| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| Behemoth |
£310m for diversion of landfillMonday 7 April 2008 11:03Department for Environment, Food And Rural Affairs (National) £310 million to help local authorities deliver carbon benefits through the diversion of over a million tonnes of England's waste from landfill Defra has awarded PFI credits to four projects across England to improve local waste management. The projects will make a significant contribution towards meeting the UK's landfill directive targets by helping to divert over a million tonnes of waste. Environment Minister Joan Ruddock commented: "These are ambitious yet realistic projects which have risen to the challenge of supporting the whole waste hierarchy. They have contributions to make on minimisation, recycling and waste diversion. A combination of these activities is essential in our drive to tackle climate change. "PFI agreements like these provide an incentive for local authorities and industry to work together to achieve our goals of reducing the environmental impact of waste, and making better use and reuse of the waste we create. Importantly, each one of them is pursuing a solution which will achieve major carbon benefits." Each of the four projects will support the local authority's waste ambitions. All aim to reduce the overall amount of waste created and it is anticipated they all will deliver a minimum of 50% recycling rate by 2020, with some aspiring to reach 60%. The PFI credits awarded to the four projects are: * Barnsley, Doncaster and Rotherham Partnership - £77.4 million. * Bradford Metropolitan District Council - £62.1 million. * Suffolk County Council - £102 million. * Leeds City Council - £68.6 million. Each project will be considering the climate change impacts of its technology choice. They are all actively seeking options for Combined Heat and Power with an Energy from Waste or Mechanical Biological Treatment solution. It is expected that each authority will issue a notice to prospective bidders in the Official Journal of European Union (OJEU) soon. Notes to Editors 1. The UK has one of the highest levels of landfill in Europe; in 2006 60 per cent of the 35.5 million tonnes of municipal waste arisings went to landfill. 2. Local authorities' net revenue expenditure on waste collection and disposal in England was just over £2.6bn in 2006/07, largely spent through contracts with the private sector and dominated by disposal at landfill sites. 3. The UK has been set targets to reduce the amount of waste it sends to landfill under the EU Landfill Directive. Taking account of the derogation to which the UK is entitled, the Directive requires the volume of biodegradable municipal waste sent to landfill to be reduced to 75% of the 1995 levels by 2010; 50% by 2013; and 35% by 2020. 4. To date over £1bn has been committed to support 23 waste PFI projects. There are currently 18 waste PFI projects in operation and 5 in procurement. 5. The Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) 2007 provided Defra with additional funding through PFI. The overall level has risen from £280m in 2007/08 to £600 million, £700 million and £700 million over the following years - totalling £2 billion of further investment in waste infrastructure. Public enquiries 08459 335577; Press notices are available on our website http://www.defra.gov.uk Defra's aim is sustainable development To subscribe or unsubscribe to Defra's mailing list go to: http://nds.coi.gov.uk Once on the NDS website see Sign up Nobel House 17 Smith Square London SW1P 3JR Website http://www.defra.gov.uk |
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| dpack |
heat and power sound ok but depends on the burner / scrubber to work properly .
i have been in a cloud of "wrong" h n p flue gasses and literally had to run for my life without breathing in whilst coughing and suffocating maybe better than land fill maybe not |
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| Rob R |
carbon to topsoil; good, carbon to air; less good | ||||||||
| thos |
Note it's PFI, so the government is not actually spending any money. | ||||||||
| thos |
At least with landfill most of the carbon gets locked-up. In CHP it gets released to the atmosphere, so I can't see how this initiative can claim to satisfy carbon requirements. |
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| orangepippin |
Re: £310m for diversion of landfill
The UK also has one of the highest population densities in Europe. There's a lot of landfill because there's a lot of people, and fewer places for it to go in our densely packed island. |
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| thos |
Send it to Norway and tip it in the fjords - it's not as if they're good for anything else. | ||||||||
| Rob R |
CHP? | ||||||||
| dpack |
incinerators with a turbine and waste heat use
very dirty fuel as all manner of stuff ends up in the waste stream (even compared to lignite and petcoke ) there is a lot of "ash" to dispose of , this stuff is pretty toxic to make use of the heat they need to be near the user the management have to be very good cos they go very wrong very easily more co2 than landfill but less methane a big problem is keeping the burn hot enough to destroy dioxins to be fair they have improved since the early ones like our local dragon |
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| vegplot |
It's all brownie points. On paper! | ||||||||
| Treacodactyl |
Re: £310m for diversion of landfill
There's also lots of landfill because people through too much out, certainly round here. Sometimes it's even brand new unopened goods that go straight to landfill.  Perhaps the government should spend some money trying to reduce the amount of landfill produced in the first place rather than wondering what to do with it?
