discussion Household rubbish!

[Peter Gillson]

Nothing to do with modelling, I was just wondering if we in Guernsey have the most complicated system for getting rid of our household waste.

Based around maximising recycling the curbside collection system is a two week cycle:

Week 1 collections:

Sunday : paper and cardboard
Wednesday. : food waste and glass bottles and jars

Week 2 collections:

sunday. ; plastic and tins
Wednesday. : food waste and general 'black bag' waste

We pay for this in two ways, about £160 per year on our property rates and having to put a pre-paid sticker on each bag of general 'black bag' waste which each cost £2.50. Any black bags without stickers are left, uncollected and the person responsible is liable to a heavy fine.

Peter

 

[Jim R]

Hi Peter
I'm sure they mean well but most average 10 year olds could have come up with a more practical system.
Jim

 

[Peter Gillson]

jim

Not sure about a ten year old, but it did take ten years to develop and agree this solution to our waste problem.

Peter

 

[BattleshipBob]

It seems every council has a totally different idea, my father in law lives 20 mls away and a different authority but totally different bins, bags etc and he is on the third version!

 

[Peter Gillson]

I was told that central government is looking at standardising what all of the UK councils are doing - 'i hope they don't look to us as inspiration!

 

[BattleshipBob]

My cat has better ideas! Same bins across the UK would a fortune buts what the chance of that happening lol

 

[Guest]

Peter.
Does seem a bit OTT, but that's councils for you, probably took outsourced consultants plus several steering committees, and half a dozen other meetings to proceed.
Glad we live in Lincolnshire, 3 bins, one for landfill, one for recycling, and a paid for garden bin. On a rotating bi weekly system.
land fill and recycling both have the new food waste bin at each collection.
Mind you no one seems to be able to understand the collection time table, seems it was written by a collective of coloured blind members.
John.

 

[Guest]

Are alcoholic beverage containers handled separately as well?

 

[Adrian "Marvel" Reynolds]

Wolverhampton council paid someone £250,000 to look into how they could save money!?!?!?

 

[Guest]

landfill

I was amazed to discover last year that in the UK, a third of household waste is just buried … Here in the Netherlands it’s 1%!

As for bins, we’ve just got two where I live: one for vegetables, fruit, and garden waste, and one for everything else (except for what’s collected separately for recycling, this latter including glass, plastic, paper, etc.). The schedule is that one week you put the green bin out, and the next week week, the grey one.

 

[Guest]

I was amazed to discover last year that in the UK, a third of household waste is just buried … Here in the Netherlands it’s 1%!

As for bins, we’ve just got two where I live: one for vegetables, fruit, and garden waste, and one for everything else (except for what’s collected separately for recycling, this latter including glass, plastic, paper, etc.). The schedule is that one week you put the green bin out, and the next week week, the grey one.

Unfortunately Jakko the government have not been hard enough and the super markets have been supplying items in film that is not recycled. Why on earth do they shrink wrap for example cucumbers, and appes in packs of 4. Is this allowed in the Netherlands ?

Only recently Walkers crisps were forced to find a recycling company to take their crisp pkts. ( There are other makes available ) People had been sending the empty packets back in the post, the Post Office got fed up with letter boxed full of pkts and asked Walkers to do something about it. They now have collectors you can take the used bags to, they send them off in bulk to the recycling company.
John.

 

[Tim Marlow]

John mate, the shrink wrapping has two functions.....the first is obvious, it helps with handling and looks good on the shelf, the second is less obvious and a little darker.....it makes it more visible if the fruit, veg, whatever has been tampered with....goes back to a time when unscrupulous people were trying to blackmail supermarkets by adulterating food and drink. It has the same function as tamper proof lids and the click buttons on jars.

 

[Mickc1440]

Our latest update to recycling gave us a fourth wheelie bin and two calendars to work to for their collection.

 

[peterairfix]

My collections are easy where I live recycling every week and general rubbish every two simples.

 

[Guest]

John mate, the shrink wrapping has two functions.....the first is obvious, it helps with handling and looks good on the shelf, the second is less obvious and a little darker.....it makes it more visible if the fruit, veg, whatever has been tampered with....goes back to a time when unscrupulous people were trying to blackmail supermarkets by adulterating food and drink. It has the same function as tamper proof lids and the click buttons on jars.

Morning Tim, got it, certainly remember the guy who was putting something into jars being caught, and the resulting tamper proof lids.
John .

 

[Guest]

Unfortunately Jakko the government have not been hard enough and the super markets have been supplying items in film that is not recycled.

That’s why around here, there are bins for plastic used for packaging.

Why on earth do they shrink wrap for example cucumbers, and appes in packs of 4. Is this allowed in the Netherlands ?

Not sure, but I think so — however, manufacturers who use plastic packaging pay money for that plastic to be recycled (see above).

That, though, leads to the “problem” that people put all sorts of softish plastic into the recycling bins, not just packaging. The idea is that only plastic packaging material, like wrappers etc., go into that. However, pretty much nobody knows that’s the way it’s supposed to work, and even though I do know, frankly, I feel no qualms at all about having manufacturers pay for recycling of stuff they didn’t produce.

Only recently Walkers crisps were forced to find a recycling company to take their crisp pkts.

That kind of packaging isn’t recycled here. The plastic recycling programme does make clear that metallicised plastic, like crisp packets, shouldn’t go in with the rest exactly because of that metal coating. However, the vast majority of our non-recyclable waste is disposed of by burning in a power plant, so it’s not like millions of crip packets will be polluting the landscape for centuries to come.

 

[Peter Gillson]

Mass Burn incineration was twice rejected locally and 6 months of Public consultation resulted in a high recycling strategy.

Currently glass is either crushed and used locally as hard core (classed as recylcing) or sent to the UK for recycling. plastisc, paper and card are sent to the uk for recycling. Food waste is collected and shipped to the to be recycled as compost while general 'black bag' waste is shipped to the UK and the onto Sweden to be incinerated.

Strange how things change - a few years ago when we were considering an incinerator it would have generated some electricity as a by-produce and that was deemed to be unacceptable and not a form of recycling. Now if an incinerator has an ability to generate energy it can be described as an energy from waste plant and classed as recycling!

I mustadmit that although seperating waste into the different types at home is a pain, it does make you focus on the waste we generate. In our house it is mainly plastisc and paper.

Peter