Age Of The 'bonsai' Bin: Families Will Be Forced To Cram Their Rubbish Into Mini Wheelies

[dr ray]

I may start burning some of my rubbish in my back garden. Local incineration

They might fine you for that or even introduce a new offence of not leaving your rubbish out for collection

Did you read the story some time back of a jeweller who was threatened with a fine because he refused to pay business rates to have his gold scrap treated as trade waste and disposed of by the council? (Can't be bothered to look for a link right now).

[SaintJay]

It was just an example. But WOW what do they waste the rest of the £1000 a year I pay on.

I used to love the Place in the Sun programs where the presenter would say to the couple when they were looking at places in Spain. "Oh, and lets talk about the local tax. Its 50 euros a year."

Wouldnt it be nice if we could opt out of a cheap and nasty council collection and pay a private company where they take whatever rubbish you want and come and collect the bin from where it lives. Wow, like the good old days in fact.

Im lucky in that I live in a flat where we have big massive communal bins. So i can throw away as much as I like, I dont mess around putting rubbish in blue and green bins in fact I dont even know which is which. And the concierge puts the bins out. Flats ftw!

pension contributions

[King Stromba]

Rubbish in black bags

Black bags in back of car

Tip on way to work

Time saved washing and sorting bottles and associated crap - hours

The more the council tries to control me the more i will do to resist.

Now if they ask nicely and show me good reason to play community kind man i might listen. But if its fascism they want, then its resistance theyll get.

[evictee]

Personally it doesn't bother me greatly since we (family of 5, 1 a baby) rarely fill our 240 litre waste bin. The 240 litre recycling one does get quite full but not if I climb in and jump up and down on the contents. I do have an allotment and thus compost most food waste and grass clippings though. Also we generally bake our own bread (not that bread bags take much space) and also make our own yoghurt (which saves about 30 non-recyclable plastic pots per week). Also we cook almost all our meals from scratch and thus almost never have those plastic trays which ready meals come in. All our meat comes from the farm shop and is wrapped in plasticy paper stuff rather than trays too.

Sounds lovely. But have you ever stopped to consider that your carbon footprint is likely to be far in excess of those who get their meat and yoghurt from their local Tesco, with all the economies of scale which that entails?

[TheEmperorHasNoClothes]

Nothing wrong with wanting people to produce less waste, and nothing wrong with people doing so.

The problem is that it's the usual environmental nonsense being trotted out, when really it's about raising money.

I make an effort to reduce the stuff I leave out for the binmen by dumping at least one bag of household waste in a council bin during my daily stroll into town.

I'm not so stupid as to throw out personally identifiable items, but pretty much everything else is fair game.

****** 'em.

Yep and I walked past that full up bin with your rubbish. I had my lunch sandwich packaging to discard, so as I couldn't throw it in the bin, I just chucked it in the street.

****** 'em.

[Olebrum]

Future vision of Britain's streets.

[huw]

Yes, I see where you are coming from, but taking the issue of landfill separately, it is an issue and means should be sought to reduce the problem. Punitive fines and providing undersized bins is a totalitarian and dysfunctional way of going about it. The buyer has little or no choice how much packaging they consume other than y reducing consumption, this type of scheme is totally nutty and only designed to criminalise and hound the population.

I strongly suspect that buyers are prepared to pay a premium for the perceived extra value that packaging gives though (this seems to be the case currently). Unless the packaging tax was draconian, I'm not sure that behaviour would change ... and some things genuinely do need a lot of packaging and therefore there would be a disproportionate effect. Perhaps the message back up the retail/supplier chain can be sent by leaving excess packaging behind in supermarkets.

[Gone baby gone]

The Daily Mail and it's readers seem obsessed with bins in much the same way as the Express is obsessed with Diana and HPI.

Is the DM readership particularly wasteful?

[manterik]

Ha! I have been a master flytipper in my time, got rid of a warehouse full of waste in bins all over Elephant & Castle over 2 days, at night.

