Yes you are the culprit! (Waste disposal)

Member Name: Scooobydooo

Product:	Waste disposal
Date:	16/03/04 (161 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: helps environment

Disadvantages: dumping ground

Well it is our bin day tommorrow and the weekly slog of having to drag out the bin and plonk it on the front for the bin men to come and empty is approaching us fast.

However I am finding how disgusted I am at the amount of rubbish we have stuffed in our bin. As we look down the street, we are only one of a handful who have a large bin and it is always stuffed to the top with those lovely black bin bags dangling down the side.

The weekly stomp down of the rubbish otherwise binmen will not take it has begun and it is sort of done but soon as it is empty there are another 6 bin bags full of rubbish to be put in its place, so we will probably head off to the tip.

I decided to take a peek in my bin and try and find out why us as a small family could make such a large contribution to the overspill at our local tip.

In the six binbags that are waiting to go into the bin, they are full of old settee pads as we are disposing of a settee and that is been picked up by the council but it has got really wet and soggy outside and started to whiff, so I bagged them up. Unfortunatley this settee was a hand me down and had seen better days otherwise it would have been given to a charity. In there was 6 pairs of curtains, all in good condition and a professionally made blind, so I have bagged them all up seperatley so that when we go to the tip tommorrow it can be put into the recycled material section.

Our council, albeit a lot dosy has tried to be environmentally friendly and then thought bugger it, there is nothing in it for them. However just recently they have taken on board a lot of policies and are bringing recycling back in a big way. There have always been bottle banks around and newspapers banks but not near us. So this provides a problem, will they really go and travel to dump paper and bottles?

So what they have done is to give you a bin for papers and mags and a company will come round about once a month and pick th
em up. This is a good idea as we always have ones lying around the house and just normally bin them with the normal rubbish.

So next is the bottles and at the moment we are doing the house up so we are back and too from the tip quite a lot, where most things are now split into categories. The only problem is the skips are really high up and with having a disability it is hard work to throw things over and god forbid if you ask one of the miserable buggers to help you, they like to see what they can scavenge and if it is good then they take it away and put it to one side. Otherwise you are on your own, and god forbid if you leave it at the side, one might come up and they mumble and grumble.

Whilst down at the tip all kitchen appliances are put into one section and someone has got the contract off the council to buy them and do them up, however the council have never told us what they do with the money they get from the recycling, they probably spend it all on a mayoral bash at the local town hall. But some of the things that people do throw away is stupid. Rather than some council worker half inching the good bits, why not send it to the local charity which can benefit and help people out. We send all our appliances there and next month when my new kitchen stuff comes, the old ones will be going down there.

People throw away good bikes that young kids could use whose parents could never afford to buy them one. A little bit of tightnening here and there a you have a happy child.

The carboard and the rubbish in our bags is really bad and this week I have set myself a challenge to see if by next Wednesday I can create less rubbish and have my bin lid down. I suppose it is all how you throw things away if you think about it. A box takes up a bit of room but if you flat pack it, you could get a lot more into the bins.

Our dosy council has started to charge for items to be moved at £20 a go for 3 items and to be fair and hone
st, how the hell are people on low income and benefits supposed to do this. the council tax is spiralling and this is ridicoulous, subsequently stuff is been dumped around the town at different locations by fly tippers. They are saving themselves money if nothing else, although I do not condone this sort of behaviour I can well understand why people do it.

There is so much that we can recycle and reuse, if not by getting rid of it on a carboot, put a piece of paper in the shop window, saying for free, people will soon hovver around.

I would rather see my stuff go somewhere decent rather than in a council workers garage like what I have seen before.

Wasteage is causing a massive problem in the UK and it is not nice if you live next to one of the landfill areas. I used to live in a posh place and they allocated that for one of the landfill area and there was uproar.

So what is the answer if you do not want this on your back door step. Easy Cut down and Recycle and take some of the responsibility yourself.

Karen :0)

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