Tips

[deanE]

An interesting collection of posts. I worked in the waste management industry, as operator and regulator, most of my working life, and still interested in folks thoughts on recycling etc. One thing I would say is be wary of the statistics issued by local Councils. I doubt that they are as impressive as they sound. "We recycle 80%" might well mean that they limit what they accept at that site to only what they can recycle.

 

[mickle]

I pedalled my bakfiets + trailer into the York facility and no one batted an eyelid - bringing two tons of tetrapacs which York does recycle but does not collect.

 

[summerdays]

York at 75% does well.

Everyone else is a lazy tard and needs a kick up the twice monthly.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/pol...ause-councils-abandon-weekly-collections.html

Had a look at some of the comments underneath. Whilst I don't know the truth about some of the comments I can't believe one near the top which claimed that because of bi-weekly collections that he now needed to go to the tip once a fortnight as well!!! I think I've been to the tip once in the past year and that was to get rid of stuff that could be recycled better that way. And my bin isn't full either, even in this Christmas week with a family of 5. The only thing that was over flowing was the cardboard recycling.

I'm quite happy with bi-weekly collections (non-food - that is weekly) - my main problem is remembering which bins they are collecting on any particular week - I now have a reminder set up on my phone so I don't have to go out and check which bins the neighbours have put out!

 

[Arch]

Had a look at some of the comments underneath. Whilst I don't know the truth about some of the comments I can't believe one near the top which claimed that because of bi-weekly collections that he now needed to go to the tip once a fortnight as well!!! I think I've been to the tip once in the past year and that was to get rid of stuff that could be recycled better that way. And my bin isn't full either, even in this Christmas week with a family of 5. The only thing that was over flowing was the cardboard recycling.

I'm quite happy with bi-weekly collections (non-food - that is weekly) - my main problem is remembering which bins they are collecting on any particular week - I now have a reminder set up on my phone so I don't have to go out and check which bins the neighbours have put out!

The trouble is that the idea behind fortnightly - sorry, I'm not allowed to call it that, it's "Alternate week" according to the council - collections was to make people recycle, and to think about reducing their waste*. Being British, a lot of people would rather carry on generating more and more waste, and complain about it.

*and probably to save money, but I'd rather bin collections were trimmed than care/health situations etc.

 

[Arch]

I dont tend to get round to tipping my bin men - but then I did not make a fuss when they knocked down my front wall with the bin lorry!

Mrs OTH always seems to cram a tin in a plastic jar in a box in a bag and as I tend to be the one who takes out the rubbish I stand there in the rain separating it all again.

We have a term for that - we call it Inappropriate Nesting (Bear in mind, we're a small team with multiple degrees and a lot of imagination, so we indulge in a lot of wordplay and stuff). I think people think it saves space, without thinking that we have to then separate it. I salute your dedication.

Here, all the non recycling stuff goes off to an incinerator (sorry it is an energy recovery facility or something) and I feel really bad if anything plastic goes in our non-recycling as the emissions from the plant are rather nasty. So that oddly seems to be my incentive to recycle.

Personally, I'm not all that opposed to incinerators if they generate energy. There's one planned for York, and the problem with it seems mostly to be that it'll be run by private industry, and the council are going to be contracted to provide X amount of waste to go in it annually. This means they have to have X amount of landfill waste to provide, which is not an incentive to reduce landfill to zero like they say they want to...

 

[Over The Hill]

Personally, I'm not all that opposed to incinerators if they generate energy. There's one planned for York, and the problem with it seems mostly to be that it'll be run by private industry, and the council are going to be contracted to provide X amount of waste to go in it annually. This means they have to have X amount of landfill waste to provide, which is not an incentive to reduce landfill to zero like they say they want to...

The energy provision is great but the problem seems to be the rather nasty output from the plant. The one here has had the bit cleaning up the fumes upgraded (I think tougher legislation came in) but it still is chucking out some nasty stuff. It is on the edge of a residential area and friends over that way have odd days where you get a horrid burning plastic smell and a sore throat.