Rubbish, or When Good Intentions Fail Miserably
[Guest post by DRJ]
Some British residents are plagued by onerous recycling rules designed to reduce community landfill taxes:
“Families are facing a nightmare future of recycling confusion. In a regime set to spread across the country, residents are being forced to juggle an astonishing nine separate bins.
There has already been a storm of protest with warnings that the scheme is too complex and homes simply don’t have the space to deal with the myriad bins, bags and boxes.”
“The containers include a silver slopbucket for food waste, which is then tipped in to a larger, green outdoor food bin, a pink bag for plastic bottles, a green bag for cardboard, and a white bag for clothing and textiles.
Paper and magazines go in blue bags, garden waste in a wheelie bin with a brown lid, while glass, foil, tins and empty aerosols should go in a blue box, with a grey wheelie bin for non-recyclable waste.”
The new rules and less frequent pickups have resulted in more expense, hassle, trash and pollution:
“It means only food waste is now taken each week. All other rubbish has to be stored for a fortnight before it is collected.
Mrs Butler said that whereas previously, only one wagon would collect their recycling, now up to three different lorries and crews do the job.
Samantha Dudley, 34, an office administrator from Newcastle, said recycling bags and their contents blowing in the street were a ‘constant problem’.
She said: ‘This scheme is supposed to increase recycling but the irony is it is creating more rubbish.
‘We are on high ground and although you can tie the plastic bags up, the ones full of plastic bottles simply blow away up the street – even when they are full – if they are not weighed down.’
***
A report for the Environment Department last week revealed that the burning of household rubbish by those trying to evade recycling rules has now become the greatest source of highly poisonous and cancer-causing dioxins in the environment.Binmen also frequently refuse to take rubbish containers they view as contaminated. Last week in Andover in Hampshire dustmen refused to take away a bin they said was contaminated with a handful of fruit pips.”
Britain has been reduced to bin bullies.
— DRJ
To lighten the mood, DRJ, have a look at this:
Penn and Teller take on recycling as only they can.
Eric Blair (0b61b2) — 4/24/2010 @ 2:29 pmThe embed didn’t work. This is the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SC3CZBDz7Wg
Amazing.
Eric Blair (0b61b2) — 4/24/2010 @ 2:30 pmOh, and strong language warning. It is Penn and Teller. This and the bottled water expose are among my favorites.
Eric Blair (0b61b2) — 4/24/2010 @ 2:32 pmHilarious link, Eric. The British program is obviously patterned on Penn & Teller.
DRJ (09fa6c) — 4/24/2010 @ 2:38 pmThe sad and noble part, DRJ, is how willing people are to pitch in for this kind of thing!
Eric Blair (0b61b2) — 4/24/2010 @ 2:40 pmI’ll have to skip the video (bandwidth? We don’t get any stinking bandwidth!), but the recycling program out here in Red County seems to work. They’ll take cardboard (corrugated only, please), plastics, cans and newspapers in the huge recycling dumpster while glass and electronics goes in another area. Waste oil gets in a special tank.
Garbage and trash goes for a cost by the yard (or $6 for 3 barrels). Recycling is covered in the county taxes. The savings for the recycling makes for good participation. Not bad for us rednecks… 🙂
Red County Pete (ac1594) — 4/24/2010 @ 3:28 pmGreetings:
One garbage pickup morning, I came out of my house and put some stuff in one of the recycling bins (one of three) just as the recycling truck was arriving. The pickup guy called out to me that I put the stuff in the wrong bin, to which I replied, “Which one of us is in the garbage business? If you don’t want it, just put it in the real garbage.”
11B40 (1c0dd4) — 4/24/2010 @ 4:06 pmThe scheme is more expensive for the government. That’s because, as Penn & Teller so ably note, recycling is the new politically correct religion. Faith replaces reason, sorting one’s trash replaces chanting hymns.
SPQR (26be8b) — 4/24/2010 @ 4:11 pm#8 SPQR:
Of course it is!
After all, part of the raison d’ĂŞtre for the program is to employ constituents.
So what if the jobs are literally garbage?
EW1(SG) (edc268) — 4/24/2010 @ 4:25 pmIt does point out some positive aspects of a society that could expect that much effort on the part of the local citizen, the kind of effort you might expect from those who remember stories of “The Blitz”.
In Philly, all recycled things go in one container- glass, metal, paper, cardboard. I don’t know the economics of the different approaches, but we do know the typical, or even not so typical American, would do a double-take and ask, “You expect me to do that?”
MD in Philly (59a3ad) — 4/24/2010 @ 4:57 pmBritain has been reduced to bin bullies.
If people in the United States ever want a window into just how bad policymaking and politics — and everything else — can become in their own country, all they have to do is scrutinize places like Mexico, on one hand, and places like Europe, on the other. America very well may end up like a version of Euro-Socialized Britain/Greece/France and Forever-Botched-Up Mexico/Venezuela.
Such societies have one thing in common: a high percentage of their electorate favors do-gooder (ie, liberal) sentiment and votes accordingly. Only when, as the saying goes, the wheels have fallen off the cart might enough people in such places pull back a bit and choose politicians and policies that aren’t of a leftist slant.