Did anyone notice ?

[huw]

Here in belgium, they have a much better system than back in the UK.

Here, all rubbish bags that are collected must be the official "Commune branded" bags.

You can only get them from big supermarkets.

For general, non recyclable waste, they cost 9 euros for 10 x 60 litre bags.

Good idea but given that we're already paying for refuse collection, I'd prefer to get a basic allowance included (our local council already delivers their own branded bags, all they'd have to say is "we only collect these" with the opportunity to buy more bags if needed).

Could also be a sticker system, as used for commercial waste in some areas, rather than branded bags.

In 1980s China I remember people going around collecting drinks cans for the (minuscule) scrap value, I wonder if we'll be able to solve the problem in the same way here, one day

Edited September 10, 2009 by huw

[dr ray]

The Daily Mail and it's readers seem obsessed with bins in much the same way as the Express is obsessed with Diana and HPI.

Is the DM readership particularly wasteful?

Well they buy the DM so I guess they are.

[lurker07]

FFS. Just collect my fecking rubbish!! I don't recall getting a refund when my bins were empty due to my 2week foreign holiday???

Arrrgh, this country has turned into some feckin bureaucratic nightmare.

Are we going to have bin-size regulation co-ordinators to match bins to houses?

[Gone baby gone]

Well they buy the DM so I guess they are.

Indeed.

[Quagmire]

Here in belgium, they have a much better system than back in the UK.

Here, all rubbish bags that are collected must be the official "Commune branded" bags.

You can only get them from big supermarkets.

For general, non recyclable waste, they cost 9 euros for 10 x 60 litre bags.

The recyclable waste can go in cheaper bags which I think are about 5 euros for 20, but they are translucent so they can see if yoou put the wrong stuff in it (then they just wont take it)

With this system, those that produce more waste pay more tax in the form of bags.

People who compost, recycle correctly or minmise waste pay a lot less tax.

The system works great and is so bloody simple I cannot believe we dont do it in the UK.

A good system, a proper free market system would be better.

Can't believe we dont do it in the UK?! Really - it must be pretty obvious now that the Labour government thrives on creating non-jobs to manage the current, wildly inefficient system.

Look at car tax, its obvious to anyone with half a brain that taxing fuel, not miles, is the most fair and "green" means of raising revenue. For Labour, its better to create a huge swathe of non-jobs and departments to administer some ridiculous and invasive pay-per-mile scheme.

Its a shame the UK can't follow New Zealands example. They come and pick up our recycle bin and trash bin weekly, no ifs, no buts - we pay for the service afterall.

[Tonkers]

Did anyone notice ?

[singlemalt]

Here in belgium, they have a much better system than back in the UK.

Here, all rubbish bags that are collected must be the official "Commune branded" bags.

You can only get them from big supermarkets.

For general, non recyclable waste, they cost 9 euros for 10 x 60 litre bags.

The recyclable waste can go in cheaper bags which I think are about 5 euros for 20, but they are translucent so they can see if yoou put the wrong stuff in it (then they just wont take it)

With this system, those that produce more waste pay more tax in the form of bags.

People who compost, recycle correctly or minmise waste pay a lot less tax.

The system works great and is so bloody simple I cannot believe we dont do it in the UK.

I can. illegal 'fake' bags priced at £5 for x50

Maybe it's just my northern council house roots, always looking for an angle

[dr ray]

A good system, a proper free market system would be better.

Can't believe we dont do it in the UK?! Really - it must be pretty obvious now that the Labour government thrives on creating non-jobs to manage the current, wildly inefficient system.

Look at car tax, its obvious to anyone with half a brain that taxing fuel, not miles, is the most fair and "green" means of raising revenue. For Labour, its better to create a huge swathe of non-jobs and departments to administer some ridiculous and invasive pay-per-mile scheme.

Its a shame the UK can't follow New Zealands example. They come and pick up our recycle bin and trash bin weekly, no ifs, no buts - we pay for the service afterall.

