Some people have no idea

[Isitschool]

It sometimes feels that some people have no idea what it's like for people living in poverty or a very low income.

There has been some discussions about fly tipping. I said some people don't drive so can't get to the tip. Or they can't afford to have it taken away. My council charges 30.00 pounds to have a fridge removed . Or it's 20.00 for up to 4 items such as a bed frame, chest of drawers ect. That does not seem like alot of money, But there are people out there that are having to choose weather they put money on their gas or eat . If they are in that position they clearly can't afford to have broken furniture taken away .

The replies from people were . If they can afford new furniture then they can afford to have it taken away or if they get a new fridge from curry's you pay a bit extra to have the old ones removed. Do people honestly think that people who can barely afford to eat are buying brand new fridge and furniture.

I'm just no way saying fly tipping is OK. Of course its not but I do understand why it happens. I just think it's sad how many people don't understand what its like to live on a shoe string

I work for the waste department of a local authority. We brought charging in for bulk uplift in the middle of last year and it's been a bit of a disaster. There has been a huge reduction in people requesting an uplift and, shock horror, a huge increase in flytipping.

It's a complicated issue. Flytipping is an expensive problem, both in managing the actual tipping itself, but it also has knock-on effects on the wider environment and people's views of their community and therefore their treatment of it. But bulk uplift is an expensive task and it's not one that can always be done for free. However, we find we are now spending money on costly 'solutions' to flytipping instead of on bulk uplift and personally, I'm not sure it's exactly an improvement.

Environmental incivility (litter, vandalism, flytipping etc) is a huge and complicated issue for my employer. I have worked there for nearly 20 years and we are really no closer to fixing it. But your points, OP, are very valid.

YANBU OP, some people really are clueless.

@ChristmasCatBells

Slightly off topic but people flytip near me but they have driven to the Country roads to dump the stuff so I don't understand why they don't just drive to the recycling/waste centre. Agree that people can find it difficult to afford the fee.

They will have taken someone's money, under the guise of being 'rubbish clearance' companies.

Tips charge for commercial waste, so unfortunately they'll fly tip it instead.

Our council in Sydney, Australia, had 2 x 'council clean ups' a year where you could put anything out on the curbside and it would be picked up and disposed of. It worked really well because A: people could get rid of bulky stuff with no effort and no resorting to fly tipping and B: people treated the piles of stuff on the curb as a kind of garage sale and helped themselves to anything they wanted, so recycling and keeping stuff out of landfill.

A friend scored a pair of very expensive skis in perfect condition and I picked up a really nice TV cabinet.

Actually, that should read anything within reason - no dangerous materials (asbestos, flammable liquids etc) and noting ridiculously big - they wouldn't take care and such but fridges, mattresses etc were ok.

Well around here they dont flytip anywhere near their own houses. And what's to stop them putting that stuff in their back gardens rather than out the front where it's a bother to other people if they can't afford for it to be taken? Scrap metal collectors round here only charge for fridges and freezers. Theres poverty and then there's being bloody minded. I'm severely close to the fucking breadline myself, month after month, but don't see how that means I should inconvenience any one else or make an eyesore of where I live.

They wouldn't take CARS.

@ANameChangeAgain

If the council remove it for free then our council tax bills go up. Nothing is free.

But they have to end up removing it in the end anyway once it’s fly tipped so why not just offer the service direct?

@Crowdfundingforcake

Our council in Sydney, Australia, had 2 x 'council clean ups' a year where you could put anything out on the curbside and it would be picked up and disposed of. It worked really well because A: people could get rid of bulky stuff with no effort and no resorting to fly tipping and B: people treated the piles of stuff on the curb as a kind of garage sale and helped themselves to anything they wanted, so recycling and keeping stuff out of landfill.

A friend scored a pair of very expensive skis in perfect condition and I picked up a really nice TV cabinet.

That’s an absolutely genius idea! Wish our council would do that.

The council in Sydney has the right idea.

I also like the idea of every household being allowed to fill a skip and have it removed once per tax year.

It’s so idiotic to scale back on waste collection only to spend the savings on dealing with flytipping.

Crowdfundingforcake

Our council in Sydney, Australia, had 2 x 'council clean ups' a year where you could put anything out on the curbside and it would be picked up and disposed of. It worked really well because A: people could get rid of bulky stuff with no effort and no resorting to fly tipping and B: people treated the piles of stuff on the curb as a kind of garage sale and helped themselves to anything they wanted, so recycling and keeping stuff out of landfill.

A friend scored a pair of very expensive skis in perfect condition and I picked up a really nice TV cabinet.

Similar system in Germany. Every 3 months. Fantastic way to recycle. Everyone put their things outside the day before collection, by the time the local authority came to collect the 'rubbish' most items had already been taken!

Slightly off topic but people flytip near me but they have driven to the Country roads to dump the stuff so I don't understand why they don't just drive to the recycling/waste centre.

They do that a lot here too - they are too lazy to sort the stuff out and just dump it in the riverbed or down at the coast. It would be cheaper to drive to the local recycling/waste centre and pay the waste fee (and the recycling is free).

I know some fairly useless people who work for councils and receive high salaries for nonsense jobs.

Maybe councils should take a look at those salaries and do more to help those in need with the money instead.