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| orangepippin |
I agree there is a lot more that we as individuals can do ... but at the end of the day, if I reduce my non-recyclable waste by 10% but the government / local authority are busy building another 400 houses down the road (as they are), then my reduction is not going to count for much.
Primary responsibility for this must rest with the government and local authorities. One thing that I think would make a big difference is a reduction in council tax as you recycle more. However, our public services have an addiction for tax revenues that overrides all environmental concerns, so I doubt this will happen. |
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| Behemoth |
Surely the primary responsibility rest with the individual. The Govt and LAs can provide all the services and facilities in the world but they don't actyually put stuff in the bin. | ||||||||
| orangepippin |
No. That's a bit like saying the invididual should build roads or install sewerage systems. We pay the public services to provide and run our infrastructure, and we should insist they take responsibility for the jobs we pay them to do. Not saying that we as individuals can't do our bit, but this is a national issue and that is what the public services are paid for. | ||||||||
| Behemoth |
I don't really follow but as I said, the government and LA could provide the best system in the world but if I can't be bothered to use it , it wont deliver despite all the investment and it will fail.
Primary responsibility rests with those who generate the waste. "Somebody somewhere must do something" is a cop out for personal responsibility. |
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| Nick |
Recycling is not great, to be honest. Reduction in consumption to start with would be much better. A tax aimed at initial purchases has to be the way forward. |
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| orangepippin |
Absolutely not. I pay someone to do a job for me, that means they are responsible for delivering it. I cannot solve the UK's landfill problem, only the government and local authorities can do that. I have suggested one way they might do that - by reducing council tax for people who recycle more. Frankly, it is their job to come up with a solution and implement it, not mine. That is what they are paid for. I have not opted out of my responsibility, I do my bit and I vote.
I take Nick's point about consumption. Regarding tax on initial purchase ... it is called VAT. We already have plenty of taxes in this country. What we need is tax reductions to encourage desirable behaviours. Supermarkets do it, it is called buy one get one free. Maybe local authorities could learn from them - put less in the bin and pay less tax? |
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| Brownbear |
Actually, PFI means that the taxpayer pays about four times more than necessary, and doesn't own the end product anyway. It is a scheme for the relief of impoverished corporate executives down to their last grouse moor or final three motor yachts. |
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| Behemoth |
Again I don't quite follow, I agree that less rubbish in the first place is desirable but I still don't understand your point. What are you paying somebody to deliver? Who is responsible for putting rubbish in your bin? | ||||||||
| orangepippin |
I am paying the public services to identify a solution to the problem of excessive landfill and then implement it. Other countries manage it, why can't ours? OK, we have more population density, but I never said it was easy.
I am also paying them (a heck of a lot) to collect my rubbish and dispose of it. I am responsible for putting rubbish in my bin. I am responsible for reducing the amount that goes in the bin. But they are responsible for managing the environment and the economy, not me. Let me put it another way, if the public services are not responsible, why am I paying them £thousands of tax? |
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| Rob R |
Interestingly this issue has come, almost directly, from the apples thread. When we're importing so much rubbish & not sending it back we're at the end of the line, an incomplete circle. | ||||||||
| Behemoth |
I never said they weren't, I said you have primary responsibility as it starts with your consumption and what you choose to dispose off and how you choose to do it. |
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| orangepippin |
OK, if you agree the public services have some responsibility for landfill ... what do you think they are doing about it, to justify the tax I am paying them to provide this service? | ||||||||
| Behemoth |
I don't really have the time to investigate the waste disposal regime in your area. | ||||||||
| Northern_Lad |
They're taking it away; they're cleaning the streets; they're finding places to put it; making sure things don't leak or go bank or float away in the floods...