I don't think fair and green come into it except as spin.

Taxing fuel more would reduce its use and would encourage people to buy smaller, generally cheaper, cars.

It might even encourage the industry to develop viable electric vehicles or private bus companies to offer convenient transport at a reasonable cost.

Where would the government be if that were to happened? Taxing transport is a big revenue earner.

[SarahBell]

Hurray! Think of the jobs it'll create making the wheely bins. Oh hang on we import them from Germany don't we?

I think it's an expensive idea - and what will they do with all the old bins?

I'm not sure a half size bin is that much of a bad idea. Having a huge bin does seem to encourage people to fill it. But given the good news carrot-not-stick recycling story meant you put everything in one bin and they sorted it, why are we that worried about amounts people throw out?

Surely if manufacturers make less waste to sell to us that'd be better?

[Vaevictus]

I can. illegal 'fake' bags priced at £5 for x50

Maybe it's just my northern council house roots, always looking for an angle

Yeah I have thought about that but the people that do this sort of thing are the sort of people that would flytip anyway....., or burn it in gardens etc. etc.

[Guest sillybear2]

They gave us a new 140l bin collected weekly, the old 240l bin has become a commingled recycling bin collected fortnightly. So that's basically the same capacity in total, it's just that half has become recycling capacity. Nearly everything goes into the recycle bin anyway, and you don't have to sort stuff yourself, so I don't give a stuff, it works well.

The Daily Mail were bitching about rats and outbreaks of the plague due to fortnightly collections, so councils have introduced these smaller bins instead, still collected weekly. Last week they were bitching about waste incinerators being built :-

http://www.newstin.com/rel/us/en-010-017979037

http://www.newstin.com/tag/us/143052913

Before that they were bitching about us running out of landfill space :-

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10...-run-space.html

So the Daily Mail line is pretty clear, they want no recycling, 500l bins collected daily (by British workers) and disposed of without the use of incinerators or landfill. Simple.

Edited September 10, 2009 by sillybear2

[noodle doodle]

*Buys 1,000 shares in British Domestic Waste Compacters Research Ltd*

[Guest sillybear2]

The Daily Mail and it's readers seem obsessed with bins in much the same way as the Express is obsessed with Diana and HPI.

Is the DM readership particularly wasteful?

Well, they seem to have a dollop of useless reactionary pulp delivered to their doorstep on a daily basis. They were giving away 25,000 incandescent light bulbs the other week, presumably because they match their readerships rage.

In June they were bitching about "burgeoning bins", "monstrous wheelie bins engulfing our streets [...] amid growing fury at the plastic monstrosities blighting our streets and gardens.", "councils are ignoring protests, petitions and marches" :-

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11...ng-streets.html

Today they're bitching about the bloaters being replaced by neat little bins.

Amazing.

[youthoftoday]

Sounds lovely. But have you ever stopped to consider that your carbon footprint is likely to be far in excess of those who get their meat and yoghurt from their local Tesco, with all the economies of scale which that entails?

Yes I have considered that. However, lowest cost does not necessarily equate to lowest carbon footprint or more importantly lower cost doesn't always equal lower environmental and social degredation.

I've read 'The End of Food' too. So there.

[Number79]

Haven't read the whole thread, am looking for my keys, trying to get to b&q before they sell out of home incinerator bins

[Guest sillybear2]

Haven't read the whole thread, am looking for my keys, trying to get to b&q before they sell out of home incinerator bins

Too late, DM object to that, due to the 'cancer-causing dioxins' :-

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-44...rd-burning.html

Mind you, if you don't burn it then it will lead to an "increase in smells, vermin and infestations." So your choice is between cancer and hoards of swine flu carrying foreign rats, decisions, decisions! I suggest you have a smoke down the local pub whilst you think about it, doh!

Hrm, I know, maybe people should just stop buying needless shit in the first place with money they haven't got, that neatly ties into the DM's logic about evil debtors and lenders.

Edited September 10, 2009 by sillybear2