Is recycling worthwhile?

[vinteuil]

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... bin there. Done that.

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[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... bin there. Done that.

Are sure, vinty? I mean ... have you wheelie bin?

[vinteuil]

Are sure, vinty? I mean ... have you wheelie bin?

... I was going to reply with a reference to the coloratura aria "Bidone, della spazzatura! ... ", but prefer to end with a note of how much more elegant the French term is. What more beautiful word is there - 'poubelle' ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eug%C3%A8ne_Poubelle

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[Lat-Literal]

... I was going to reply with a reference to the coloratura aria "Bidone, della spazzatura! ... ", but prefer to end with a note of how much more elegant the French term is. What more beautiful word is there - 'poubelle' ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eug%C3%A8ne_Poubelle

.

Just as poubelle as a noun had been established, and was first recognized by a supplement of the Grand Dictionnaire Universel du 19ème Siècle in 1890, the first wheelie was done in 1890 by trick bicyclist Daniel J Canary. Wheelie bin or wheely bin, being a faddish sort of object, has a much more recent derivation and is not generally associated with someone riding along with a view to hurling himself over several buses, a couple of trucks and ultimately Bernard Weatherill House. By odd coincidence, Daniel J Canary is also the name of a modern author responsible for the book "Interpersonal Communication ; A Goals Based Approach". It is not believed that a copy is kept at the latter location or that it has ever had a library.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0EBIZahkig

(To say "Weatherill" aloud is to sound simultaneously posh and cockney, dontcha think?)

[teamsaint]

Trying to get rid of an old sofa for my son. He has a mate with a van, but you cant take stuff to the tip in a van without a permit..... loads of regulations....so last resort will be to get the council to collect. And they have doubled the charge to £23.

No wonder there is so much fly tipping.

[Constantbee]

Trying to get rid of an old sofa for my son. He has a mate with a van, but you cant take stuff to the tip in a van without a permit..... loads of regulations....so last resort will be to get the council to collect. And they have doubled the charge to £23.

No wonder there is so much fly tipping.

COMPLAIN As close to local election time as possible, otherwise they don't take any notice.

[Dave2002]

What area are you in? Nowadays in some areas they check to see your passport when going to the dump (only slight exaggeration) to make sure you are not from another area trying to sneak stuff in.

If you have a few stones or bricks you want to get rid of, it'll be classed as rubble, and charged per bag - though the size of the bag is sometimes open to query. I think most people will simply stick them in the bottom of a bin bag, with other rubbish, and stick the whole lot in a wheelie bin.

You can buy a large sheet of plasterboard at B&Q for under a tenner. If you then take it immediately to the dump, it may cost more than that to dispose of it. I can understand the logic if the plasterboard is old, and perhaps might contain some asbestos or other harmful substance, but I believe that new plasterboard is pretty much harmless. Again, people are going to either (a) Fly tip - REALLY BAD or (b) break it up and drip feed it into the regular waste disposal.

How old is the sofa? Is it really old and tatty, or could it be used? If the former, then pay the council, otherwise advertise on either Freecycle or Gumtree. We have had good things from Freecycle, though one good item we had was an exercise bike which we eventually decided to get rid of. We advertised it on Freecycle - no interest at all. Then we put it up on Gumtree - and sold it easily. We didn't intend to exploit the free service, but it happened that way.

PS: You're probably in a genteel area, but in some parts if you stick the sofa in your drive, someone will steal it within a few hours!

[teamsaint]

Dave, not sure how old the sofa is, or if it has the fire label.
There are options, but with kids moving flat , these things are always time pressured.
I may still find a charity option.

Re people going to tips in other areas, we live on the Wilts side of the wilts Hants border. We use Romsey( Hants) tip because it is the most convenient, ( and less fuel used so greener) and dont feel guilty as we do most of our shopping in Romsey or Hants generally. Theoretically Wilts check your residence, but at the moment dont seem to enforce.Hampshire dont currently check residence AFAIK.

[Dave2002]

In Surrey and some parts of outer London it seems like the Spanish Inquisition getting into the dumps!

I agree about time pressures, and also sofas are a bit large to be messing with. We've shifted several in the last year.

[Serial_Apologist]

In Surrey and some parts of outer London it seems like the Spanish Inquisition getting into the dumps!

It sure is! At the nearest recycling centre, two of us were prevented from dumping some items because my friend had transported them there in his van. Apparently vans are invariably classed as commercial vehicles - one wonders where commercial vehicles are supposed to get rid of unrecyclables. And as others have said, no wonder there's so much flytipping. A programme item on the latter showed that the cost of policing or re-disposing to local authorities (viz the council taxpayer) amounted to far more than were the council to pick up for free, as used to happen.

My driver friend insisted he was disposing of said items for a friend (me). This cut no ice, so we literally drove around the corner, out of sight, and carried the stuff item by item into the precinct, without being stopped or even being given dirty looks. It all reminded me of the Not The Nine O'Clock News sketch of the man waiting in a long queue in the post office, and when his turn comes is told he is in the wrong queue, namely the non-existent one at the adjacent counter, and when he moves there, the same staff member serves him!

