recycling (kerbside waste collection)

[fionajohn]

i am a bit concerned about the recycling project ....if i make a mistake in putting things in the wrong bin am i going to be FINED  for a simple mistake ...i am 77 years young and i have senior moments ...also will the bruck wagon come down my croft road to collect my bins ?  i am not able to drag them up the steep hill ...the S I C  and their blinkered wisdom has not thought the rural senario in the isles 

 

[Ghostrider]

I'm a bit concerned that the recycling project hasn't been shown to be environmentaly friendly, I'm also concerned that *if* it lives up to expectations the District Heating scheme is going to have to source alternative fuel for perhaps as much as, if not more than 50% of its energy output. I'm also concerned about where, and when all this plastic and paper that's being collected to 'recycle' is going to go someplace, I'm also concerned where and how its going to be stored until that time comes, if it ever comes.

 

Word from the curtain twitchers is that no 'buyer' has yet been signed up for either of them, but that may be nothing but uninformed malicious troublemaking...... However, there does not seem to be any record of planning permission being sought for this £750,000 "Sorting Shed" that was proposed and approved 11 months ago.....nor does anyone seem to be aware of any construction project ongoing which could be it, nor does anybody seem aware of any site having been earmarked.....I guess its all well disguised, as befits good environmental pracice of making erections best blend in to their backgrounds.....

 

The plans for collecting the 'recycling' is more about ticking boxes than practicalities, it'll work reasonably well in most of the town, it'll probably even work not too badly in some rural locations, especially the somewhat more built up ones, but beyond that, meh....

 

They're not interested in site specific issues, its 'here's your bins, now its your problem' when its something unique to one site..... Its all about sweeping generalisations and being able to say 'done it' to Holyrood, same as everything else the SIC senior hired help stick their noses in to.....

 

The 'fining; is just hot air and a poor attempt at scare tactics, the essy kert crews are already on a stop watch timed schedule, they don't have time to pick through back copies of the Times and Christian Herald looking to see if there's a crisp packet between pages 24 and 25 of one of them, or for that matter hock among fortnight old tautie peelins and shiken banes in a general waste bin looking for a plastic bottle cork.

Edited June 9, 2018 by Ghostrider

[Lerwick antiques]

I think most houses will just be putting all waste in the black bag regardless of what it's made out of.

 

The best recycling was the local auction which the council refused to help in recent years.

 

There are some pile of stuff going in skips and to the dump now, including valuable museum pieces, perfectly good furniture, working white goods etc due to no local auction.

 

Now, that is waste.

[Ghostrider]

^ Couldn't agree more. Between stopping the rural skips and effectively closing down the saleroom a great deal of recycling, or 'reusing', to keep the pedants happy, has been denied folk.

 

Much that was dumped in local skips was taken out again and reused by others, and much more could have been had they been managed a bit better, given what was 'lost' due to either damage when it was thrown in, or simply being buried beyond reach by the immense voulme that got thrown in in a very short time, as people rushed to get rid of theirs before the thing was full to overflowing, which often was within a few hours in some locations.

 

The saleroom was excellent, folk got rid of whatever virtually immediately, and if it sold in time they got something for it, and if it didn't after multiple tries, the saleroom disposed of it to the dump for them (or at least they did when I knew the place). There was always something of an attitude of disapproval and embarrassment and a looking down noses about the saleroom, from some folk, and especially the Council machine, so the fact it was allowed if not encouraged to vanish, comes as no surprise.

 

Neither rural skips nor saleroom ticked any of Holyrood's 'recycling' boxes and helped make their figures prettier, so for that reason alone they were/are irrelevant to the Council, and no amount of anything that could or can be said or shown to them proving differently on the ground will ever get them to open their eyes, take their fingers out of their ears, and stop chanting 'la, la, la, I can't hear you......'

[mikeyboy]

I think most houses will just be putting all waste in the black bag regardless of what it's made out of.

 

The best recycling was the local auction which the council refused to help in recent years.

 

There are some pile of stuff going in skips and to the dump now, including valuable museum pieces, perfectly good furniture, working white goods etc due to no local auction.

 

Now, that is waste.

 

Really how many Jam jars and plastic bottles did you see at the auction?

[mikeyboy]

i am a bit concerned about the recycling project ....if i make a mistake in putting things in the wrong bin am i going to be FINED  for a simple mistake ...i am 77 years young and i have senior moments ...also will the bruck wagon come down my croft road to collect my bins ?  i am not able to drag them up the steep hill ...the S I C  and their blinkered wisdom has not thought the rural senario in the isles 

 

 

Where does the cart pick your bins up from at the moment?