I tend to add disposal of old items when I buy, that only applies to new and costs

@Spongeboob

Well around here they dont flytip anywhere near their own houses. And what's to stop them putting that stuff in their back gardens rather than out the front where it's a bother to other people if they can't afford for it to be taken? Scrap metal collectors round here only charge for fridges and freezers. Theres poverty and then there's being bloody minded. I'm severely close to the fucking breadline myself, month after month, but don't see how that means I should inconvenience any one else or make an eyesore of where I live.

And what's to stop them putting that stuff in their back gardens rather than out the front where it's a bother to other people if they can't afford for it to be taken?

Not having a back garden would stop people from doing that.

@SquirrelG

Slightly off topic but people flytip near me but they have driven to the Country roads to dump the stuff so I don't understand why they don't just drive to the recycling/waste centre.

They do that a lot here too - they are too lazy to sort the stuff out and just dump it in the riverbed or down at the coast. It would be cheaper to drive to the local recycling/waste centre and pay the waste fee (and the recycling is free).

I’ve never understood this either, if stuff is dumped out in the sticks then it’s clearly been driven there, but it’s free to drive stuff to the tip, it’s weird.

You can make 52 free trips a year to the tip where I live, maybe it’s someone saying they’ll do house clearances and just dumping it but they’d still have to do a lot to go over what’s allowed anyway.

You can make 52 free trips a year to the tip where I live, maybe it’s someone saying they’ll do house clearances and just dumping it but they’d still have to do a lot to go over what’s allowed anyway.

I'm not in the UK, it's definitely people dumping their own rubbish. You pay to dump rubbish at the tip here, but it's not a lot for a small amount. A lot of the stuff you can see could be recycled for free, so it's just laziness (people take photos of the rubbish sometimes and post the photos on f/b).

Its hard to understand when you've not experienced it.

I always remember a documentary where celebs stayed with people in poverty. Theo from Dragons Den stayed with a single mum who sat watching her child eat, she didnt have any food for herself. He mentioned it to her afterwards and she said she sometimes hoped her child wouldnt manage his tea so she could have leftovers. Theo was in tears, I think I was too. Everyday life is very hard for so many people.

@RedCandyApple

My council take items away for free.

Large items like fridges? That's very unusual. We have had to pay wherever we have lived.

Hi Op, I don't have money problems and I still wouldn't pay the council to take away.

I sawed my furniture, loaded it into my car and took it to the tip and dumped it in the wood skip.

Can you borrow a saw and get someone to give you a lift? Furniture must be wood and foam etc.

@SalsaLove

Freecycle works for us. The council were going to charge us £30 to remove our old television. It got snapped up immediately on Freecycle. Why isn’t that an option?

Depends where you live and what you need to get rid of. removing large items on Freecycle runs into the same poverty issue. the people who really need new good quality furniture don't have cars, or cars large enough to collect and can't afford to hire a van. We had to throw away two beautiful cabin beds with in build bookcases and desks because even the local charity furniture shop said they would charge us £80 to collect the items for them to sell! After trying Freecycle, FB, several charity shops and the new local Syrian refugee housing charity we let the new bed company take them away for about £40!

No one should need to dispose of a skips worth of rubbish every year! (in addition to 'normal' refuse collection). Something is very wrong if you constantly have that much stuff to get rid of.

I've been in a situation where I've had to get rid of rubbish and not had a car. It isn't easy. We are lucky that we have a scrap man who will take anything metal (got rid of a broken microwave and broken metal garden chairs that way) and for other 'broken' things I basically had to make them into as small pieces as possible and put them in the refuse bin.

However some of this need to dispose of things is unnecessary - for example, a lady on a local FB page recently was asking if someone could take something to the tip for her for free, as she didn't have a car and couldn't afford a skip or similar. Our tip is free for all non commercial vehicles and no limits to amount of trips, quantity etc. What she 'needed gone' was a double bed frame with one broken slat. So still perfectly useable. But rather than keep using it, or try and repair it, she'd bought a new one. That staggered me...just the sheer waste of it. Especially as she clearly had limited funds. I can understand people not repairing an electrical appliance, but a broken bed slat?!

OTOH there are people like my neighbours, who are both able bodied, in employment and have a large car yet never ever take anything to the tip or pay for it's removal. They have somehow acquired a second wheelie bin and stick loads of 'extra' rubbish in that. Or leave it in their front garden for months. When I last had a skip they put at least 3 things in that (without asking, I promptly returned it to their garden!). They are clearly just lazy.

I used to live in France.there used to regular (monthly IIRC) collections of "encombrants" which translates as bulky items. You just left them by your gate the night before. Usually white vans circulate and scoop up anything with even the slightest use/ worth (!) but anything left the council takes... just part of your normal waste collection cover3 by the council tax equivalent. Was extremely convenient.

The idea that people who can't afford to pay for large items to be collected could just take them to the tip themselves assumes two things:

• they have a suitable vehicle (kind of expensive)
• they are able bodied (given how many disabled people are low income)

Nottingham City Council runs a free bulky waste collection service, I think there's a fee now for electrical items but they'll take quite a lot of items for free including up to 4 black bags I think. We booked a collection for our old sofa on Friday and it is booked to be picked up on the 21st January, we just need to put it out front and keep it dry.