks are still at my daughters.
I'd hired a Luton van and 8 of us filled it with rubbish from my youngest's new house, we then took it to the Hanford Household Waste Recycling Centre and set about emptying it. We then came to all the house bricks/tiles that had been left by the former owner and we were going to transfer them into a very large skip where the amount we had would look nothing in it. A jobsworth came flying over saying we are only allowed x amount so we'll have to take it to another place where we will have to pay and it should be open. We get there and it is shut and we have a Luton van full of bricks that needs to go back in a couple of hours. We were up a lane where there are no prying eyes and it would be easy to tip them all out by the hedges but we didn't and the bricks are still at my daughters.
To get around the opening time issue and for those without transport there used to be a time where our local council would hire a container and just leave it for a few days on a local car park.
Sadly local builders etc soon ruined it, filling it with crap they were supposed to pay to dispose of including on one occasion about 40kg of asbestos so they called it quits on the scheme.
Sadly local builders etc soon ruined it, filling it with crap they were supposed to pay to dispose of including on one occasion about 40kg of asbestos so they called it quits on the scheme.
Soldato
- Joined
- 16 Aug 2009
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- 8,178
I thought everywhere did this already? In my mothers part of the country they won't even collect it from dec - mar. Still have to pay the fee though.
It's a recent thing with my local council too.
I think I'll just do as the council do when they cut lawns and grassed spaces and launch it all over the road...
Soldato
- Joined
- 13 May 2003
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- 9,102
Mates rates jobs are the main villain for fly tipping in my experience, when you have an on the books customer you price in waste disposal. Doing it for a mate after hours, it goes the the van and out at a lay-by.
explain why the companies should be fined for something the customers do? how about we put the same tax on every alcohol maker for all the pools of vomit that need clearing up? or a much higher tax to cover the medical strain of ERs that get inundated by ****wits getting into fights or accidents after getting bladdered on a Friday night?
Tax paid on alcohol already pays twice as much for that, same with the duty on tobacco/nicotine.
In fact the receipts are basically such that people who don't drink (or more aptly, the old/infirm who are the largest cost on the service by far) are being subsidized by folks who do. You could say that drinking/smoking/bad diet obviously contributes to a poorer elderly health, but that's hard for me to cite.
We already do put those taxes on alcohol...
The sensible thing for the council to have done is not regard this as a problem but as a positive benefit.
They should have simply provided more skips, not less. But sense doesn't seem to be in the typical LA's mission statement.
The older I get, the more I am convinced that councils (And the low level public sector generally) are simply used as a tool by Governments (The Blair government was particularly good at this) to hoover up otherwise unemployable mouth breathers so as to make the unemployment figures look good.
(And in Blairs case, CW the added benefit of gerrymandering a significant cohort of loyal labor voters)
i doubt those taxes were implemented for the specific reasons i quoted. if you can find evidence they were added on for the sake of vomit cleaning, i'd be interested to read it.
Soldato
- Joined
- 13 May 2003
- Posts
- 9,102
I disagree it is not the councils job to subsidise builders disposing of their waste, why should council tax be used to dispose of commercial waste when domestic waste is so severely limited. The building trade is often a problem in the UK with cash in hand denying the exchequer tax and waste being illegally disposed of. I know it's the few not the many and the customers are complicit but its still a problem.
The sensible thing for the council to have done is not regard this as a problem but as a positive benefit.
They should have simply provided more skips, not less. But sense doesn't seem to be in the typical LA's mission statement.
The older I get, the more I am convinced that councils (And the low level public sector generally) are simply used as a tool by Governments (The Blair government was particularly good at this) to hoover up otherwise unemployable mouth breathers so as to make the unemployment figures look good.
(And in Blairs case, CW the added benefit of gerrymandering a significant cohort of loyal labor voters)
So you're suggesting that the council should have continued with the scheme and allow private businesses to dump commercial waste to be cleaned up on public money despite these companies charging their customers extra for it's disposal?
To use publicly accessed sites and amenities to dump hazardous materials such as Abestos and other waste chemicals without proper handling or segregation to then need to be cleaned up and decontaminated before those sites/amenities can be used again, again on public money of which councils have little of?
What a ridiculous notion.
Firstly, Charging for "Commercial waste" is one of the biggest drivers of fly tipping.
Secondly, the sorts of people who would be putting asbestos into a skip like this are not the sort of people who would go to a licensed site if a publc FOC skip wasn't available.
Isn't it Highly likley to be far less expensive for the taxpayers, and far safer too, in the longer run if "Modest" levels of commercial waste, including hazardous waste, are dealt with FOC.
These is something absurd about how if your kitchen fitter takes your old kitchen carcasses away after the job, It is "Commercial waste" but if he leaves it with you to deal with yourself it is somehow "Domestic Waste" instead.
I would accept that 20 ton lorry loads of the stuff would be a different matter. But anything up to Transit van sized, including "Hazardous Waste" should be dealt with FOC.
We would ALL be far better off in the long run.
Edit to add;
There is also something absurd about how "Recyclables" are a "Valuable resource" if they are in somebodies private blue bin, but are, at the same time, an expensive liability if they are in a businesses dumpy bin. :/
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Good, it's not an effort to put waste in a bin.
Unfortunately not good. Councils employ private firms to do this. The more fines the hand out the more they make. The councils typically receive less than 10% of the fine itself.
Kingdom is one of the big companies and they are prolific at accusing innocent VICTIMS of offences they haven't commited. They also handle appeals which the accused never wins.
They've been exposed numerous times breaking the rules and regs yet councils continue to employ them.
In my town they were caught trying to bully and intimidate an 82 year old woman, claiming she'd thrown a cig butt down. She'd never smoked a day her life.
They need to brought to task but the councils won't.
One has to wonder why, which council members are taking backhanders to keep them employed
