The Cleaner

"At your local depot" I found out can actually mean your parcel is at the last stop on the mainland before the local sub contractor gets a hold of it. At least that has been my experience with Hermes. It would explain (to a degree) the delivery date given. Sorry, don't know who deals with Yodel.

In answer to a question Mikeyboy in your post on the 13th of June, the uptake of people selling on Facebook & the like had absolutely nothing to do with the closure of the auction room. It was purely because of the lack of premises. The last place used, the old Central school gym hall was only rented on a temporary basis as it was already earmarked for development by Hjaltland. They were basically forced out of the previous premises where the auction had been held for many years (20+). I cannot remember the ins & outs of that situation. I was told all this by the owner of the auction himself who also told me that he contacted every councillor about the impending lack of premises & was scunnered that only two of them got back to him (after sometime).While I appreciate it was a privately owned business it did provide a very useful public service that can't be totally replicated by the other methods of "disposing" of unwanted/unneeded goods for the reasons I've already mentioned in my previous post. As you may remember prior to the internets existance just about the whole of a page of the Shetland Times was full of for sales ads every week & the auctions were more frequent then than they generally were in latter years. Nowadays we have (again in general) become a more than ever before, consumerist society so we need as many outlets as possible for all types of wares to be reused.

 

^ 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.

These other possibilities for disposing of still usable goods are indeed useful options but have certain limitations that the auction didn't. For instance COPE refuse far more items now than they used to as they do very little, if any refurbishment on furniture due to changes in the way they are run. I know this from trying to donate an item within the last few years that needed a very small amount of fixing (I'm afraid I'm not at all handy) but it was refused on that basis. I have heard from others since that they have had the same issue. As I worked there several years ago before the operational changes & part of my job was to organise what was collected, I can say for sure that very few items used to be refused then. Not everyone uses the internet in their home as yet & maybe for various reasons people do not want or feel able to get involved in the direct selling that it would entail anyway. Sometimes a whole house clearance needs to be done quickly, possibly because of a death for instance & this is where having an auction room was particularly useful. Without one now inevitably a lot of items that wouldn't have before, will go straight to the dump because of time constraints & COPE has not got room enough to take a complete household of stuff at short notice. I used the auction & have always & still use the charity shops regularly. They are (& were) a blessing to people on lower incomes. They are also recycling at it's very best as the smallest to the largest items are getting reused with minimal carbon footprint. Please do not make the assumption (this is directed at everybody & anybody) that if a person is having difficulties with the way this recycling is apparently to be run that the said person must be the problem. I'm sure most of us are in favour of a workable scheme that is not actually creating more environmental issues, we just don't necessarily think this one is it. It is sad & very hypocritical of the council to not have supported a local business (as was the auction)that was helping significantly in the war against waste & pollution & then to put in place this scheme with so many problems that could have & should have been forseen. If the lay out of where you live is suitable & sheltered enough for whichever type of bins you have been provided with then I really am genuinely pleased for you but this is not the case for many of us.

I don't get the mentality of people who deliberately drop litter either but I think it all has to start at home. I was brought up with a very strict view on the subject from both of my parents & it was explained to me from a young age why it mattered. We were told "bring your rubbish home in your pockets & if you don't have any (pockets)then you've got two hands, use them!" Adults have bigger pockets, a bag or a car usually when they are out & about so even less excuse. The idea of making use of people on community service may pay some dividends in the short term but for our size of population there are probably not enough to do more than scratch the tip of the ice berg & you will always get some people who think that because somebody is available to clean up that it gives them an excuse to justify their littering. It's this attitude that needs to be changed. If you have any young people in your life that you have any influence with, be it relatives, friends etc. then speak to them about it & for that matter also adult children &/or grandchildren etc. A lot of this littering is clearly being done by adults as well. Don't assume that everybody knows or has been told why they shouldn't drop litter because clearly the message hasn't got through to all. Human influence is much stronger than any "dunna chuck bruck" poster. It will only be seen as uncool when society as a whole or at least a vocal majority of it makes that view well known.

It may well be that some people are addicted to alcohol purely on a physical basis, I don't claim to know any facts on this. However from my own life experience,every addict or at least frequent heavy user of alcohol or certain drugs that I have known has used these to excess because they feel need of an escape from issues in their life that they are not coping with. Ofcourse the alcohol doesn't fix their problems but neither will limiting access to it which only treats the symptom temporarily. It's the wrong cure, it is not addressing the cause.