Million To Lose Weekly Bin Round As 4 London Boroughs Move To Fortnightly Collection

[200p]

Marie Antoinette might have said "Let them swim in their own filth!"

(OK the original phrase is an urban legend)

[Johnny Storm]

You probably also want streets, schools, planning enforcement, parks, someone to check the hygiene of restaurants, trading standards, old people to be looked after, vulnerable kids to be protected, alcohol licensing and a whole bunch of other stuff.

Well streets maybe, but the road tax everyone pays is more than enough to cover that. Rest of the stuff, no not bothered.

Schools - should be paid for by parents

Planning - by taxation on builders

Hygiene of restaurants - by tax on restaurants

old people - by NI contributions

alcohol - no, nanny state.

kids - If didnt encourage those who shouldnt have kids to breed, wouldnt be a problem. how many vulnerable kids were there 40 years ago? Almost none.

whole bunch of stuff - by people who cause the need, or benefit from the service.

Places in spain seem to manage quite well with council tax of £50 a year. Why cant we?

[200p]

Don't forget the tick-box-tickers!

[SarahBell]

Similar to a point made by a previous poster, I believe in Spain you take your rubbish to a centralised point (same or next street) and it is collected from there. In fact I know that was the case when I lived in Seville and Valencia. I suspect that daily collections from such a centralised point would also be perfectly possible in the UK, but I'm not sure the public (or at least our hysterical media) would buy it.

You don't think our nimbys would have a fit?

The chav mentality of some of the youth would make a central collection point a bonfire on a regular basis.

[I want a house!]

This is great news. We have recycling and ruibbish on alternative weeks and it makes a massive difference to the amount of rubbish collected. It has been running for years and as a result, Hampshire has one of the best records for recycling in the UK. I very occasionally have problems with flies in the rubbish bin but you just need to be careful not to split the bags and to clean it out every now and then. I think it's worth the hassle to reduce the amount of stuff we're all throwing away.

Problems that for £1000 pounds per year minimum, you should not be dealing with. There is always a sympathiser, so you're happy to pay more for less, good on you. I don't need them to reduce when they pick up my rubbish to recycle. I do it naturallyl.

[winkie]

Barnet is very good....rubbish collection every week, recycled every week and green garden waste every week, collection from the door no extra charges....also every now and then they supply a community skip for local roads to put other heavier items in...they also have local well organised dumps for things like old fridges and batteries....no complaints.

[barrabus]

You probably also want streets, schools, planning enforcement, parks, someone to check the hygiene of restaurants, trading standards, old people to be looked after, vulnerable kids to be protected, alcohol licensing and a whole bunch of other stuff.

Less of a flippant answer: local authorities are more than about collecting bins. How much they should do and how much central government, or the private sector, should do is of course a valid question. Moving some of it to central government might not be such a big shift (approx 75% of council income comes from central govt / business rates anyway).

So if 75% of council income comes from central gov ,why cannot 100% and make life simpler .?

[cockrobin]

We've had fortnightly bin collections for four years now and I don't see the problem. I dunno what you moaning old women put in your bins but even in the height of summer our bins never stink.

I've got more important stuff to worry about, the rubbish gets taken away and thats all I care about.

[Lepista]

Here's a radical idea - how about just paying per collection - you could pay for daily collection, weekly collection, bi-weekly, monthly, whenever....

nah, that would never catch on - far too "free market".

[eightiesgirly]

Where I live it will resemble Tudor England, they'll just chuck it in the street.

We have problems as it is with landlords having no planning permission so can't get the right amount of wheely bins can they? The lovely tenents just pile it all up in bin bags which the council won't take and then end up ripped and strewn all over the street.

I ring the lovely council every now and then to complain, they just send a dude with cart and brush to sweep it all up. Recently they did investigate one landlord, waiting for a progress report on that one! Not holding my breath.