There is virtually bugger all a local authority can do to reduce the volume of rubbish it's asked to dispose of: it's the resposability of individuals to produce less rubbish, and the only way to stop people from fly-tipping is to increase the price paid for packaging (and other things that get chucked) which can only really be done at a national level. |
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| orangepippin |
Exactly my point. Neither do I. This is what I pay these people taxes for !! |
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| Treacodactyl |
Personally I would like pay-per-throw and to stop subsidising other wasteful people via council tax. Currently it costs the average householder in my county £1.26 a week for all our rubbish and recycling needs. That sounds rather cheap to me and if you had to pay something like £1 a bag perhaps people would think a bit more when they put out half a dozen bags of rubbish a week? Of course some of the extra money raised would be used to prevent fly tipping.
Another fact from our council, they take away used fridges and freezers for about £20 a go, it costs them £90 to process so I'm not sure why people who hang onto their fridges and freezers should subsidise people who replace them every couple of years just to be fashionable. Perhaps have a mandatory 6 year manufactures warranty and charge people the full recycling costs if the fridge/freezer is less than 6 years old? I bet there's lots of much better ideas out there but no one seems to want to do much about the problem at the moment. 
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| Behemoth |
So they might be the best in the world, you don't know. Anyway I'm off home, I have to let Yorkshire Water in to flush my toilet. |
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| Rob R |
Landfill management is the same in every area at the moment, a logistcal nightmare & as a producer it does make you sick to be trying & suceeding in waste reduction so that the neighbours can just produce more 
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| orangepippin |
I've been thinking further about this, and I do keep coming back to the point - in my mind at least - that primary responsibility lies with the public services, not the individual. That does not give me as an individual carte blanche to produce as much rubbish as I like of course, but in a society such as ours where the public services control all the levers there is only so much I personally can do. I really think the ball is in their court, not mine. | ||||||||
| cab |
So would I, but I absolutely require a solution for wasteful neighbours stuffing my bins first. |
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| cab |
Not sure why you see it as a them and us thing. Ain't it all about individuals pushinc local authorities to do the right thing, and working with them to achieve this? |
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| Nick |
RFID tags on all packaging, coupled to the card you pay with. Will affect most everyone, and might even get people using cash, not plastic. Two birds with one stone. That's pay as you buy, rather than anything else, but would also help reduce fly tipping. | ||||||||
| orangepippin |
I would be happy with pay per throw if the bin security issue was addressed, and if the price per throw does not result in a back-door council tax hike. In fact, I'd like to see refuse disposal taken away from councils and thrown open to competition. I'd like some choice in how the refuse is collected - whether I want weekly or twice weekly collection, or perhaps a lower price because I'm prepared to take it to a local collection centre etc. After all, I get those sort of choices with another essential "service" - obtaining food - so why not with rubbish disposal. | ||||||||
| cab |
Make it profit driven and many (or most) people will go for the cheapest option, which will drive companies to cut corners. Bad idea. Really, why is this a them and us thing? Think of it more as us pushing them to do it right for us, and we'll do our bit too. |
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| Rob R |
I don't envy 'them' at all, waste management is too much of a 'funnel' expecting so few people to deal with all our waste. Very few systems benefit from increasing scale & just like the food issue, the further we seperate people from their waste (or food) the less they will care about what happens to it  Things tend to stink more the bigger they get.
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| Behemoth |
Agree in principle but it does seem a bit peverse to have three refuse trucks passing your door before the fourth stops. Or possible the same refuse truck leased on different days by different companies. then taking the stuff to the same processing centre anyway, although you could have two or three I suppose. I like the idea of taking your own waste, to the dump, I could take our four bags a month, in the current climate I suspect this is the option everybody would opt for and few would do. So there's a whole new market in waste identification, tracking and security and monitoring and compliance.... 
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| orangepippin |
Remember, organic food did not happen because the local authorities mandated it, it happened because consumers were able to exert choice on food suppliers. The same thing could happen in waste disposal if we could take the public service monopoly suppliers out of the equation.
