Recycling. A good thing, but is this a step too far?

[Admiral Huddy]

What really annoyed me recently is that the guys who collect the recycle stuff go through and remove anything that shouldn't be there. Some times it's just a mistake but there's no need to just dump it on my drive. Like for example, in the tins they don't like tin can lids.. so they tip them out on my drive.. Same for plastic bottle lids.. Leaving tin can tops on the floor can be quite hazardous.. I should mention it to the council really.

They are either doing this or not..

[leowyatt]

I really don't understand why they wouldn't take the lids, they need to recycle them after all

[Admiral Huddy]

Apparently not

[Will]

As far as I'm concerned at the moment recycling hardly helps other than create jobs, cause more problems and if anything more pollution. A lot of reports state that only a small percentage is actually being recycled and an even smaller amount of waste is being pro-actively filtered for the good of the environment. At the moment as it stands, the richest countries in Europe do a lot of recycling - however the irony is that we create the smallest amount of pollution (for developed countries), compared to Asia (China in particular), and America for 2 main examples, though Africa and Middle Asia are big contributors.

Greenhouse gasses are to an extent natural anyway, I think it's just a cycle, yes we're probably not helping, but I don't think it's all doom and gloom as they say.

Until recycling processing is more efficient, and proper and effective renewable energy sources are used, or even nuclear power is used more efficiently there's pretty much sod all reasons in going bonkers on recycling. Other than paper, glass and tin cans, (of which only a proportion is recycled) the rest is merely procedural rather than anything else. It also gives people that feeling that they're doing something for the greater good - they're sheep and absorbed into the propaganda. Furthermore it gives the government/councils the opportunity to make some money.

Call me cynical if you want, but I've seen land fill sites and recycling centres - the proportion of the latter is slim and the proportion of recyclable materials supposedly filtered that end up in usual land fills is still so significant you can hardly tell the difference. I'm all for recycling and it's great - but until it's done properly in all countries there's very little need to make such a huge fuss over it.

[Jonny69]

They should burn all our waste and use it for heat recovery rather than sticking in a hole in the ground and allowing it to naturally turn in to methane and CO2. The amount of stuff I see in skips that is destined for landfill that could be fuelling someone's heating.

[Muban]

Also saw on the news about them wanting to chip your bin and then charge you for how much rubbish you dispose of. How exactly are they going to make this fair?

Today for example, I went out to my bin (around the back of the flats in the car park) only to find somone has put one full binbag and one full carrier bag into my bin. Also there is often other peoples rubbish in my bin as I live on the High Street and when I put my bin out all sorts of people use it (despite there being a proper bin less than 10ft away that gets emptied by the council daily). I leave for work at 7.15 and get home at 16:30 so there isn't much choice about when I put my bin out for collection either.

So between having my bin used as a communal bin by the public and my neighbours using it because theirs is full (and mine is never even close to being full). How are the goverment going to ensure that I am not unfairly taxed? Well of course the answer is they won't becuse they don't give a ****

[Treefrog]

Originally Posted by Muban

Also saw on the news about them wanting to chip your bin and then charge you for how much rubbish you dispose of. How exactly are they going to make this fair?

Today for example, I went out to my bin (around the back of the flats in the car park) only to find somone has put one full binbag and one full carrier bag into my bin. Also there is often other peoples rubbish in my bin as I live on the High Street and when I put my bin out all sorts of people use it (despite there being a proper bin less than 10ft away that gets emptied by the council daily). I leave for work at 7.15 and get home at 16:30 so there isn't much choice about when I put my bin out for collection either.

So between having my bin used as a communal bin by the public and my neighbours using it because theirs is full (and mine is never even close to being full). How are the goverment going to ensure that I am not unfairly taxed? Well of course the answer is they won't becuse they don't give a ****

And I'll bet that the proportion of the council tax which pays for the collection won't change either, so you'll get charged twice for rubbish removal. and I'll also bet that single person households won't get a rebate for putting out less either.
Like you say, it will go on the weight of rubbish in there, not on whose rubbish it is.

Of course, if you disagree with the idea of chipping bins (will it unlock more power at higher revs, or enable your 'lost' bin to be reunited with you I wonder?) you can just kill the chip using a piezoelectric lighter. Not that I'd advocate such a naughty idea of course.