A 'slop bucket' in every kitchen

[TheDullWitch]

Government wants us to collect food scraps in special bins and then the swill will be taken away to create fuel.

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1813805.ece

Which is all very well and green. But EEEW! Does anyone's council already do this? Is it stinky?

i love bleach

kathy and daisy

do you sit round your fire of old worn shoes and slippers each evening making your macrame recycling boxes

you'll be putting ribbon on them next

Pressure is always more effective when it hurts the pocket though jools. If people boycott certain brands it will get the message across.

dya knwo what i want to find a good use for?

thso washign balls or scoops you get in washing powder or liquid

If you use Ecover powder they are made of cardboard and you can recycle them or use them for cuttings

you could use them to dig landfill sites in your back garden

they started that here a couple of years ago, I think it's stopped now cos I've not seen any of the little brown bins anywhere for ages, it was soo gross, the thing stank and leaving it outside the house for collection attracted rats and foxes etc - this is in central london btw, lol

yes but its a well knwon fact that ecover is shite
ds3 has tlaked me into vanih crystal white ( alos tired toegt me to chnage my mortgage by tringin 0800 00 1066) and ill tell you its FAB

lol@jools

Delightful. I presume it can be taken on trust that all this separating bits and pieces out will be worth it and it won't all end up in landfill somewhere anyway?

Did anyone see the episode of 'Bullshit' with Penn and Teller about recycling? bloody genius, I'm sure you can see it on youtube somewhere.

I have to say, since the council here went to fortnightly collections, I've really been enjoying seeing the fly-tipping on the wasteground at the end of the road. Makes the place look really rustic.

Mind you, I'd pay good off-set cash to see Millibland and co slopping out.

Oo, I'm a right cow mood today.

LOL Jools.
My macrame recycling boxes are strictly functional, I'm afraid - nothing so frivolous as ribbons in this house [frowns austerely]

ooh we get fly tippers in court sometimes

whni was little i alwayswondered what that meant
liek "Plant hire"

Second that on junk mail, JoolsToo. The other thing that does my head in is they all use those window envelopes that you can't put in the "paper" recycling thing. So I end up spending time every week or so ripping up junk mail envelopes, then putting the main bit in the paper bin and the front plastic thing in the "non-recyclable" bin. It does my head in. Then everyone bangs on about identity theft so much that you have to make a third pile of stuff to shred.

Round here, Islington Council left some weird new brown boxes / buckets in our street last week. I think they were for slop. I didn't take one in. Actually they were gone when I got back home. I haven't got room for one anyway - they were massive and I'm in a small flat.

And I don't like the thought of having a large bucket of rotting food sitting in the kitchen stinking for a week at a time. And then having to lug it up and down three flights of stairs to the street on bin day when it's at its smelliest. And what if you forget and have to wait another week. Then washing it out. Bleuch. I reckon they'll end up full of maggots.

Chunter chunter moan moan.

ahem
is ues htose enveleopes to send £3 50 to shcool wiht

Tech I think New Labour would say that if we forget it's our own fault. [imagines Patricia Hewett or Margaret Beckett or someone wagging finger scoldingly]

anyoen else do that>

Don't make me imagine Patricia Hewitt. It's never a calming thing.

Is bleach enviro damaging? I thought it basically turns into brine/salt once it's done oxidising. I'd imagine it's much less damaging than detergent......

Active ingredient is sodium hypochlorite (NaClO), which is basically like common salt plus oxygen. Bleach is reactive cos that oxygen is readily lost to leave just NaCl or salt... what harm could that do?

Don't tell me we have to feel bad about using bleach now. Bleach is my answer to pretty much any household job....

I think the UK has sunk into some weird "everything you do is wrong" mantra over the last couple of years. I think there's a fairly real danger people are going to start thinking "Sod it" and not doing anything. One ends up feeling so scolded about everything.....

i think you are right
ther ssi somehitng to judge on every singel issue sint there.

( we even had a thread judgin folk on their female topiary yesterday)

What really annoys me round here is that they've gone to fortnightly collections, but have such a convoluted system of what they can and can't accept for recycling you need a cheat sheet by the back door (and they keep f*ing changing it - I've lost track now whether they will or won't accept egg cartons or aluminium foil, for example, and they used to accept plastics grade 1 & 2 - any type. Now we have to remember not to include any brown plastic as well.) We can't have the lid of either bin even slightly ajar or they won't collect it.

BUT... all the businesses round here (who generate MUCH more waste) can only have normal bin collections. They don't have kerb side recycling collections despite many businesses actively CAMPAIGNING for it. All those restaurants tipping out glass wine bottles night after night... nurseries campaigning to have someone collect their paper waste... etc etc.

It's all bloody spin and target making and not actually any practical help, imo.

To me, the problem of charging for waste disposal is who the money goes to.

As so many here have said, it can be a confusing system.
If your goal is to maximise recycling then this is bad.
But if you give councils the ability to fine people, then they have an incentive to produce a system that is confusing, or at least not fix one that allows them to make money from people making mistakes.

If you think I'm being cynical, look at parking fines. The system is designed far more to get money than to sort out parking and congestion.

As for commercial waste, councils try to run this at a profit. They are in competition with private waste disposal.

Apart from skip hire, there is no significant market for household waste disposal because there is an adequate, free service.
If the council switches to an expensive, complex system that turns up to collect waste when it feels like it, then it's pretty easy to see a private contractor going for the money.
If I were competing with the council, I'd do stuff like give people a choice of bags or wheelie bins, not making them haul rubbish on to the street (good for older people), and chuck in a service for bug ugly stuff like old furniture.
I might even go for an upmarket greener service. Because I am a businessman, ie their servant, not their political master, I'd do stuff that made them hnappy to use me.
So for instance, each month, I'd email all my customers saying that I'm collecting stuff for a designated charity.
Electronic waste (old Pc, stereso etc, is actualy quite valuable, and at the same time rather toxic, ideal for recyling). The next month I'd collect old toys, then old clothes, you get the picture.

We have had a very complicated constantly changing system which is still not completely in force. They are rolling out blue wheelie bins for recyclable waste. Brown ones for the food/garden waste and green ones for the rest. So we've gone from filling 2 or 3 green wheelie bins a week with all waste to a complicated rota but they won't let us have extra blue ones yet yet about 80% of our rubbish is in the blue category. Yesterday I put typed notices on 5 green and brown wheelie bins saying "This is a blue bin" etc as we are waiting for the additional blue ones. They emptied them which is just as well otherwise I would have had 8 or 9 full ones by the time the next fortnightly one came. Perhaps if you pay over £2k a year council tax you should get superior service.

Having worked in the private waste disposal industry, I think there is more likelihood of an increase in fly tipping, rather than a new market for the private companies to step into.

Waste disposal prices, landfill tax and fines for not sorting waste make it too cost prohibitive to try to compete with council services.

DC - interesting post.

I love Xenia's lateral thinking with the notices saying 'This is a blue bin'.