The way to do things is to get the public services to set the framework, and then let private companies compete to offer the products and services within that framework. When you have the public service monopolies both setting the framework and providing the service, you have a recipe for tax increases and poor performance - and yet more landfill. |
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| Rob R |
Sounds like deregulation of the milk board- it was 'sold' to us as being better for the producer because they could negotiate directly on the price of course when people banded together to get the bargaining power they needed, the CC broke it up. Madness.
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| Rob R |
Isn't that how it works at the moment?
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| Treacodactyl |
It would be good if councils were really accountable. Even when I've paid for a specific task, outside of the council tax, they don't seem accountable and their complaints procedure seemed far from satisfactory. As for the securing your bins for pay-per-through other countries have managed to come up with reasonable solutions, such as lockable bins, and it seemed they weren't needed as the problem of other people using other people's bins didn't really occur. |
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| orangepippin |
Treacodactyl - I agree with your comments. And I think finding the best solution for pay per throw or whatever is the job of the local authorities, not private individuals.
Rob R. No, at the moment local authorities (as far as I know) take payment for and run refuse services. As a consumer you can't pay someone else to do it instead, even though they might offer you a better price or a service more suited to your needs. Councils may do this themselves or sub-contract it, but crucially you, as the consumer, have no control over the price or type of service. That in turn means that poor-performing services are not penalised, nor are good services rewarded. As a comparison, take electricity supply - many people choose to use a supplier who will guarantee the energy is from renewable sources. You as the consumer might even pay more for that, which is your choice. That is the sort of innovation that we need to bring to bear on the local-authority controlled refuse services. |
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| Rob R |
Ah, I get your point now, I thought you meant the councils operate the waste services 
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| Behemoth |
It's an attractive proposition but the efficiency of duplication has to be weighed against the benefit delivered, the sole measure of reduced cost to the consumer doesn't necessarily mean a better service. As it's a national issue should delivery of these services be inlocal authority hands? | ||||||||
| Rob R |
Bin Laden? I really should throw this joke book away | ||||||||
| orangepippin |
"Food" is a national issue, yet that seems to work fairly well without local authorities being involved in providing it. Their role is - rightly - limited to making sure that consumers are protected from unfair practices or poor hygiene standards etc. You as the consumer have a wide choice of how much you want to pay for your food and where it comes from. If you choose to support organic or local suppliers, you can do so, and if others agree those suppliers will start to prosper. If you want to use a supermarket home delivery service (thereby taking your own car off the road) you can. If the public services feel that there is a national interest in, say, organic production or home delivery, they can tilt the market in favour of those suppliers by adjusting the operating regime. It is amazing how well things can work when the public services are kept out of the actual supply mechanism. I doubt very much that the current monopoly local authority refuse services are "efficient". The problem is that local authorities, like all organisations, seek to get bigger ... and since there is no effective means of controlling them that is what tends to happen, hence you end up getting more and more "services" and paying more and more tax. Sorry to ramble on (I know I am) but the more you pay your local authority in tax, the less money you have to influence your other service providers (whether that is food, or energy or whatever). The solution is either to allow direct competition between local authorities (I live in East Yorkshire but might pay my council tax to Devon county council because they offer me a better deal - which I can't see happening) or to take services out of the control of the local authorities and let consumers contract directly with commercial suppliers (having of course reduced the council tax first). I'll stop now. It's interesting though! |
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| Treacodactyl |
I've been thinking about the possibility of separating the enforcement side of the council from the service side. I think it's happening in some areas, at least here.
But even if this did happen with refuse collection how's that going to prevent people from throwing away so much? I'm not convinced increasing the price of rubbish collection would have much effect. Perhaps some method of processing it much closer to the communities that produce it might help? Longer time between collections so people become aware of just how much stuff they throw out? |
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| Behemoth |
A competitive cheap efficient service, that give people what they want (unlimited quantites of anything taken away weekly) may not be the best outcome. If the service was to be devolved to competitve operators regulation and pricing would have to ensure a tariff structure that encouraged certain behaviours. After all tipping it unsorted in a hole in the ground doesn't cost much. | ||||||||
| orangepippin |
Behemoth. You have a rather cynical view of people. I don't really share it, but maybe that is because I work more in the commercial sector?
