Pay as you throw

[Merry]

I`ve just watched (listened and glanced up from my knitting actually) to a Telly programme about the problems people have with separated waste collections. You wouldn`t believe the things poeple said. There was one woman, who seemed to have a partner and one small child, who had three or four extra waste bags each week apart from her main bin. She was having a serious whinge about the bags not being collected. No suggestion that she could reduce the waste.
And the amazing maggot myth!
One quote said that " there was a river of maggots coming from the bin towards my front door" Why would they do that?
A letter in my local rag today said, "The maggots were all over the drive, in the paper recycling bag and all over my front door.
Some people obviously have Supermaggots.

[2steps]

what they need is some chickens to hoover up teh maggots

why would maggots be in the paper recycler? and if cans are washed first then they shouldn't be a problem either. any excuse, eh?

[red]

we've just moved house and now have wheelie bins for the first time ever. I think it's fantasitic - before you had to be really keen to recycle - we were but ack what an effort taking glass and tins to the banks - and no where to recycle plastic bottles at all

now its ace, recycling made easy. beats me why anyone would complain. then again, my mum has complained. apparantly it was much easier the old way....

I forgot to put the bin out last week - new place new schedules you know... and we are still not going to be full when the fortnight is up

[2steps]

good for you red :) I felt the same when we moved here and got a wheelie bin for the first time. They are also great if you have something yukky to throw away - it can go straight out there and you don't need to worry about bags being ripped open by foxes, cats etc

going along the idea of this microchipping - why not chip people recycle boxes and if a house doesn't use one for, say 2 weeks bill them for throwing the stuff away instead of recycling when they hav ethe faciliites right there.

[Merry]

Yeah - - except if people are doing the first two `Rs` - reduce and reuse, and even the next one, repair - they won`t be putting much in the recycling will they? Wodger fink?

[2steps]

is true but something is better than nothing and I bet even less people bother with that than do with using the recycling boxes. They'd probably contact me over my lack of glass recycling but thats because I save any I do have for homemade jams etc but that counts as being recycled, in fact it's even better for them as they don't need to do anthing.

It at least would be a fairer system than what is proposed

[Merry]

See what you mean! If it stopped people from binning everything willy nilly it would make them at least think about what they were doing. Hmm.

[Stonehead]

Well, our limited, council-provided recycling has become even more limited. When the truck was emptying the paper recycling wheelie bin today, the collectors stuck new stickers on the side - no brown cardboard. According to the binmen, it's not recyclable! (Which I do not believe, I suspect it's down to the processing machinery they use.)

Also, while thin card is acceptable, coated thin card is not - so no Weetabix boxes, toy packaging, tea packet etc. I mention those because we had an own-brand version of Wheatabix packet, a packet from a toy tractor, and the packet from some green tea in the bin. All had to be removed.

The collectors are supposed to look in the bins and check, then leave the bin if there's anything in there that shouldn't be.

So, we're left with an intermittent service (didn't collect for six weeks last time) that takes very limited paper types; no glass, metal or plastic recycling (too far out of town to be cost effective); and a directive that "farm waste" shouldn't go in the waste bin or on the compost heap.

At the same time, domestic kitchen waste should not be brought on to the site (which apparently includes creating it on site) nor disposed of on site.

But we should be composting our garden waste and vegetable waste from the kitchen.

Oh, and the rubbish collection service, that shouldn't be taking our "farm waste" but should be taking our kitchen and garden waste as we're not supposed to have it here, often misses us (a chap down the road from us hasn't had a bin collection in six months).

Talk about mind-boggling!

So we just get on with what we do. The missed rubbish bin collections have shown that it takes at least six weeks for us to fill a wheelie bin (and sometimes longer); the missed paper collections show us that it takes at least eight weeks to half fill the paper bin (as we reuse so much of it ourselves); and we have a vast collection of salvaged bottles (used for home brew, storage and more), salvaged plastic bottles, and metal cans!

I can just see myself at 70 already, when I'll be featured on one of those TV programmes about nutters who fill their houses with rubbish...

