Forum Topic

recycle bins

are you being forced to have these open boxes full of rubish in your front garden. come out in the morning to find it strewn on the road outside your home. join the campaign to get the local authorities to build sheds in our gardens to house these eye sores. THE COUNCIL WORK FOR US, not the other way round

John Shafe ● 6867d13 Comments

Good for you Jim! All these things would be alright if they really did what they say on the tin, seems to me the more self important and grandiose the title the less efficient they are - but hey! What do I know? The real bottom line is that in the great scheme of things we are all only numbers.

Vanessa Smith ● 6865d

As a past graduate of the Institute of Personnel Management..I would say that the term Human Resources is a lot of old cobblers and should be recycled in Room 101!The recycling issue is worthy of study though..as I'm sure that there are issues behind the scenes that we don't hear about.Some years back a poster on this Forum reported that sorted recyclable rubbish collected from our homes..sometimes finishes up all in the same skip!Who hand sorts all the stuff?..I mean envelopes with cellophane windows..and cartons with acetate windows need to be extracted..etc etc etc.

Jim Lawes ● 6865d

I got the impression that the name probably came from some zippy person running around like Billy Whizz – ‘changing things’ by giving them supposed new names without much real understanding of how the whole thing should operate? Oy!  Who shouted “meow” from the back?The notion of Human resource is commendable – if it really takes a label to acknowledge that your people are your most important, valuable and expensive asset.  Thing is, it is an integral way of working and or forming the employer/employee partnership and Personnel, as you say, is the better umbrella title – of which Human resource management and development is a part.And you were all worried that Vanessa would start … … ?  ;-)

Sarah Felstead ● 6865d

Whoops! I shall go and wash my mouth out - you are of course, absolutely correct - politically speaking!

Vanessa Smith ● 6866d

Surely you mean calling a spade a horticultural earth-turning implement.

John Coxall ● 6866d

Don't get me started - what a load of nonsense - Human Resources - what was wrong with Personnel? Why can't we call a spade a spade instead of a shovel these days?

Vanessa Smith ● 6866d

"  ... this is a growth area for employment just like the equally questionable "equal opportunities" was some years ago, and where did that get us? "Crumbs!  Vanessa - next thing you will be suggesting is that humans are a resource!  ;-)

Sarah Felstead ● 6866d

Yes, I have never understood the vehement opposition to incineration, I do know that it costs local authorties a fortune in land-fill tax so that can only be a cost to the council tax payer. Is it not possible to harness the energy from incineration plants to fulfill domestic energy needs. You are correct in that this is a growth area for employment just like the equally questionable "equal opportunities" was some years ago, and where did that get us? However, I must say composting is worth it if you have the garden to do it in, meanwhile I shall continue to recycle until the case is proven one way or the other.

Vanessa Smith ● 6866d

Yes John,the latest research suggests that it is more economically viable and friendlier to the environment to incinerate most of our rubbish.The higher temperatures attainable now and improvements in filtering technology at incineration plants mean that we could generate almost 20% of our energy needs this way.Recycling also causes some pollution(the vehicle that collects the rubbish,the recyling process itself)and ,as a recent tv hidden camera programme highlighted,there are quite a few dodgy companies collecting the recyclables from councils and not fulfilling their promise to recycle but land-filling it.A lot of rubbish is also send to China(out of sight,out of mind?)and I'm not sure how confident we can be that they are recycling it.It doesn't meet the increasingly laughable politically correct agenda to say these things(after all there are also a lot of people employed in the recycling industry).I.like you,would like a cost analysis of the whole operation to see how effective it actually is ,or is it just there to make us all feel a bit better about ourselves without actually doing much good.The jury is out...

Keith Iddon ● 6866d

I know being "green" is very trendy right now, and our changing weather seems to be concentrating peoples' minds on environmental issues effectively, but I would like to know the economics of the council's recycling scheme. It may be a "good thing", but I cannot see how it can possibly be operating at anything but a huge loss. Does the council publish figures about this project? If, as I suspect, it makes a significant loss, just how much is it costing the community charge payers to make this "gesture" and surely there must be a more effective and economic way to reduce damage to the environment.

John Coxall ● 6866d

Another place to site your recycling box - might be under the letter box, ready to catch the ever increasing mound of rubbish mail - and to save the trek, several times a day, to fill the green box ... ...  ;-)

Sarah Felstead ● 6867d

Yes, the local council is supposed to work for us - however this is just ludicrous, you are not "forced" to keep your recycling box in the front garden at all, keep it somewhere where it cannot be got at until collection day. I dread to think of the cost of building individual sheds just to keep a recycling box in - and I am sure along with many others there are loads more inmportant things for our Council Tax to be spent on. There is such a thing as helping yourself, we cannot and should not expect the local authority to spoon feed us. Like Sarah we are now also recycling plastic - and cannot believe the amount there is that we too used to throw in the bin, the problem is that it is very bulky so we have to do two trips a week to the recyling bins, BUT we have cut down massively on what we do throw away. Everything we planted this year was in our own compost and the hanging baskets and tubs have been much better thanks to composting which I realise can only be done where you have a garden, just use a bit of common sense.

Vanessa Smith ● 6867d

Hello, John.  We keep our recycle bin in the garage and place it outside for collection on the day itself.I have started taking the plastic to Tesco, and although we miss some (getting everyone educated in the house when they are used to popping things directly in the bin is taking time) we have significantly reduced our black bag contents.Being new to recycling plastic it took 2 trips to crack how to use the bins.  The first trip, after having bagged it all up in plastic bags - I found the deposit hole a bit high (having to swing your arm above your head isn't as easy as just popping the stuff through).  I was also a bit miffed that I had to open the bags to pop everything through the small letter box space.  The second time as I posted a bottle through I saw day light - then realised that the top was open – luckily I always enjoyed netball, so remembering my school days I managed to get the bags in over the top without having to go around to the back to retrieve any.  I was sooo glad that I wasn’t trying it from a sitting position or with arm weakness!I had similar difficulty with depositing a duvet at Sainsbury’s in Chiswick.  The directions said to take larger items such as duvets to the main banks.  When you get there you are faced with the same letter box space, in which, to stuff a duvet.  Could make for quite a comedy film if they had left the top open on that container, methinks.

Sarah Felstead ● 6867d