Green garden waste collections

[Skippy]

Where I live we have three wheelie bins provided by the council. One of these is for garden and kitchen waste and its collection is included in the rates. On another forum someone said that Derby council (not a million miles away but not in my area) plans to levy an additional charge to remove the same bins and mentioned a cost of £40. Alternatively the garden bin can be dispensed with and waste put into the black general rubbish bin for landfill.
I almost didn't believe it but googled and found this report http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-18580191 and it seems the situation is quite common over the country.
I can't see the logic in this move myself, it's meant as a cost saving measure but surely it will just increase the pressure on landfill in the medium to long term. Our local council also sell the compost they creat from the collections although I suppose the cost savings would be in labour and machinery.
I don't use the bin much myself as I tend to compost most of our waste although it was useful when I removed a leylandi for someone recently but I can't really see loads of compost heaps sprouting up in back gardens if people can simply send their waste to landfill.
I know that times are hard and savings have to be made but to me it seems to smack a bit of a lack of common sense.
Still good side is I can use the "banging head on wall" smilie,



Pete

[GeorgeSalt]

I could pay for a green waste bin, but I have a compost heap that deals with that. And if I'm quick enough shouting over the fence whan I hear his mower it deals with most of what our neighbour would otherwise put in his green waste bin too.

When Norfolk goes fully to fortnightly collections there will be a weekly collection of a kitchen waste caddy - that will be free.

[prison break fan]

My council here in West Sussex is going to charge for garden waste collection from April. Can't quite see how the men on the collection round will know who has paid and who hasn't. Will they take our bins away if we don't pay? How much would that cost? pbf.

[Skippy]

It has confused me a bit too PBF. George how is it done in your area? Do you pay a yearly charge to have the bin irrespective of how many times you use it or do they log how many times you put it out (assuming you did ever put it out that is), and if you don't want to use it or pay for the use do you have to hand it back? I only ask that last question because I find them quite useful for storage.


Pete

[GeorgeSalt]

My council here in West Sussex is going to charge for garden waste collection from April. Can't quite see how the men on the collection round will know who has paid and who hasn't. Will they take our bins away if we don't pay? How much would that cost? pbf.

If it's the same as Norfolk you'll only get a garden waste bin if you pay for it. In theory there's nothing to stop you putting garden waste in the general waste bin, except that garden waste is usually bulky and this is usually done as part of a reduced general waste collection service.

[Keaniebean]

We have fortnightly collections here in Bromley. They do rubbish and paper one week followed by other recycling and food the next week. They charge £60 for up to 4 ( I think) garden collections per year, but you don't have to pay for that. We compost most things, although when the autumn comes and we have to hack things back then we take it to the local dump where it gets put into the green waste section.

We don't find it a problem as we actively seek to keep rubbish/packaging to a minimum, but our neighbour is a real pain in the buum because she produces several wheelie bins full per week and recycles nothing

I'd love them to charge for rubbish collection, but the arguments against it such as fly tipping and dumping rubbish into others bins outweigh the purpose ie. to make people more environmentally considerate.

[wabbit955]

we get 3 bins here collected every week and not charged any extra never use garden waste bin myself as all goes in my compose
and other 2 bins i put out every 2 months and most of the time there are not full and thats with 2 teen aged boys in the house
can not see how peple have over flowing bins eveey week i think chargeing would make people more awear of there waste
but as said how much would get bumped!!!!!!!!!!

[diggernotdreamer]

The waste collection in Ireland is private. We pay 6 euro for a rubbish bag which you can put 12.5kg in and 4 euro for a recycling bag which also holds 12.5kg, rubbish is collected every two weeks and the recycling on the alternate week. We don't get the dustbin lorry up our road so we have to take our rubbish to a more main road and put it next to someone who is having their waste collected. If we need to take things to the tip, you get charged a lot, or you can take it 20 miles to the waste collector and they charge you 20cent a kilo. We quite like this method as we are in control of our spending at the moment, that is until we get house rates, but we will still have to pay that and pay seperately to have our rubbish taken away. Most farmers here dig a hole and bury it and we have forestry down our road which is full of rubbish where people would rather drive to feck it in there rather than pay to have it removed. In the countryside there is no green waste collection but I think they have it in the cities and big towns which you have to pay for. People in the Uk sometimes don't realise how good they have it as regards rubbish and health care, I really appreciate the services we had there now that we don't have any services

