Real Story - Fiona Bruce - Rubbish!!

KraftyKate_2

Did anyone see the Real Story programme last week all about the local council's plans to collect domestic rubbish every two weeks? There has been some national press about it, too with lots of people protesting about the fact it is thoroughly unhygienic and has been attracting rats and other vermin?

Even people who were vigilant and recycled as much as possible still had a problem.

There seems to be an element of panic about the whole thing - the fact that there is only nine years left before landfill sites are full means that they have to think of a solution quickly.

People I know recycle in varying degrees - and I still find my family in the minority as recyclers of as much as possible. Some people pay lip service to the local collection schemes and the boxes supplied aren't always big enough!

However, it's another matter if the actual weekly rubbish/waste collection scheme is changed to fortnightly.

How can local councils educate so many people in such a short space of time without causing more damage to the environment?There could be cases of people fly tipping and dumping their rubbish in other people's bins if it is true that charges are going to be made for collection of domestic waste.

Volcano

Fortnightly collections has been the norm where I live since I moved here (approx 2 years ago). In the summer the rubbish stinks really bad and we end up with flies buzzing around the front door (where the bin is) and into the house.

Local government are trying to comply with legislation re. recycling, limitations on new landfills etc but I think they're not facing up to reality. Calling municipal dumps "recycling centres" is a joke as clearly a lot of waste cannot be recycled and WILL end up in landfill.

I questioned an environmental rep. from my local council who admitted that flytipping HAD gone up as a result of recent restrictions on what can't be taken to these "recycling centres". Charges on the amount of waste produced by individual households will surely make this worse.

Wings_of_Ambition

They should burn the non-toxic stuff

Sadierhianne

I have a friend who's trash is only collected fortnightly - she is in Northants.

I was reading that when all the huge ships have brought in goods from China that they fill the returning ships with the Uk's rubbish and it is all burned in China - this is appaling.

I think that fortnightly collections is disgusting - i know that as a family we couldn't manage with that - well we might if they provided us with a second bin. We might manage with one bin if our council got it's act together and offered the whole area a proper selection of recycle bins - i currently have paper and a brown bin for garden rubbish - not very good is it, yet despite many phone calls and complaints we still don't have the extra bins that we need in order to recycle easily - it means trips to Tesco and the local tip on a weekly basis to get rid of all the treash that we can recycle - unfortunately most people don't do this, and why would they? Thankfully some do but it's not enough.

9 years till landfill is filled - i didn't know this - makes me think a whole lot harder about my recycling which is good but at times could be better. I will phone my council again tomorrow.

I do use degradable bin bags so that the contents of my bins do have chance to break down - still stuff is being added tio landfil.

We also use Freecycle.org.co.uk.

Still i don't see how collecting refuse fortnightly will help landfill - just seems like a way to save money - will it be spent on providing adequate recycle bins for the whole of the UK?

It's a real shame that this problem isn't being dealt with properly -

Sadierhianne

MrsTinks

We have fortnightly collections here too and it's horrid! You have to carefully seal everything and prefereably double bag everything especially in the summer. If you don't you are guaranteed lots of maggots and flies. Unfortunately our bins are right next to our front door and kitchen window so we have no way of escaping it either. I have no problem with recycling being fortnightly - there is only 2 of us... but they won't collect glass, only empty tins, cans and plastic bottles oh and newspapers... (we don't have any) so if I want to recycle the main thing we have that can be recycled (glass) I have to borrow my OHs car (mine is tiny) to take the bottles to the nearest bottle bank. Riddiculous!
And I can recycle garden waste... They gave us a HUGE bin for that, ame size as our household waste... My garden is a postage stamp! Honestly!

Encourage recycling, but don't jeopardise health by leaving rotting food for 2 weeks - it's disgusting!

tiff

We have fortnightly wheelie bin collections and dont have any problems with it at all, must be in the minority. The dog gets most of the food leftovers, bread gets thrown out on the lawn for the birds or frozen and taken to the ducks. Fruit and veg scraps get thrown in the compost bin. The only "smelly" thing that stays in the wheelie bin is dogs mess in carrier bags. I've just got a dog loo from Freecycle so will see how that works out.

Altarf

The point of fortnightly collections is not to reduce the amount of waste collected but to increase it.

Don't be stupid I can hear you saying, why would they want to increase the amount of household waste collected. The answer is local authorities are given targets of a percentage of household waste to recycle, but this is based on weight. The fortnightly collection of household waste is introduced so that they can collect green garden waste on the alternate week without increasing costs. Garden waste is great because it is heavy and recyclable and makes their figures look good.

According to figures published by my local authority they used to collect 2,000 tonnes of garden waste per annum, but they now collect 35,000 tonnes per annum. Surely sending lorries to collect an extra 33,000 tonnes of waste is a bad thing? They only used to recycle 65,000 tonnes of household waste per annum out of 325,000 tonnes, but by collecting an extra 33,000 tonnes they have increased their recycling rate from 20% to 28%, and still dump exactly the same amount of household waste in landfill as they did before.

Plus you now have a stinky bin in the summer.

Lies, damn lies and statistcs.

barnabee

We have fortnightly collection. Excellent idea by the council who are in league with the petrol companies. Now half of the people where I live drive an 8 mile round trip to the civic amenity rubbish site to take their excess rubbish.
The wheelie bins are examined by the 'sanitary technicians' and residents can be fined for puttting in rubbish that could be recycled. They will only take the wheelie bin if the lid will close and it must not be out on the street before 7am.
As the collection is now taking place during half the year I am hoping they will reduce the council tax accordingly. (And that's the bit I wake up).

johnjp

Vegetables - compost
Cooked food waste - Flush it down the toilet! Or use a wormery.
Bones - in the bin.
I`m vegetarian so not a problem.
I have three growing boys, we eat a good home cooked diet.
I only generate one carrier bag, sometimes less, each week, nearly all of it plastic wrapping.

Altarf

barnabee wrote:

As the collection is now taking place during half the year I am hoping they will reduce the council tax accordingly.

Wowee, £15 back per year*

*Figures from my local authority show that spending on waste disposal is less than 2% of the total annual spending, so at best you could hope for a 1% reduction on the bill.

A better question is what on earth do the do with the other 98%

Lillibet_2

There was an article about this on yesterdays breakfast news, interviewing 2 mums who were whinging about the smell from dirty nappies and the bin overflowing with them & there should be exceptions in the case of parents. I could only scream "use washables" at the tv screen:p

We should all have reduced rubbish becasue of recycling & composting opportunites etc now available, so we shouldn't have as much rubbish to warrent a collection every week. If we have overflowing bins at the end of a week then I'd wager that we aren't recycling enough or thinking about our waste. I'm sorry if this offends anyone but the bottom line is that we all need to take responsibilty for our actions and if our lifestyle results in lots of waste then we need to deal with the consquences. I know this is difficult, espeically in a consumer society where we are encouraged to throw away & replace & everything comes packaged to the nines, but I think we will slowy see a change in this as reduced waste colelction, and even charging per bin bag etc, takes grip over the next few years. If it means we have to take our bottles to a bottle bank ourselves rather than rely on teh council to do it for us, or drop off bags of compostable waste at local allotments then so be it. Surely the fact that this is getting us thinking about this is a good thing from a green point of view?! Our bins are moving to fortnightly collection & I welcome it.