Interesting news that Leeds City Council are one of the local authorities who are now fitting microchips to their fleet of household wheelie bins, to, erm, erm, just to identify them - so thats alright then.Just as long as the chips are their to just identify the bin, they are just there to identify the bin aren't they ?
Yes ?
Well thats alright then.
Wait a minute though, just as a "for instance", just as a small stretch of the imagination, they wouldn't be used to identify the wheelie bin when its on the bin wagon being emptied so that the bin wagon could weight the bin and you could get charged for disposing of excess garbage in your bin - could they ?
No of course not, ha, ha,ha, how ridiculous, ha, ha.
The politician on TV this morning mocked the idea, ha, ha, of course not, we wouldn't do something like that, it would need an act of parliament for us to be able to charge you for your refuse collection, especially as we're already charging you for your refuse collection via your council tax, we couldn't charge you twice could we, ha, ha, how silly.
Well thats alright then.
Wait a minute though, the politician on TV hasn't finished yet, whats he saying now ?
We're running out of ladnfill sites ?
We'll have no landfill sites left in the UK in 2020 ?
We have to recycle more because the EU says so ?
The EU will fine local councils who exceed preset limits on landfill ?
The costs will have to be borne by the taxpayer somehow ?
The ones who don't actively recycle will have to be charged more ?
How will they do that then ?
They'll weigh your rubbish on the bin wagon and send you the bill ?
Doesn't that need an act of parliament ?
You'll get one then ?
Oh bugger.
So, my local council is volunteering to chip our bins - makes note to check his wheelie bins tonight.
This would be the same local council who's refuse treatment and recycling plant burned down two years ago, and kept burning, for five days, the firemen kept putting it out but there was so much shite in the place that it just kept flaring back up again.
And since then Leeds hasn't had sufficient recycling capacity.
So its had to ship its recyclable stuff off to another authority to be recycled.
Or bury the recyclable stuff in landfill, after we've sorted it out for recycling.
When, and its when, not if, this crazy law comes into effect it will be unworkable, for the simple fact that no-one will be able to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the rubbish that was emptied into the bin wagon from your wheelie bin this morning when you weren't there to watch it really did weigh 147 kilos and that it really was your rubbish in the first place.
Our bins are emptied at 6.30am every monday morning so everyone places the bins out on the street on sunday evening - yes you don't have to be a genius to work out that our family of four fills our wheelie bin every week and the old couple over the road dont - if I think my bin is too full then I'll just wait a little bit later than they do and I'll put some - or all - of my rubbish in their bin, and if their bin then becomes to full and they get a surcharge, well, thats just tough isn't it ?
Fair ? Who said politics was fair ?
Theres also the issue of "generating" waste - politicians bitch about lazy households who "generate" too much waste.
Well, we "generate" a lot of waste in our house, we overfill our wheelie bin most weeks.
But the thing is that we don't "generate" anything.
We don't sit in the kitchen every night making the rubbish that we then put in the bin, I don;t sit there imploring the kids to make some more cardboard, "come on kids hurry up with that cardboard making machine, our bins still only half full this week", that not what happens.
What really happens is that we buy stuff at the shops, enough stuff to feed four people every week, the stuff at the shops comes in paper wrappers and card board boxes, then we we eat the stuff from the shops the wrappers and cardboard boxes go in the bin, and it gets fuller the more times you do that.
Yes we have a recycle bin and yes we put cardboard and paper and plastics in it.
But wait, what sort of plastics would they be ?
What type of polymers do they contain ?
Why can you recycle that milk carton but not the screwcap from it ?
Its a bit harder than you think isn't it ?
And what would happen if I stand at the check out at Walmart Asda next saturday (ha, ha, ha - me shopping ?) and unwrapped everything that was wrapped and unpacked everything that was packed and just took the raw food away with me saying that I don't need the packaging despite having just paid for it ?
I know someone who does that already and let me tell you - it pisses the hell out of the managers.
The bottom line is that the government solution is to blame, and financially penalise the end product - ie you and me - whereas in fact you and me will probably do a lot more to recycle if we are given the correct tools and guidance - when in fact the blame for most of the stuff that goes into landfill lies with the original manufacturer.
And why can't we just dig more holes ?
3 comments:
We have a bit of a bin co-operative going on round our way where we even out the load on the bins - typically because we recycle bloody loads more than the neighbours - so we would have similar unworkability issues.
The thing with Leeds is that the plans to build a new incinerator - which will not only reduce landfill demand, but also help generate a percentage of the cities electricity - were scotched by NIMBYs who think modern incinerators are still the stinky old rubbish from the '70s. They're not.
Digging more holes merely passes the problem on to the next generation.
Land fill sites - not a good idea. There's one near us which they finished with, grassed it over and put football / rugby pitches on it.
They're the only pitches I know of where matches are called off because of spontaneous combustion (the pitch, not the players).
Build house on old rubbish tips - free methane gas for life and the double bubble of finding old bottles and coins when your planting next years daffodils - or in my case it would be finding 50 year old shitty nappies.
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