Unbelievable

dori2o

Just been to the local tip to get rid of a wardrobe (in the wood recycle bin) and spotted 2 mattresses in a container. I'm looking for 2 single mattresses as my kids have demolished theirs, and thought 'waste not, want not.'

I asked the bloke at the tip if I could have them, I only live 2 minutes walk away and could have carried them home.

He said I couldn't have them as they cannot let people take things from the tip.

Now, surely if the Govt are trying to encourage people to recycle, it would be better to let people take things they can use, rather than them go to landfill.

I'm thinking of going back, or at least contacting Manchester Waste to see if I can convince them to let me have them. They'll save me almost £100. I had a quick look at them and they are in great condition.

Volcano

He said I couldn't have them as they cannot let people take things from the tip.

These people aren't employed to think.....nevermind that he might be worried you're a 'mystery shopper' sent to check on him.

Give your local council's waste management section a call, explain that you'd like to recycle a couple of mattresses you've seen and see what they say. If it's a yes, make sure you get the person's name.

Of similar irony; my local tip will only accept one radiator per week from me (I'm replacing them all) EVEN THOUGH they're worth cash to the council as scrap metal.

moonrakerz

dori2o wrote: »

Just been to the local tip to get rid of a wardrobe (in the wood recycle bin) and spotted 2 mattresses in a container. I'm looking for 2 single mattresses as my kids have demolished theirs, and thought 'waste not, want not.'

I asked the bloke at the tip if I could have them, I only live 2 minutes walk away and could have carried them home.

He said I couldn't have them as they cannot let people take things from the tip.

Now, surely if the Govt are trying to encourage people to recycle, it would be better to let people take things they can use, rather than them go to landfill.

I'm thinking of going back, or at least contacting Manchester Waste to see if I can convince them to let me have them. They'll save me almost £100. I had a quick look at them and they are in great condition.

Strange as it may seem, he was quite correct ! that is the way the Law works.

He could have got the sack, you could have been done for theft !

dori2o

I know it's right what he said, I have contacted Greater Manchester Waste and tried to reason with them, but apparently there is absolutely no way they can let it go.

It just seems a shame that these will be left to rot in landfill when they could have been used in my kids bedrooms. Thgere was absolutely nothing wrong with them at all.

It beggars belief that whoever took them to the tip didn't try and sell them, or offer them on their local freecycle.

I've managed to get 2 from freecycle now anyways and I'm going to collect them tonight.

A_fiend_for_life

Sounds like councils could do with filtering stuff through 'reuse centres' first of all. I'm curious how much you would have been prepared to pay for the mattresses were this the case. Could be a useful way of reducing landfill and operational costs.

geordie_joe

dori2o wrote: »

I asked the bloke at the tip if I could have them, I only live 2 minutes walk away and could have carried them home.

He said I couldn't have them as they cannot let people take things from the tip.

I know several people who regularly get stuff from two tips in Dorset. They say that if you ask for stuff you get the same response as you got, so what you do is say something like "I'll give you a quid for that" and you get it no bother.

The one thing you DON'T do is ask them how much they want for it. If you do they say they want a fiver, so always offer them a quid, or two for larger stuff as they always accept what you offer.

Dustykitten

I was very fortunate and was just getting back into my car when I spotted somebody walking across to throw the pedestal base to a dining table in the wood skip. I ran over and asked it I could have it and they were more than happy to give it to me. Perfect timing. They had the top but it was smaller than the current one we have so I declined. Could not believe they had not freecycled it.

greenbee

Our local tip has recently been closed, and a new, better designed one opened.

You now have to go past all the small recycling skips first (batteries, car tyres, clothes, glass, cans etc), then they have a HUGE shed for furniture, electricals etc, where people come and help you with the stuff, but also sort through it and either repair & recycle it (via the community furniture reuse network) or dispose of it responsibly. There is no skip that you can put electrical equipment into unsupervised, so it all gets sorted.

Once you are past this, there are large skips for green waste, metals etc, but there are plenty of people around pointing you in the right direction, sending you back to the shed with useable stuff, and fishing things out that have got in the wrong place.

Obviously it's not perfect (they don't recycle tetrapaks for a start :rolleyes: ), but its a HUGE improvement on what we had before, and they are at least trying to make sure stuff is reused.

SomeBozo

dori2o wrote: »

Just been to the local tip to get rid of a wardrobe (in the wood recycle bin) and spotted 2 mattresses in a container. I'm looking for 2 single mattresses as my kids have demolished theirs, and thought 'waste not, want not.'

I asked the bloke at the tip if I could have them, I only live 2 minutes walk away and could have carried them home.

He said I couldn't have them as they cannot let people take things from the tip.

Now, surely if the Govt are trying to encourage people to recycle, it would be better to let people take things they can use, rather than them go to landfill.

I'm thinking of going back, or at least contacting Manchester Waste to see if I can convince them to let me have them. They'll save me almost £100. I had a quick look at them and they are in great condition.

No offence, but I can almost see the alternative to this post :

I went to the tip and managed to salvage a matress for my kids. This morning at 3am I hear screaming only to find a spring had come through the mattress.

Surely the tip can't do this? How do I claim compensation? Is this legal? My child could have been killed. How dare they do this? What are my rights? Where do I stand?

As I said, no offence to the OP.

Bozo

Sirbendy

i've almost had a car from the local tip once..heh...there was a Maestro (top of the range) sat there..I was looking at it, then they came with the dumper...by the time I'd shouted "HANG ON!", they'd tipped it into the skip!

I could have sworn. I've intercepted other things on the way in though - old suffolk petrol mowers seem favourite.

I'm quite pleased- I just called our local scrapyard out of curiousity to see if they stored any old car batteries..."swing by and grab one mate". Perfect..they can bolt up to the existing one on my solar setup then..heh.

Valli

greenbee wrote: »

Our local tip has recently been closed, and a new, better designed one opened.

You now have to go past all the small recycling skips first (batteries, car tyres, clothes, glass, cans etc), then they have a HUGE shed for furniture, electricals etc, where people come and help you with the stuff, but also sort through it and either repair & recycle it (via the community furniture reuse network) or dispose of it responsibly. There is no skip that you can put electrical equipment into unsupervised, so it all gets sorted.

Once you are past this, there are large skips for green waste, metals etc, but there are plenty of people around pointing you in the right direction, sending you back to the shed with useable stuff, and fishing things out that have got in the wrong place.

Obviously it's not perfect (they don't recycle tetrapaks for a start :rolleyes: ), but its a HUGE improvement on what we had before, and they are at least trying to make sure stuff is reused.

Sounds like ours but they DO recycle Tetrapaks

re the mattresses though - ooh bedbugs (and I don't mean dustmites) apparently they are getting more common!