Plastic Bag Charges

[oaksoft]

Who's talking about black bin bags? NLC issue supermarket sized white plastic bags for food waste. I'd hate to image the smell of your house if you are storing up all that food waste till you fill a black bin bag. And ofcourse there are many different types of plastic - all of which are supposed to go in the blue recycle bin in NLC. If the staff at the refuse depot were doing their job right there would be no need for the average householder to sort their waste. The depot could do it far more effectively and efficiently if they simply did it there.

Food waste?

Why would I have any sort of quantity of food waste which would require it to have its own bin?!!!!!

BTW as for the depot staff sorting waste out?

Actually I think we need to have a culture where we DONT have this shitty attitude that it's up to others to sort our personal mess out.

I thought that was the Tory ideal? Personal responsibility? Sorry are you saying you DONT believe this anymore?

[shull]

By my reckoning then, my plastic season ticket smartcard won't bio-degrade until 2413. Will it still be valid?

f**kin better be and for Friendlies tae.

[Stuart Dickson]

Food waste?

Why would I have any sort of quantity of food waste which would require it to have its own bin?!!!!!

BTW as for the depot staff sorting waste out?

Actually I think we need to have a culture where we DONT have this shitty attitude that it's up to others to sort our personal mess out.

I thought that was the Tory ideal? Personal responsibility? Sorry are you saying you DONT believe this anymore?

It doesn't matter whether you have or not. We don't have much food waste either beyond the occasional chicken carcass, or egg shells and tea bags, but NLC still supplied us with two small plastic bins - miniature versions of the wheelie bins - both for food waste. One for inside the house and one for outside and to deal with the fact that people don't want a bin inside the house that smells they have provided free of charge rolls of plastic bags - supposedly an annual supply - for us to throw our food waste into.

As for the rest of your post - it's what is practical that is the important point. Currently I have five NLC supplied bins for separating my rubbish into. We have a general waste bin, a recycling bin - for glass, plastics, paper, clothing etc, a garden waste bin, and now these two food waste bins. At what point do we stop using more and more council tax money to provide and maintain different containers to store rubbish - and how many different collection runs are we going to pay for before it stops being practical.

What I reckon we need is to change the perspective. According to NLC recycled rubbish is valuable so stop wasting money in an inefficient solution and instead put that money into sorting out the rubbish as it reaches the central point.

Only a stupid socialist minded society would think that the best solution is to charge the general user more money for their weekly shopping - disadvantaging the disabled who use the internet for their supermarket shopping, amongst others. Charging for plastic bags will not tackle the problem. All it will mean is that people who want plastic bags will have to pay more for their weekly shop.

Edited July 1, 2013 by Stuart Dickson

[pozbaird]

I live in NLC and have the same bins as StuDick. Black for general waste, blue for recycling, brown for garden, green for glass, and now a collection of wee brown food recycling bins with rolls and rolls of wee poly bags to go in them. I also have an older version of the wee brown food waste bins, which was green, had a wire handle, and was a plastic mesh construction. There's only me and Mrs Poz, we don't have huge amounts of food waste. The odd toast crust or as StuDick says, the odd bit here and there. My 'first edition' food waste bin is under the sink and is used to hold a stock of those wee washing machine liquid tablets. The wee brown food waste bin is in the garage and contains dusters and cloths. The bigger brown food waste bin is also in the garage, and contains sponges, cloths and chamois leathers for cleaning the car. The rolls of bio-degradeable bags? I use them for when the cat boaks up a hairball laced with grass and a bit of saliva on the hall landing, and I need a wee bag to put the Juan Sheets in, after I've cleaned up the wee bugger's boak

So, I put them all to good use. Have I saved any polar bears?

[faraway saint]

I live in NLC and have the same bins as StuDick. Black for general waste, blue for recycling, brown for garden, green for glass, and now a collection of wee brown food recycling bins with rolls and rolls of wee poly bags to go in them. I also have an older version of the wee brown food waste bins, which was green, had a wire handle, and was a plastic mesh construction. There's only me and Mrs Poz, we don't have huge amounts of food waste. The odd toast crust or as StuDick says, the odd bit here and there. My 'first edition' food waste bin is under the sink and is used to hold a stock of those wee washing machine liquid tablets. The wee brown food waste bin is in the garage and contains dusters and cloths. The bigger brown food waste bin is also in the garage, and contains sponges, cloths and chamois leathers for cleaning the car. The rolls of bio-degradeable bags? I use them for when the cat boaks up a hairball laced with grass and a bit of saliva on the hall landing, and I need a wee bag to put the Juan Sheets in, after I've cleaned up the wee bugger's boak

So, I put them all to good use. Have I saved any polar bears?

Aye.

I think the issue is we don't need to make as much new stuff when old stuff is recycled, therefore saving on materials and power, leading to less of them nasty greenhouse gasses, etc etc.

It's really an easy thing to do, almost effortless.

All this bollox blaming council workers etc is just something to moan about.

