Pay as you throw

[Stonehead]

Thirty councils are fitting micro-chips to wheelie bins.

I have my doubts about this for two reasons.

First, wealthy people will continue to throw out as much as they feel like because they can afford it. You already see this with cars - the wealthy continue to pollute and use more fuel because they can afford to.

Second, weight is not everything with rubbish. You could throw out a binload of plastic bags and packaging and they wouldn't weigh that much. Add one small, heavy item to your bin and, while it's almost empty, it's going to cost you more than the bin-load of bags. (A week's worth of vegetable scraps weighs quite a lot and not everyone can compost.)

While I think the rubbish coming out needs to be tackled, the bigger problem is actually at the other end - all the unnecessary packaging and over-consumption that leads to excessive rubbish. I see a lot less effort to tackle this.

[2steps]

have to agree with you on this, even if it works it's totally unfair. In some cases I think councils need to do more to make recycling easier or even possible in some cases. I would gladly recycle more if the facilities were there for me to use. I wish we had plastic recycling here like where I lived in London. There is a bin for plastics but its about 2 mile away and as I don't drive getting the stuff there is akward and I don't take anything like as much as I like too, there

I feel it would be better to target companies and penalise them for overuse of packaging. But I do wonder if schemes like this are just another way of getting money out of us

[Chickpea]

I agree. If it costs money to throw rubbish you'll find people just fly-tip it instead. Doorstep recycling and packaging tax is the way to go. Penalise manufacturers, not consumers, for wasteful overpackaging with exemptions for recycled and biodegradable packaging alternatives. Then we'll all bring less junk into our homes and we'll have less rubbish to throw out.

[Andy Hamilton]

I look forward to it as the weight of my rubbish is minimal, but then thats a rather selfish view.

I do think that supermarkets should be doing more than they do as most of the rubbish is generated by them. Morrisons pack their corn on the cobs twice for instance. Other companies are also to blame, suprisingly when I get sent free stuff from time to time there is a huge disparity to how it is packaged. The tales from the green valley, minimal packaging. River cottage DVD bubble wrapped and sent by courier in a big plastic bag.

I also think that this won't work as if you have something heavy you go out in the middle of the night and dump it in someone elses bin who you don't like.

[2steps]

I also think that this won't work as if you have something heavy you go out in the middle of the night and dump it in someone elses bin who you don't like.

that's a good point or just dump it on the street

I think that, yes compaines should do more. they have more control over many of the factors anyway - why wrap a corn cob twice? why wrap it at all. I often get odd looks in the supermarket, if I go in for fruit or veg top up in the week because I put the food straight into my basket, rather than in a plastic bag first and then at the till put them straight in my backpack at the till. its not like those flinsy bags protect the food or anything

some supermarkets charge for carrier bags, would it be so bad if all did? or if they didn't provide them at all? or they could sell a non plastic 'bag for life' type thing. I'm sure people would complain but if they had no choice they'd get on with it and I'd imagine very soon get used to it.

does that sound harsh? though I do think that some harsh changes are the only thing that are going to make any difference and hopefully make people think more about these issues

[Stonehead]

Morrisons pack their corn on the cobs twice for instance.

I was in T***o the other day and was surprised to see the organic cucumbers are individually shrink wrapped (I wasn't buying them, just checking someone else's shopping).

And what's with the organic courgettes - sold in threes, on a plastic tray and then a layer of plastic wrap.

[Chickpea]

If I was a supermarket manager I'd think twice about making peoplepay for carrier bags. That kind of little thing sometimes drives away customers more than the big things do.

Consider - lots of people say they shop at out of town supermarkets because of the free parking. But most car parks charge something like 20p to park long enough to do your shopping. 20p buys about one-fifth of a litre of petrol - I bet most people use that much petrol driving to and from the out of town supermarket, so they're not saving any money at all. But they don't like the inconvenience of getting out of their car, walking to the ticket machine, finding the right change, walking back to the car to stick the ticket in their windscreen, walking in to the shop.