[PurpleDragon]

I was at the tip this morning, and I had collected my tins in carrier bags. I dropped one of the bags in the tin bin and the bloke came to fish it out for me. He then scrunched it up and chucked in it in the geneal rubbish. I asked if they didnt recycle plastic carriers, and he said a categorical "No" and walked away.

Our paper bin doesnt take weetabix boxes etc so I break them up and keep them seperate. Then I do a tip run and chuck them in the cardboard skip. They then go off for a different type of recycling to the paper.

[Andy Hamilton]

At the risk of sounding like our leader - this should be an issue about "Education, Education, Education". What would it cost the council to employ someone to walk around and look out for bins that are overflowing and knock on the doors to offer advice. Or a few people that spoke Polish, Italian, Hindi etc so that everyone could learn what to do. It often takes a shift in thinking to reduce your rubbish. Stuff like compost lessons, cooking tips - Perhaps even a council made cook book and info on the nearest plastic recycle bins could all help out.

Lets say it cost £20 000 a year to employ one person to do this. We would need about 5 or six people in Bristol so it would cost £100 000 a fraction of the £10 million fine that cumbria might recieve. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cumbria/4296588.stm

Perhaps a letter to the council is in order.

[PurpleDragon]

I know when we stayed on the Fife/Clacks border they didn't give a flying **** but up here, you get this nifty little ring binder and they send you updates about where you can recycle, what, and how etc. It may not be environmentally friendly to keep replacing the updates, but I have referred to it many times already. I would rather that than have someone knocking on my door, and I can imagine the folk who can't be bothered to recycle might just give the poor bloke a bop on the nose for his trouble.

[Stonehead]

I know when we stayed on the Fife/Clacks border they didn't give a flying **** but up here, you get this nifty little ring binder and they send you updates about where you can recycle, what, and how etc. It may not be environmentally friendly to keep replacing the updates, but I have referred to it many times already.

We haven't received one of those! And it's the same council.

[PurpleDragon]

Weird. it's a wee A5 size ring binder, in orange, with "Waste Aware Grampian - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Guide - to help YOU get it sorted" on the front.

You can get one from 0845 600 5333 or www.wascot.org.uk/grampian if you want one.

I'm surprised you don't get the refills when they update it.

[the.fee.fairy]

are the chips going to link with the supermarket spychips so that they can tell what type of rubbish you have? Ie: is it heavy vegetable/garden matter (which round here either goes in home compost heaps, or goes in the council compost bin) or is it loads of packaging from the supermarket?

If that were the case, i might not disagree so much with the chips after all...

[Stonehead]

I've been looking into this and it's surprisingly easy to mess with the chips. Aside from the obvious, mechanical ones of swapping bins and/or removing the chips, it's quite straight forward to collect the data from the chips yourself, to change the data or to erase the chip entirely.

The sophisticated method is to get download RFDump (or similar software) to a PDA with an RFID reader (which you can buy off the shelf) and a PC Card antenna. You then read the data on the RFID chip, and then change it.

Most chips are left unlocked for convenience, the locked ones are fairly simple to hack and only the encrypted ones are difficult. But as encrypted chips cost about 20 to 25 times as much as the basic ones, how many businesses are going to use them on fairly low cost items (say £100 or less) and how many are going to ensure they're properly locked and encrypted.

Anyway, back to the chip. The simple, brute force way of destroying the data is with a burst of electro-magnetic radiation. And it's very simple to build yourself a small electro-magnet with enough force to zap a chip.

RFID chips are also used as electronic keys to security doors. So take your PDA reader and antenna, and follow the person with the RFID chip "key". Brush close by them and read the chip, then program your own chip with the data and open the door.

One prankster in the US reprogrammed the RFID chip on cream cheeses so they could be used to open the doors in a top hotel. The cream cheese key!

It's the same with the fancy new electronic car keys. Brush past the person with the "key" card or fob, collect their data and then programme your own "key". Who needs to hot wire a car any more?

And in the US they're now implanting RFID chips under people's skin to track them in hospital (it will supposedly stop people making off with your baby etc) or for security purposes. And guess what, those chips can also be read and altered by your gadget.

So why are we so worried about bins? I plan to programme the RFID chip on mine so that the bin thinks it's six days old and is being kidnapped by a bloke in a truck...