[oaksoft]

It doesn't matter whether you have or not. We don't have much food waste either beyond the occasional chicken carcass, or egg shells and tea bags, but NLC still supplied us with two small plastic bins - miniature versions of the wheelie bins - both for food waste. One for inside the house and one for outside and to deal with the fact that people don't want a bin inside the house that smells they have provided free of charge rolls of plastic bags - supposedly an annual supply - for us to throw our food waste into.

As for the rest of your post - it's what is practical that is the important point. Currently I have five NLC supplied bins for separating my rubbish into. We have a general waste bin, a recycling bin - for glass, plastics, paper, clothing etc, a garden waste bin, and now these two food waste bins. At what point do we stop using more and more council tax money to provide and maintain different containers to store rubbish - and how many different collection runs are we going to pay for before it stops being practical.

What I reckon we need is to change the perspective. According to NLC recycled rubbish is valuable so stop wasting money in an inefficient solution and instead put that money into sorting out the rubbish as it reaches the central point.

Only a stupid socialist minded society would think that the best solution is to charge the general user more money for their weekly shopping - disadvantaging the disabled who use the internet for their supermarket shopping, amongst others. Charging for plastic bags will not tackle the problem. All it will mean is that people who want plastic bags will have to pay more for their weekly shop.

OK the idea of recycling at one central depot is not an unreasonable one.

You can theoretically achieve the same goal but having it done in once place.

So.........let's run with that. How much would it cost to have a single central location fully operational superdepot which could handle all municipal waste and sort it properly?

You'd need to consider the following:-

1) The size of superdepot would have to be astronomical to deal with incoming waste and sorting areas plus storage. There probably won't be any available locations for this so you'd need to buy the land and build a custom made depot. Comparison would be with a major manufacturing company such as Hewlett Packard or someone like that. These companies typically spend about £200 million building such a plant in China so you could easily triple that here. You don't have this expense if the waste is pre-sorted.

2) How many staff would you need? A few thousand? That's an impressive wage bill right there.

3) I think the only way you could possibly make this pay is if you handled waste from other councils as well thus forcing a situation where you've had to put more transport lorries on the roads travelling longer distances to the superdepot thus further clogging up our already choked roads (I thought we were trying to go the other way).

4) At the root of your suggestion is the implication that business has not considered this. That seems pretty unlikely. I think it's more likely that both local government AND business have looked into it and concluded that it is cheaper to sort the waste at source.

It seems to me that the council have chosen the cheapest option available but you may be able to provide a business case to show otherwise.

It's actually quite amusing that you think you've stumbled on an obvious solution which every expert has somehow missed.

In medicine that's called delusion.

BTW you may also want to consider the years of engineering and scientific experience gained across the world which states quite clearly that if you have a problem it's cheaper to solve it closest to the source. The further downstream the more expensive it gets and that is not a linear relationship. Cost rises exponentially with distance from the source of the problem.

Ask BP how they are getting on? Instead of sorting out a problem with their oil well in the Gulf, they ignored it to save money.

How did that work out for them financially?

Edited July 1, 2013 by oaksoft

[Stuart Dickson]

OK the idea of recycling at one central depot is not an unreasonable one.

You can theoretically achieve the same goal but having it done in once place.

So.........let's run with that. How much would it cost to have a single central location fully operational superdepot which could handle all municipal waste and sort it properly?

You'd need to consider the following:-

1) The size of superdepot would have to be astronomical to deal with incoming waste and sorting areas plus storage. There probably won't be any available locations for this so you'd need to buy the land and build a custom made depot. Comparison would be with a major manufacturing company such as Hewlett Packard or someone like that. These companies typically spend about £200 million building such a plant in China so you could easily triple that here. You don't have this expense if the waste is pre-sorted.

2) How many staff would you need? A few thousand? That's an impressive wage bill right there.

3) I think the only way you could possibly make this pay is if you handled waste from other councils as well thus forcing a situation where you've had to put more transport lorries on the roads travelling longer distances to the superdepot thus further clogging up our already choked roads (I thought we were trying to go the other way).

4) At the root of your suggestion is the implication that business has not considered this. That seems pretty unlikely. I think it's more likely that both local government AND business have looked into it and concluded that it is cheaper to sort the waste at source.

It seems to me that the council have chosen the cheapest option available but you may be able to provide a business case to show otherwise.

It's actually quite amusing that you think you've stumbled on an obvious solution which every expert has somehow missed.

In medicine that's called delusion.

BTW you may also want to consider the years of engineering and scientific experience gained across the world which states quite clearly that if you have a problem it's cheaper to solve it closest to the source. The further downstream the more expensive it gets and that is not a linear relationship. Cost rises exponentially with distance from the source of the problem.

Ask BP how they are getting on? Instead of sorting out a problem with their oil well in the Gulf, they ignored it to save money.

How did that work out for them financially?

Oaksoft - how is charging 5p for each plastic bag dealing with the issue at source? Surely if you were dealing with the issue at source you'd outlaw the production of all plastic bags and make retailers return to the era of using paper bags. The EU has recognised that a ban would be unpopular and instead have decided to use the problem to raise more revenue in an indirect tax - that is a socialist answer for everything. You don't deal with problem at all, instead you tax the f**k out of it.