[Skippy]

Preaching to the converted on here I think as I suspect there's very few of us that don't have a compost heap.
However, I feel that the majority of the population would reject the "extra work" in recycling or any extra cost as well and will opt for the easy cheap option of simply sticking waste in the black bin and see it go off to landfill. Make recycling easy and cheap and it will work much better.
I come under Lichfield council and we used to have seperate boxes for recyclables but now have a large blue wheelie bin that takes a mix of materials which is sorted elsewhere.Easy for the homeowner. As a result Lichfield is said to be one of the best in the country for recycling but it's nowhere near perfect so how badly the worst performing councils must be heaven knows.
I've heard quite commonly people complain that they are "doing the councils work for them" sorting their rubbish. Another one is the belief that items sent for recycling "only goes to landfill anyway"
I'll happily give up my green waste bin as it doesn't get used that much and my black bin has at times gone for a couple of months before it gets put out and I'm always amazed that some people can fill theirs in a few days. I used to work with a guy who would bring rubbish to work nearly every day to put in the skip. When I said something he said "Pete you're not normal you don't throw anything away"



Pete

[GeorgeSalt]

It has confused me a bit too PBF. George how is it done in your area? Do you pay a yearly charge to have the bin irrespective of how many times you use it or do they log how many times you put it out (assuming you did ever put it out that is), and if you don't want to use it or pay for the use do you have to hand it back? I only ask that last question because I find them quite useful for storage.


Pete

Pete.. I haven't a clue, the details are here.

[GeorgeSalt]

I come under Lichfield council and we used to have seperate boxes for recyclables but now have a large blue wheelie bin that takes a mix of materials which is sorted elsewhere.Easy for the homeowner. As a result Lichfield is said to be one of the best in the country for recycling but it's nowhere near perfect so how badly the worst performing councils must be heaven knows.

The collect-it-all-and-ship-it-to-China/India-for-sorting model doesn't create high recycling levels, and is hugely inefficient - it collects huge amounts of material that can't physically be recycled at anuthing close to an economic rate. The reported rate is then fiddled for this type of collection by counting energy recovery as "not landfill". In Norfolk we only put into the recycling bin paper, card, tins, and certain plastics (milk bottles, not yoghurt pots). I've seen the plant that processes this and it's impressive. And it makes enough cash from selling these four categories of waste that it pays for itself and pays a dividend to the local authorities that support it.

Recycling is two steps too late for most household waste, and most people look at it the wrong way round - asking, "Why can't they recycle this?" when they should be asking, "Why did I buy something that can't be recycled?".

[Skippy]

I quite agree with you there George, there's far too much waste generated at source. Far too much packageing from the supermarkets and far too many different types of materials especially plastics many of which can't be recycled.
Your comments about waste going to the far east to be sorted are right too. I suspect that as much of the goods that people buy come from over there there may be a small amount of sense in sending it out as a backload rather than ships going back empty , but it's all the economics of the mad house in my view.
There was a very good programme about waste on BBC4 recently and it showed how people would routinly sort their rubbish in the early part of the century and just after the war Birmingham's waste management was held up as a model. They collected waste and burned it , generating electricity to charge up battery powered lorries to collect the waste. Most of this changed with the advent of supermarkets and the huge increase in waste.
My father worked in waste for the council first as a dustman and later in an incineration plant. Very little other than tin cans was recycled in the plant and no heat was recovered. It has since been knocked down and replaced with a row of skips for seperate types of waste. According to the sign boards 70% of waste dropped there is recycled , although I haven't inquired more as to what exactly this means.
Digger mentions the problem of people dumping or fly tipping. Another thing my dad did for the council was to collect this waste and go through it. It was amazing the number of people that throw away bills or whatever with their name and address on them. This information was passed on and some were prosecuted. Serves them right especially as some stuff was dumped only a 100 yards from the tip in the first place
Anyhoo I'm off to sort some junk


Pete

[prison break fan]

Lots of info, but I'm still confused!! We already have the garden waste bin, which up until now has been free. Just can't see how they will enforce payment unless they take away the bins from people who don't want to pay, and I can't see them doing that! pbf.

[Flo]

Nope they just don't empty them if there isn't a sticker on them that says you have paid for this year. Well that's how it's done up here and I suspect that is what is being done down your way says the ear to the grapevine.

[prison break fan]

Cheers Flo, easy when you know how!!!! pbf.