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If you have not been forced to accept the ubiquitous ‘wheelie bin’ where you live – and I am aware of people that haven’t – then it is surely only a matter of time. We have had the ‘black’ bin (general household waste) for several years now but all changed about a year ago.
Due to EU regulations on how much a local authority is now allowed to put into landfill, our district council came up with a cunning plan. Instead of just the usual weekly collection of the ‘black’ bin, this would be changed to a fortnightly collection (fortnight = 2 weeks for our US friends) with the intervening week being a collection from our new ‘green’ bin (recyclable waste) and our ‘brown’ bin (garden waste for composting but, for some obscure reason, not vegetable food waste).
As a family of four with a weekly bulging black bin we sought advice from the council on how we would cope with it being collected only every two weeks as new rulings also state that any bin overflowing will not be taken. We were also rather concerned about a bin load of rotting and smelly items sitting in the hot sun of summer for two weeks outside of our house but they had no response to that.
The advice, of course, was to recycle more. An admirable aim of course. All plastics, paper, card and tins they said. ‘What about used dog food tins and the like?’ I asked. ‘Clean them out first’ they said. ‘So’, I said, ‘you want me to use more oil that heats my water so that I can wash out the dog food tins and flush the waste down the kitchen sink into the sewerage system’. ‘Yes’ they said, without blinking. Environmental Health, Anglian Water and Shell are going to love us, I thought.
‘Can’t we just have two black bins?’ we asked. ‘No’ they said, eyes lighting up ‘but we can give you two green bins!’. And now I know why. Household waste – i.e., the black bin – is handled by the local authority. Green waste is contracted out so the council don’t give a damn what I put in there as long as they don’t have to handle it. Basically the advice is to put as much in the green bin as we possibly can so that it is someone else’s problem.
Now for the good bit. If you ever wondered what happened to all the recyclable waste – along with the bottles from the bottle banks – EU Referendum reveals all. And as a bonus, you’ll learn why violence against dustman is becoming a favourite past-time of householders. It is, as so much handed down from the bloody EU, corrupt, outrageous, hugely expensive and a complete and utter waste of everyone’s time.
Andy…I’m surprised the answer didn’t come to you immediately. You just need to STOP CONSUMING. If you don’t use anything, then there are no by-products. This would, of course, adversely affect the economy…but for patriotic citizens, some sacrifices are of necessity required.
Actually Jansy, I can better that one and I have bought it up before on these pages. Packaging is the real culprit here. The real villain. Just take a look at all the items you buy and ask yourself if it is really necessary to envelope them in so many layers of non-degradable crap.
Hmmm….you might have a point there, Andy. Perhaps the way to go is to have large chippers at hand when you have the cashier ring up your purchases. She/he could remove the item from the packaging and insert the cardboard/polythene/paper into the chipper. The retailer could then sell the resulting mess as garden mulch in it’s very own garden section. The consumer would simply walk out of the store with arms full of unwrapped merchandise. (It would also save time when you arrive at home! Items could go onto shelves and into cupboards immediately, with no fuss or bother.) Excellent idea, mate!