The Gamers Arms

In the spirit of the internet where everything is black or white, night or day, or right or wrong, and there is no room for intelligent debate or nuance, let me start off the proceedings

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-45616328

So some twat in a Welsh council figured out that they could save tens of thousands of pounds by picking up the rubbish once a month . Well - duh !. Let me just reiterate that - the council that you pay money to pick up and get rid of your crap - decided to do that once a month. That is just 12 times in the entire fucking year. So guess what is happening, people are burning their rubbish instead. How does reducing pick ups increase recycling. How do you recycle food rubbish ? If the idea is that we all become Tom Good from The Good Life, I have no fucking time or inclination to do that. The council should fucking pay me if they want me to sacrifice my bloody time to do that or at least drop my council tax by a 1/3. Seriously what the flying fuck is going on.

Politically driven austerity measures which are crippling communities and hurting those most in need? That's pretty much what's going on.

The logic being that if stuff went into recycling/compost, the black bin* wouldn't get as full within a month. That depends entirely upon just what's being consumed per household and people's ability to follow instructions, however.

I mean, if your bins are taken every Monday and by Friday you've filled it up again, the council aren't obliged to collect it - same thing will be done if/when the ends of the month see streets strewn with shit from overflow.

And let's not forget that correctly putting stuff into recycling/compost, that's then taken away by the council, isn't a guarantee that recycling/composting will actually take place. It just removes the responsibility from the householder - if the stuff ends up in landfill anyway due to lack of resources or just stupidity, it's the council's fault.

*not racist.

During the recent heatwave my landfill bin ( 2 weekly pickup)had loads of maggots more than once. Even my recycling bin had a few, as I'm buggered if I'm going to wash out every jar and tin that goes in.
As to the council (Conwy I think it is) I'd be interested in knowing what the money saved will be spent on.
Hopefully something other than council bigwigs' salaries or some obscure minority.

Aren't the answers to this a bit obvious?

Achtung Englander wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 24, 2018 6:57 pm

How does reducing pick ups increase recycling.

By making people consider how much they're just throwing in landfill rather than recycling. If your bins aren't being collected as frequently, people will hopefully make more of an effort not to create as much needless waste.

Achtung Englander wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 24, 2018 6:57 pm

How do you recycle food rubbish ?

Composting.

Achtung Englander wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 24, 2018 6:57 pm

If the idea is that we all become Tom Good from The Good Life, I have no fucking time or inclination to do that. The council should fucking pay me if they want me to sacrifice my bloody time to do that or at least drop my council tax by a 1/3. Seriously what the flying fuck is going on.

It's a pretty sad indictment of the glutinous, entitled, short-sighted, and self-interested world we now inhabit that anyone would think that they should be paid to consider and minimise the waste they create .

sorry but I pay enough tax. If the councils cannot make this work for the people they serve than maybe some of the councillors who are on 6 figure salaries should think about taking a pay cut.

If your bins aren't being collected as regularly then people will resort to fly tipping. Already happens in areas where they moved to three week collections. The expectation that it will promote more eco-conscious waste management is naive and also cynical when we all know that this is primarily a cost cutting exercise. More of the most basic services provided being cut back with no chance of Council Tax bills ever dropping.

There are so many wasted funds in the public sector. They are looking in the complete wrong place to make savings with this.

I don't really see where the saving comes from. They still have to pay the wages to the binmen right? They saving on diesel for the lorries or something?

This is fine for single people and couples who generate 4 bean tins and a few take out cartons a week but for families it's pretty shit.

Our general waste bins only get emptied every 4 weeks. It's been that way for a while here. I can't say it's ever been a problem for us.

They'd surely save more by readjusting the single living discount from one quarter to say a sixth or something.

There's the two of us and two kids, and at collection time both our general waste bins (collected weekly) and recycling bins (collected fortnightly) are packed to capacity, and in the case of the latter sometimes more than that, like around Christmas or the kids birthdays when there's always a lot of cardboard to get rid of. There's literally no way we could deal with a monthly collection.

Medicine Man wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 24, 2018 11:53 pm

Our general waste bins only get emptied every 4 weeks. It's been that way for a while here. I can't say it's ever been a problem for us.

How many bins do you have?

My council currently collect recyclables every 2 weeks, and the non-recyclable waste every other 2 weeks. (Offset by a week from each other; recycling, not, recycling, not, etc.) This seems reasonable to me, but even then sometimes our recycling is stuffed to the gills and we have to take stuff to the recycling centre ourselves.

Moving to fewer collections isn't going to magically make people produce less waste, recycling or otherwise. This is a fucking stupid idea.

It would seem I am in one of the 2 councils currently operating a 4 week pick up for landfill rubbish. AMA

We have:
A bin for recycling (Paper, metal, cardboard, plastic) collected every 2 weeks
A food waste bin collected every week
A black box for glass bottles, jars, household batteries and small electrical items.
A textile bag that goes out with the black box for clothing, shoes and other textiles
A bin for garden waste collected every 4 weeks and on demand through teh winter months
A bin for non-recyclable items collected every 4 weeks. That's the one everyone is getting all raging about.

Also available is an AHP (Absorbent Hygiene Products) collection every 2 weeks. Basically nappies and all that. We have no need for such a service any more.

So out of that little lot 3 are what you would class as full size wheelie bins (landfill, recycling and garden). The black box is a decent enough size I've never had a problem with it overflowing likewise with the food caddy which is roughly half the size of it. Our landfill bin has never been full since the whole process started we could honestly get away with one of those wee half size wheelie bins the auld folk get.

All in all I have never seen or heard of any of the predicted carnage currently in the news around here. Fly tipping seems to be almost non-existent and as for people burning rubbish I can't say I've seen, smelt or heard of anyone doing that. Granted our council seems to have their shit together when it comes to recycling, but its really not that difficult once you get over the initial shock.

You basically have more bins but less collections.

We have 2 wheelies there's a collection every week rotating general and recycling.

It's not ideal, with my wife who despite her educated and sensitive nature still puts general waste into the recycling which frequently causes me to lose my shit.

Your wife sometimes does the bins? You lucky bastard!