Even then, foolishness still will remain pervasive. For example, I notice that in spite of the results of years of nonsensical big-mommy, socialized government in Britain — in spite of things like absurdly high gasoline prices due primarily to high petrol taxes — the voters there are splitting their votes so that 2/3rds of them currently favor the liberal and ultra-liberal, with the balance favoring the squishy conservative.
Mark (411533) — 4/24/2010 @ 5:24 pmIt sure makes it easier for the scavengers; no more picking though the one bin in search of sellable recyclables. It’s like a smorgasbord of waste.
Kevin Murphy (5ae73e) — 4/24/2010 @ 5:45 pmI put out recycles but someone comes by and steals the glass bottles and newspapers.
I still get charged a recycle fee. And my contributions don’t seem to get the fee to go away, thanks to the thieves.
Alta Bob (e8af2b) — 4/24/2010 @ 11:36 pmThis Brit plan is a fucking Monthy Python skit, and it’s where the U.S. is headed if the Communityorganizer-in-Chief has his way.
Kevin Stafford (85c6a0) — 4/25/2010 @ 12:48 amDon’t kid yourselves that liberal socialists (read the dem party) in the US would not impose even more onerous recylcling rules on us if given half a chance (and will definitely do so through regulations if capntax is passed). I mean they already have regulated home renovation contractors for pre 1978 homes requiring them to be licensed by the feds (talk about overreach) doubling the costs for most jobs, despite the lack of any interstate commerce possibilities and any substantial federal interest in the problem sought to be corrected.
eaglewingz08 (326e65) — 4/25/2010 @ 6:13 amWe’ve only seen half the joke. I suspect that much of the garbage is mixed together at the other end due to lack of money to pay for doing anything with it.
Arthur (42b76f) — 4/25/2010 @ 9:04 amIf I wanted to spend my days sorting through trash, I wouldn’t have bothered to go to college.
And I don’t think I’ve ever volunteered to sort trash for free. It doesn’t seem like the sort of career choice I’m likely to make.
Gekkobear (25ea0f) — 4/28/2010 @ 8:39 amThey should do what we do here.
Max Entropy (732743) — 4/28/2010 @ 8:47 amThree bins. Garbage, recyclables, yard waste.
The recyclables go to a sorting center where illegal immigrants, homeless alcoholics and speed freaks are hired to sort the recyclables. The speed freaks are the best because they sort fastest.
Thing is, it’s really quite okay to favor recycling simply because you don’t feel the need to throw away something that can be re-used. Or because you don’t want to leave behind a mound of garbage for future generations to deal with.
These are fine reasons to recycle, and recycling ought to be promoted using these reasons. When you bullshit people about how it “actually saves money”, or worse, whip out the sanctimony, you’re going to lose the support you could have had by being honest about recycling.
[note: released from moderation. –Stashiu]
spongeworthy (c2e8fe) — 4/28/2010 @ 9:12 amBrits…..you’ve sold your souls. Thank God we gained our independence….
Hawker deHavilland (3cb602) — 4/28/2010 @ 9:32 am(if thats what you can call it)
What’s wrong with single-stream recycling? Here in Austin we dump everything that can be recycled into one big dumpster and call it a day. No sorting, no fuss.
Lauren (6b6325) — 4/29/2010 @ 4:00 pmwe should always think about recycling our waste products to help the environment.;.”
Ian Henderson (0457c9) — 7/28/2010 @ 4:47 amrecycling is very important these days because we have lots of pollution~:*
Emily Jones (39bbf6) — 9/14/2010 @ 8:42 amrecycling is very important these days because we have lots of pollution’.;
Jamie Stewart (6c9c91) — 9/14/2010 @ 11:45 amrecycling is very necessary so that we could reduce the waste that we dump on our environment:,~
Fire Surround (3900d9) — 10/13/2010 @ 12:50 pmrecycling is a very important thing to do so that we can help our environment”;`
Gas Detector : (71a07c) — 10/25/2010 @ 6:12 amrecycling should always be implemented to avoid to much pollution in the environment “`*
Connor Bell (9d89eb) — 12/21/2010 @ 10:39 amThis design is incredible! You obviously know how to keep a reader entertained. Between your wit and your videos, I was almost moved to start my own blog (well, almost…HaHa!) Fantastic job. I really loved what you had to say, and more than that, how you presented it. Too cool!
gianmarco lorezi shop (758d82) — 5/21/2011 @ 2:13 amRe: #22-27
Icy Texan (0e63a0) — 5/22/2011 @ 10:39 pmGreat! Enviro-trolls!!!
Yes and when Recycling fastens gorebull warming.
DohBiden (15aa57) — 5/22/2011 @ 10:46 pmvery good post, i certainly love this website, keep on it
car repair lancaster (f33676) — 6/21/2011 @ 1:36 pmLooking forward to seeing you swinging from a yardarm.
Another Drew - Restore the Republic / Obama Sucks! (89e0e7) — 9/13/2011 @ 7:05 pm