In your challenge you talk about the number of lorries on the road and the additional journeys taken, but how many additional lorries are on the road right now because they need a truck for domestic waste, one for food waste, one for recycled waste and one for garden waste. The trucks don't have separate compartments Oaksoft so thats four doing the job that one used to do. On a two week cycle instead of just having one bin emptied twice, we now have a Tuesday pick of of Domestic or Recycled waste, then every Wednesday we get another lorry come round for the food waste, and a second lorry for the garden waste.

As for staff, well we already clearly do have sorting staff in the collection depots - since the plastic bags carrying food waste have to be emptied and separated. We've also got a large number of local authority employees currently being paid for what is effectively garden leave over the summer

[oaksoft]

Oaksoft - how is charging 5p for each plastic bag dealing with the issue at source? Surely if you were dealing with the issue at source you'd outlaw the production of all plastic bags and make retailers return to the era of using paper bags. The EU has recognised that a ban would be unpopular and instead have decided to use the problem to raise more revenue in an indirect tax - that is a socialist answer for everything. You don't deal with problem at all, instead you tax the f**k out of it.

In your challenge you talk about the number of lorries on the road and the additional journeys taken, but how many additional lorries are on the road right now because they need a truck for domestic waste, one for food waste, one for recycled waste and one for garden waste. The trucks don't have separate compartments Oaksoft so thats four doing the job that one used to do. On a two week cycle instead of just having one bin emptied twice, we now have a Tuesday pick of of Domestic or Recycled waste, then every Wednesday we get another lorry come round for the food waste, and a second lorry for the garden waste.

As for staff, well we already clearly do have sorting staff in the collection depots - since the plastic bags carrying food waste have to be emptied and separated. We've also got a large number of local authority employees currently being paid for what is effectively garden leave over the summer

Quintessential Dickson.

I take it you;ve given up on the idea of a superdepot then?

Do you ever think anything through before you post?

Just a few figures or back of a fag packet calculation?

Just wondering.

As for what the 5p thing solves? It'll reduce plastic bag usage by about 90% as has been proven in virtually every single country which has introduced it. Unless of course you have some feeling that Scots are somehow special and will just pay the 5p.

Now can we talk about something else?

Edited July 2, 2013 by oaksoft

[Stuart Dickson]

Quintessential Dickson.

I take it you;ve given up on the idea of a superdepot then?

Do you ever think anything through before you post?

Just a few figures or back of a fag packet calculation?

Just wondering.

As for what the 5p thing solves? It'll reduce plastic bag usage by about 90% as has been proven in virtually every single country which has introduced it. Unless of course you have some feeling that Scots are somehow special and will just pay the 5p.

Now can we talk about something else?

You don't need a super depot. As I've said - sorting of the refuse already happens in NLC. There's no super depot here, no attempt to bring in waste from other regions and no massive labour cost. NLC announced in mid June that they were now achieving recycling figures of 43% of all household waste and were targeting 50% before the end of the year.

Now talking of back of a fag packet calculations - 90% reduction you say? Not according to the Welsh government who say that the 5p charge has reduced plastic bag use across 13 surveyed retailers by 35%. Only one out of the 13 pre selected retailers reported a reduction of 90% - I presume that is where you are getting your figure from.

As with smoking or driving all you are doing is increasing the level of indirect taxation. You might get some people to change their behaviour but it will never solve the problem. Sorting at regional refuse depots is the only way to go. Follow the Mumbai example - allow those on benefits to work in the recycling centres to boost their income and make teachers and lecturers work there instead of giving them large periods of garden leave in the summer

[shull]

Get those on Garden Leave working on the Potholes over the next 6 weeks.

[faraway saint]

Get those on Garden Leave working on the Potholes over the next 6 weeks.

How can they do that when they're in the garden, ya daft auld sausage?

[shull]

How can they do that when they're in the garden, ya daft auld sausage?

Good point !

[faraway saint]

Back on topic, I've just acquired 5000 Morrison’s plastic bags.

That should do me for quite a while.

[oaksoft]

You don't need a super depot. As I've said - sorting of the refuse already happens in NLC. There's no super depot here, no attempt to bring in waste from other regions and no massive labour cost.

Sorting of refuse at NLC works on the small scale you've mentioned because most people are already sorting their rubbish at source.

Sorry I just don't have the patience required to debate with someone so far off the pace on this subject. This is why I can never be a school teacher.

As a final note, fortunately people like you are a very loud but ultimately very small minority.

We'll see huge benefits - environmental and litter-wise and not a second too soon.

This is going to happen - live with it or move to America if you can't. They hate poor people even more than you do. You'll love it there.

Edited July 2, 2013 by oaksoft

[pozbaird]

StuDick and Oaksoft are completely wrong. There IS a super-dump in the North Lanarkshire Council area.... Cumbernauld Town Centre.

Boom! Boom!