Saturday 24 April 2010

I Just Had Another One Of Those, 'Is It April Fools Day?' Moments,

when I read that through out the UK every household will have to use 9 different bins for rubbish collection, well it was not that, it was when I got to the bit in the article that said, a recycling officer demonstrates how to put a tenth container - a biodegradable liner - into the slop bucket in the councils on line film of how to separate your rubbish that I thought it was April 1st again! in what must be the understatement of the year, officials in Newcastle-under-Lyme in North Staffordshire anticipated trouble when they introduced the nine-bin system last month, just so all home owners in the UK know what is coming, the containers include a silver slop bucket for food waste, which is then tipped in to a larger, green outdoor food bin, a pink bag for plastic bottles, a green bag for cardboard, and a white bag for clothing and textiles, paper and magazines go in blue bags, garden waste in a wheelie bin with a brown lid, while glass, foil, tins and empty aerosols should go in a blue box, with a grey wheelie bin for non-recyclable waste, I hope you got all of that, make a mistake and you will be sorry, compulsory recycling is commonly enforced by bin police who can impose £100 on-the-spot fines for breaches like overfilled wheelie bins, extra rubbish left out, or bins put out at the wrong time, if people do not pay the fines, they can be taken to court, where they face increased penalties of £1,000 and criminal records, a couple of thoughts occurred to me, in Europe do all households have to put up with this madness, or is it just in the UK? also in a high rise block of 40 or so flats or apartments does each flat have too have 9 bins, if they are communal and one of the bins is contaminated is the fine levied on all of the dwellings? finally how can it be more environmentally friendly to send round 3 or 4 different lorries a week to collect the separated waste on different days? just thinking out loud, oh well off to empty my rubbish, no need to sort it, all in the same bin 40 baht a month (about 85 pence in the UK), 3 collections a week.

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