[Nigel Bridgman-Elliot]

When I lived in London it started off simple enough with a little list of what you could or could not put in your bins.

Then the list grew to 4 pages of A4..

Then they scrapped the list and would just decide on a whim if they thought your bin might contain something it shouldn't, and it was up to you to dispose of the rubbish yourself !

 

This was not easy if you didn't have a car, as the local tip wouldn't take foot traffic, or bicycles, or even cars with trailers, and if you did make it inside, you needed your passport and driving license to prove you was a resident, and then your load got weighed, as there was a limit on how much stuff you could throw away each year..

Extra rubbish inspectors was employed to check bins early in the morning, and to take random bins away for more thorough investigations..

That was one of the reasons I moved here, to find a sane place in the country where life wasn't overly complicated !

As the council signed up to this greater recycling effort, could not a newly elected council un-sign from it ?
 

[Ghostrider]

 

I think most houses will just be putting all waste in the black bag regardless of what it's made out of.

 

The best recycling was the local auction which the council refused to help in recent years.

 

There are some pile of stuff going in skips and to the dump now, including valuable museum pieces, perfectly good furniture, working white goods etc due to no local auction.

 

Now, that is waste.

 

Really how many Jam jars and plastic bottles did you see at the auction?

 

 

Probably a similar number to the scrap cars you've seen being put in the essy kert.

 

You're either not getting the point, or purposely ignoring it.

 

Rural skips and the saleroom played their part in the reuse/recycling of materials, the council pulled the plug on one and refused to consider any help or assistance to the other, which has inevitably led to an increase in those materials being left strewn around the countryside and/or going straight to landfill. So it comes across as quite hypocritical and taking the pith of them to come the hard sell with all the bull about how their new "recycling" scheme is is 'brilliant; 'vital' et al, when it all comes down to the same materials in the end - Glass is glass whether its a wine bottle or a CRT, plastic is plastic whether its a margerine tub or washing machine components.....

 

It especially rankles when the new all singing all dancing (allegedly) "recycling" scheme is considerably more complex for all concerned and by all appearances far less environmentally friendly than the arrangement it replaces.

 

We've had for getting on for twenty years a waste disposal system which reused the vast majority of it for other productive purposes, and we could have reused more had what's gone straight to landfill been more thoroughly sorted - remember the other year there was and probably still is enough organic material in our landfill that could generate enough heat to spontaneous combust and having done so, there was enough combustible material to sustain a fire - all of that was potentially reusable for productive purposes within the incinerator.

 

We here in Shetland are being forced to rob Peter to pay Paul, and not even pay Paul everything that's robbed off Peter, for a lot will be lost in the journey between Peter and Paul, and create more environmental damage than our present arrangement does, for no other apparent reason than to give Holyrood political sound bite points through arbitarily defined terminology. For if you cut through all the sensationalism, hyperbole and other emotive wailing and gnashing of teeth from the politically motivated, define everything as what it is in its basest form and crunch the actual numbers, not one damn thing the Council have done or are doing concerning reuse/recycling adds up to a positive.

[mikeyboy]

The OP was asking about kerbside waste collection. Not skips or an auction house.

Now do you get the point?

[Ghostrider]

^ Kerbside waste collection is not a stand alone subject that can be addressed in isolation unless in a few minor specifics, its only one small component and inextricably part of the whole waste disposal system.

 

Material that previously found its way in to skips, the saleroom etc still needs to go someplace, and that someplace for a lot of it is now the kerbside collection of other domestic waste.

 

The volume and material content of kerbside waste, which has been affected by the failure of the Council to support initiatives such as the skips and saleroom, dictates what methods and policies they employ for waste disposal. So how we are told we are supposed to present our waste before the Council will accept it, is directly related to our choices, or lack of them, of places to dispose of items/materials we no longer need/want.

 

Regardless of anything else, what goes in the essy kert and how is also dictated by the design of the essy kert itself, the job description(s) of its crew, and what facilities/plans exist for the waste that comes out of it again at the end of each day.

[audi-ya-do]

I have always believed in recycling. Growing up, in the Midlands, most people were into the oldest form of recycling- scrap metal. There was also the bottle deposits, take a pop bottle back and you got 10p. I remember me and my mates going along the canals and parks etc picking up empty pop bottles to get the deposits on them. The point being we were rewarded for recycling not punished for not recycling.