[oddoneout]

My local council introduced charging last year. They reckon it will save them about £277,000 pa. and needless to say questions have been asked about increased flytipping and how much that would cost. From what I can see more on my limited travels rubbish is being dumped where it shouldn't but, and here's the rub(or crafty bit on the part of the council depending on cynicism levels) it's on private land and so doesn't cost the council. In a large rural county such as mine finding a field off a quiet lane is quick and easy. Unscrupulous persons who might have previously disposed of their trade waste by using private cars and the domestic tip will doubtless increasingly use this option rather than 'pay to throw', thus adding to an existing problem.
Some people are going down the dismantle and put in the wheelie bin route - legitimate but unsightly, especially on streets of terrace houses where there is only a tiny strip between the house and the pavement. My local council has always charged for collection of bulky waste - currently £30 for up to 3 items from one household - too bad if you only have one item as happened to me when I last moved and a dead washing machine was just that bit too big to fit in my car(and I didn't have anyone to help get it in anyway). It was left out on the front path by the bins while I tried to find a solution, from where it disappeared - not my intention, but I wasn't going to try and find it! I don't know whether the situation has changed now but when my daughter was living in a neighbouring, different, council area(same county) about 15 miles away she was able to have things collected for free.

[Dave2002]

My local council has always charged for collection of bulky waste - currently £30 for up to 3 items from one household - too bad if you only have one item as happened to me when I last moved and a dead washing machine was just that bit too big to fit in my car(and I didn't have anyone to help get it in anyway). It was left out on the front path by the bins while I tried to find a solution, from where it disappeared - not my intention, but I wasn't going to try and find it!

Let’s hope the washing machine didn’t have your name on it. Now the rules are that if something identifiable as yours turns up after having been fly tipped that you are liable. Some unscrupulous but “helpful” people will take your rubbish away for a small fee - “I’ll get rid of that for you, guv. A tenner, OK?” - and then drive a mile or so away and fly tip on your behalf. I believe that for most councils that the cost of dealing with just one small incident of fly tipping is £200 - presumably more for bigger problems. Surrey tried to close several dumps, which it said would save a £million or more, but the fly tipping bill is very close to that, and in the opinion of some the savings would have been marginal or non existent as fly tipping would increase if the dumps were closed.

[gradus]

Let’s hope the washing machine didn’t have your name on it. Now the rules are that if something identifiable as yours turns up after having been fly tipped that you are liable. Some unscrupulous but “helpful” people will take your rubbish away for a small fee - “I’ll get rid of that for you, guv. A tenner, OK?” - and then drive a mile or so away and fly tip on your behalf. I believe that for most councils that the cost of dealing with just one small incident of fly tipping is £200 - presumably more for bigger problems. Surrey tried to close several dumps, which it said would save a £million or more, but the fly tipping bill is very close to that, and in the opinion of some the savings would have been marginal or non existent as fly tipping would increase if the dumps were closed.

Home composting deals with all kitchen food waste, so definitely worthwhile. Our local council operates a 3 bin system and what can't be salvaged mostly gets burnt in a huge recently built incinerator that provides electricity for 30k homes plus I think heat for a super-large - eventually 17 hectare - greenhouse dedicated to growing toms.

[oddoneout]

Let’s hope the washing machine didn’t have your name on it. Now the rules are that if something identifiable as yours turns up after having been fly tipped that you are liable. Some unscrupulous but “helpful” people will take your rubbish away for a small fee - “I’ll get rid of that for you, guv. A tenner, OK?” - and then drive a mile or so away and fly tip on your behalf. I believe that for most councils that the cost of dealing with just one small incident of fly tipping is £200 - presumably more for bigger problems. Surrey tried to close several dumps, which it said would save a £million or more, but the fly tipping bill is very close to that, and in the opinion of some the savings would have been marginal or non existent as fly tipping would increase if the dumps were closed.

I know about the problem of the 'fix it for a tenner', and would never enter into any such arrangement. Scrap metal merchants had been in the area, including a registered and longstanding trader who had put a card through the door a couple of weeks previously, and that was a solution I was considering. It could have been a dodgy scrap dealer(prices were good at the time), or even someone hoping it was a functioning but unwanted machine.
Yes, the question of how much an authority actually saves once the flytipping/charging balance sheet is calculated is a knotty one. The basic cost rockets once hazardous substances(asbestos, chemicals) are involved. From what I can remember of my council's defence of the introduction of charging, free disposal of DIY waste has always been at the discretion of individual authorities, and many(most/) have not charged in the past, but as cuts to LA budgets cut even deeper and landfill costs increase this has had to change.

[oddoneout]

Home composting deals with all kitchen food waste, so definitely worthwhile. Our local council operates a 3 bin system and what can't be salvaged mostly gets burnt in a huge recently built incinerator that provides electricity for 30k homes plus I think heat for a super-large - eventually 17 hectare - greenhouse dedicated to growing toms.

Not quite, unless you have one of the specialised bins. Cooked food and things containing meat, fish, cheese and egg shouldn't be put on an ordinary compost heap. Even if they don't attract vermin(zero chance of avoiding that frankly), the decomposition of such items isn't pleasant.