The supermarket that charges for bags will lose custom to the one that keeps giving them away, regardless of the quality and price of the food you buy there.

[2steps]

netto and aldi charge for carriers, people just bring there own from other supermarkets so at least they are getting reused even though they are just reusing them cos they don't want to pay

know what you mean about the car parking. I often think that about things, like buy one get one free offers often not being as good as they seem. People like getting something for free and it can be very good for buisness in my experince even if it costs you a little in the start.

[Welsh Girls Allotment]

Like most 'governement' initiatives its sounds good but reality is somewhat different, we have regular bin fillers where I live, my neighbour has 2 bins and frequently adds to my rubbish as well, there is only a father and son so heaven knows how they create so much rubbish.
Since I've gone to recycling nearly everything I can my rubbish has gone from a black bag a day to one a week - waste food in the dog, peelings etc in the compost, tins,glass, cans, bottles plastic containers and paper all in kerbside, cardboard I collect and either burn on the log burner or in summer I take to council skip, the only rubbish I seem to have is packaging which infuriates me and I try not to bring it home but at the moment meat is shrink wrapped even in my local butchers

Weighing the rubbish sounds reasonable but in reality I think it will create more problems than it solves the councils will need new depts and extra people to deal with fly tippers and naughty people filling bins, - the cycnic in me thinks this is job creation not planet saving !

[wulf]

Did you see the line in that report: "With an estimated nine years of landfill space left...."

My suggestion would be bigger recycling bins with weekly collections and perhaps bi-weekly collections for other rubbish.

I think chipping bins to weigh the rubbish creates a lot of extra costs, particularly in ongoing maintenance. There is the problem of other people dropping their heavy rubbish in your bin; you can't lock them because how would they be opened up by the disposal crew? It will probably also be fairly easy to fool the system - if the sensor is in the middle, put an inlay in the bottom and distribute most of the weight to the sides.

Much as I love technology, I don't think cyber-bins are the way forward.

Wulf

[Merry]

Here in Derby we have a doorstep recycling system. We have a blue bin for glass and plastic bottles, a brown bin for compostables (or you can, as we have, opt for a compost bin) a bag for paper and a separate bag for textiles. Then a black bin for anything else.
The black bin is collected every fortnight and the others on alternate weeks.
You should hear the moans though, from people who don`t see why they should, "do the council`s job for them, separating their rubbish."
It`s not a perfect system but it`s a start.

[2steps]

we have a simular system which I'm really grateful for. I'd like to see it grow to take more things, mainly plastic but suppose it only will if people actually use it

[wulf]

The Derby system sounds really good; I'd much rather take a bit of care about how I dispose of my rubbish than expecting the council to do that for me. I reckon I can probably provide better value for money than I'd get on my council tax bill!

We have a small green box for all recyclables (one for two flats) and a big black wheelie bin per flat. Both are collected weekly.

That makes recycling much easier than it was even in the fairly recent past. However the green box is sometimes too small for us and that's without the people upstairs ever recycling anything!

Wulf

[shiney]

I think a reward scheme would be better. I think they do it in Sweden and have been for years.

But it's really down to the supermarkets to pack less and the food companies to use recyclable packaging. You know brown paper/cardboard and NO plastic! (ok not for milk and yogurt etc)

We have a good recycling scheme here in Wildy Wiltshire. Fortnightly collections for the green bin (cardboard/shredded paper and composty things ~ I don't put compost in I keep it all for me!) a black bin for general stuff and a bottle, tin and paper bin. It's just the plastic that we have to take to the dump.

In reality our bins could be emptied monthly as we recycle so much, but we do have people who just can't be bothered and chuck everything in the black bin or burn it in their gardens. GRRRRRR!

[2steps]

Sometimes I see little notes attatched to wheelie bins here saying 'your bin was too heavy so hasn't been emptied' or 'you had too much rubbish so the extra bag has been placed back in your bin for next collection' (we are only allowed one black bag after filling the wheelie bin) but it never seems to stop people and our old neighbour said they used to get the too heavy note sometimes but the bin was always empty