A lot of the environmentalist attitude is just smug people wanting to feel like they are doing something to save the planet. Years ago there was a program on channel 4 or 5 about this whole issue. They took 3 families from three tiers of society Working class, middle class and upper class. Then looked at their lifestyles and worked out how ecological they were. The surprise was that the working class family were the most eco friendly, even though they didn't recycle or take part in any overt eco activities. However they had a cheap car with a smaller engine, kept it longer (82% of pollution from any car over a 20 year average lifespan is in it's manufacture!) and worked closer to home. Mainly stayed in the UK for holidays etc, etc. The worst was the middle class family who jetted off on holiday 3 times a year, owned two huge cars (any typically commuted further to work than the low class'). However they recycled everything but again often travelled miles in a big car to recycle just a small amount of stuff.

My point is storing paper and card releases methane (which is a lot worse than CO2 for the atmosphere) Then they plan to put  it onto boats south, these use huge amounts of fuel just to go to Aberdeen. Transport off the other end. Even then it takes energy to recycle the product at the end of it's journey. How can this all be more ecologically friendly than disposing of it here at the incinerator? 

If we want to recycle we need to follow the German examples, make all plastic bottles and packaging recyclable and put deposits on them so people get something back when returning them. Same with glass (Most bottles in Germany go back to the companies that supplied them to be inspected washed and refilled, if damaged to be recycled) 

Last point when we say "Saving the planet" we mean saving ourselves! Even if nuclear Armageddon happened today and killed every living thing on Earth- the Planet will Still revolve around the sun, the Solar system will still swirl in the Milky way. The Universe couldn't care less if there is life here or not.  

[mikeyboy]

^ Kerbside waste collection is not a stand alone subject that can be addressed in isolation unless in a few minor specifics, its only one small component and inextricably part of the whole waste disposal system.

 

Material that previously found its way in to skips, the saleroom etc still needs to go someplace, and that someplace for a lot of it is now the kerbside collection of other domestic waste.

 

The volume and material content of kerbside waste, which has been affected by the failure of the Council to support initiatives such as the skips and saleroom, dictates what methods and policies they employ for waste disposal. So how we are told we are supposed to present our waste before the Council will accept it, is directly related to our choices, or lack of them, of places to dispose of items/materials we no longer need/want.

 

Regardless of anything else, what goes in the essy kert and how is also dictated by the design of the essy kert itself, the job description(s) of its crew, and what facilities/plans exist for the waste that comes out of it again at the end of each day.

 

 

You have already made these points on two other threads and have made very little effort to answer the OP questions.

Also the idea that most/best recycling was done through a auction room is laughable. Have you got any figures to back that up?

There are other options available for recycling decent goods. This place for one, Cope and the various Facebook Shetland classified pages.

[mikeyboy]

i am a bit concerned about the recycling project ....if i make a mistake in putting things in the wrong bin am i going to be FINED  for a simple mistake ...i am 77 years young and i have senior moments ...also will the bruck wagon come down my croft road to collect my bins ?  i am not able to drag them up the steep hill ...the S I C  and their blinkered wisdom has not thought the rural senario in the isles 

Fionajohn

 

Have a look at this link and if you have any questions there is a phone no and Email address for enquiries.

 

http://www.shetland.gov.uk/rubbish-recycling/recycling-faq.asp

[Suffererof1crankymofo]

 

 

You have already made these points on two other threads and have made very little effort to answer the OP questions.

Also the idea that most/best recycling was done through a auction room is laughable. Have you got any figures to back that up?

There are other options available for recycling decent goods. This place for one, Cope and the various Facebook Shetland classified pages.

 

Oooh, an armchair mod! 

 

Cope are getting fussier by the minute.  Their Facebook page is nothing like as good as it previously was, and even then they seldom kept it up-to-date with answering people's queries.  Last I heard, they were charging for collecting some donated furniture.

 

Are you seriously suggesting that a reduction in the choices available to folk; for example, the community skips, the auction room, Cope charging for collecting donations, is a good thing?

[Suffererof1crankymofo]

Yep, you can be fined.  Phoning them doesn't help a great deal; I've had different answers but their 'favourite' appears to be that they are still to visit certain areas and ascertain what problems are to be addressed, or words to that effect.  However, I was told if folk don't recycle, they might be fined up to £1,000 yet the legislation I managed to find referred to £100.