Getting rid of garden (green) waste........not so easy as it seems.

[Flick of the Elbow]

Assuming £2358 is per annum, that's £196.50 per month, which sounds like a monthly council tax charge. This covers rather more than refuse collection I would gave thought.

Yes but refuse collection is the only service that the council provides to us. In theory it should also cover road maintenance and provision of public toilets but they have largely now stopped both of these. So refuse collection is the only substantive service we get in return for our money.

 

[screenman]

Yes but refuse collection is the only service that the council provides to us. In theory it should also cover road maintenance and provision of public toilets but they have largely now stopped both of these. So refuse collection is the only substantive service we get in return for our money.

You pay a third of that amount for pensions.

 

[Flick of the Elbow]

You pay a third of that amount for pensions.

Quite. Pensions of people who provide me with nothing in return.

 

[summerdays]

Quite. Pensions of people who provide me with nothing in return.

We don't only pay for the services we want to use, and usually councils provide a number of things you take for granted and don't even notice.

I do pay for a green bin collection on top of my council tax. It's a useful service to me and I don't want it going to landfill.

 

[screenman]

Quite. Pensions of people who provide me with nothing in return.

You should be grateful that you are helping people have a nice pension they may not have paid enough into. I love the fact that councils can be generous with my hard earned.

 

[alicat]

We have to pay £2358 for the council to take the waste away. For this princely sum they provide a brown wheelie bin which they are supposed to empty every 3 weeks. They usually fail to turn up on the designated collection day. The bins end up cluttering the pavement for days on end, we often have to record complaints before they will collect. Of course, when they do eventually deign to collect they leave the empty wheelie bins strewn randomly all over the street, we often have to collect ours from outside drives several doors away.
We've now ordered a second brown bin because one isn't enough for 3 weeks worth, 6 weeks if it coincides with us being away on holiday. In a typical display of incompetence they've delivered a second blue bin rather than the requested brown bin. The blue bin is for recyclables so no use at all for garden waste. Another complaint about to be lodged.

Phew, glad I am not quite so bitter about my lot in life.

 

[Levo-Lon]

Peterborough used to let trade bring green waste to the tip and tip free..
Very handy when i had a tree to remove in a driveway extension for a customer.
The council sell the green waste after its mulched..

They dont allow Any trade now......you can guess what that has resulted in..
I pay 39 quid a year for forthrightly green waste bin service .
I use a chipper when trimming my 60 feet of hedges..its a bit laborious but usually done in 2 bin empties..

 

[Levo-Lon]

People hate paying for services they dont use Adrian

 

[PaulSB]

Yes but refuse collection is the only service that the council provides to us. In theory it should also cover road maintenance and provision of public toilets but they have largely now stopped both of these. So refuse collection is the only substantive service we get in return for our money.

This simply isn't correct and I would expect your local authority, like mine, sends you an annual breakdown of how local taxes are spent.

In my area we now have to pay for certain services, garden waste collection being one, which previously were included in our council tax. These changes are a direct result of government policy and while I'm not happy with this I am in favour of those who use peripheral services paying for them.

We pay £30 per annum for a large wheelie bin which covers our needs. I am fortunate to have a large allotment where I recycle all organic waste. This year our LA introduced a licence scheme for "inorganic waste." This is basically rubble as all other waste, if sorted correctly, plastic, metal, wood etc. is free at the local tip.

We get 10 bags of rubble free per annum and then £3.50 per bag. I'm fully in favour of this as previously if my neighbour did extensive building work and I nothing his waste disposal was funded by my taxes, this is no longer the case. I paid for his landfill.

We should all pay equally for the services used by every household but I see no reason why people who don't use a service such as green waste collection should fund those who do.

 

[screenman]

Adrian, I agree with you on those points, but how did we get to a point where so much of what we pay goes into pensions, talk to any public worker and they say they deserve their pensions as they have paid into it, did they pay enough for the return they get?

 

[PaulSB]

On the other two points of conifers and chip disposal.

I'm now retired but will confess to a life long career in commercial horticulture. The leylandii boom of 30/35 years ago was an absolute gold mine for nurserymen. A simple to propagate and grow conifer which was produced by the millions. This plant is/was a typical example of an inappropriate plant being offered to a public who didn't fully understand what they were buying. Similarly many of the so called "dwarf" conifers offered in the same time period were anything but as can be seen in nature gardens all over the UK.

At my last employment the owner had a very mutually beneficial arrangement for chip and timber disposal with a local tree surgeon.

The tree surgeon would deliver in chipped material and unlogged trunks and limbs. My employer used the chips for weed suppression and mulching throughout the nursery while storing the timber which would be logged by staff in winter to fuel the owner's personal heating.

Both parties avoided taxation, costs etc. which used to make my blood boil.

 

[Heltor Chasca]

As a contractor I'm going the whinge. I get charged a minimum green tip of £30 at the local commercial centre whether that's a grass box of lawn clippings or a metric ton. I am not allowed to use domestic sites. I pass that on to the client for £39.00. I don't like charging that but it's a horrible site and the people are not into customer services. The green waste becomes compost and is sold. Money money money. The owner flies around in a helicopter. Wrong.

 

[screenman]

The question you should be asking is why other organisations, using equivalent levels of human resource, are not similarly funding pension provision.

Fine, assume that I just asked that question, would you answer it for me please. But please whilst we are on the subject answer if you can the first one.

 

[screenman]

As a contractor I'm going the whinge. I get charged a minimum green tip of £30 at the local commercial centre whether that's a grass box of lawn clippings or a metric ton. I am not allowed to use domestic sites. I pass that on to the client for £39.00. I don't like charging that but it's a horrible site and the people are not into customer services. The green waste becomes compost and is sold. Money money money. The owner flies around in a helicopter. Wrong.

Not sure where the wrong bit is.

 

[srw]

You pay a third of that amount for pensions.

Not true. As has been demonstrated before.