Treacodactyl. The NHS commissioning model is interesting. Separate the people who commission the services (the PCTs, GPs) from the people who provide it (mostly the hospitals). It is flawed in implementation, but the concept is good. I'd like to see something similar in local government, maybe with the town and parish councils commissioning services, and the local authorities providing them. However this would take a lot of power away from the local authorities, and although they should put the public interest first, they may find it difficult. |
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| Behemoth |
Most people will be motivated by those conditions, they don't care what happens to it and trust it to be dsposed of properly. After all that's what they're paying them for. | ||||||||
| Rob R |
And if you take food as an example, what proportion is currently sustainable consumption? If people aren't prepared to reduce their consumption now then there's no evidence to suggest they will in a free market. And if it's anything like privatisation of public transport it'll be expensive but frequent in cities (where it is easy to get a lorry load) and non-existent in rural areas.
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| orangepippin |
Aha - "public services good, private sector bad". Sorry, I don't agree with that! | ||||||||
| Behemoth |
I don't think that is what Rob is saying - as the private sector tends to cherry pick its most profitable customers, where they are providing a 'public' service there needs to be some protection of the unprofitable/less profitable customers so that they receive the same standard of service, so an operator would have to offer the same set of tariffs regardless of Geographical location. A universal service. This is pretty much the case for the utilities, post and to a certain extent telecoms.
In terms of charging for the service and influencing behaviours through cost the first thing to do is to decide if we want private companies to carry out this function and should they be required to do it or leave it to the market to fill the niche of providing a 'green service' We also need to decide what a green service is over a standard service or are all operators expected to operate the same high standard green service and they just compete on price. If we do decide that customers can choose their standard of service based on frequency, quantity, cost and dispoal route it is likely the 'greener' service will be the most expensive, having greater operating costs in collection, sorting and disposal (though it's likely that some revenue can be made through disposal). Ultimately, collecting and sorting rubbish for recycling, energy recovery, composting etc costs more than throwing it all in one truck and filling a hole in the ground. If we want to encourage customers down the use less/recycle route they will need rewards for generating less waste and presorting etc. Customer who choose the 'minimum' service would also need rewards for generating less but penalties for not sorting/recycling. So the tariffs would not actually be cost reflective in the true sense if you are using cost to the customer as the market driver, cost is being used to change behaviours. The cheapest customers to service would have to cost more than the expensive, to encourage them down this route. Alternatively you could set operators the same standard, so the customer has no choice in disposal route, operators are expected to operate waste sorting recycling etc, the primary responsibility as OP has argued and people pay a tariff based on frequency of collection and amount, so that the person who generates one bag a week pays the same as a person who generates two bags a fortnight. People who generate more pay more. I'm not sure of the economics or efficiency of running parallel collection and disposal routes in an area, I'm guessing it might work in conurbations. However the collection of the waste could be run through one company, e.g. and the national gas grid, who charge a fee and companies then compete for customers, mainly based on reducing customer service costs like the gas and electric retails. However most customer service costs are incurred in the physical act of billing so I'm not sure how much would differentiate between companies. Waste disposal, sorting, recycling etc could be done on a competitive basis but again I think only in urban areas. I'm not sure if this isn't done through competitive tendering already. So, while I can see possibilities in private sector models, it will need regulation to protect people like Rob and far flung places in West Wales. Also I'm thinking that choice of disposal route would not encourage the behaviours we would like unless moderated to the extent that the tariffs would not actually be a competitive market rate. Difficult, not impossible, and not neccesarily better than we have now just because it is privately run. |
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| Behemoth |
Also we'd have to decide if it was possible for a person not to sign up to a service provider and under what circumstances. | ||||||||
| Treacodactyl |
A large number of services are currently contracted out privately, our council contracts out the door-to-door collection to BIFFA. That's a county wide contract and I can easily see scope for allowing much smaller areas arrange their own contracts, just like some business do.
However, that's moving away from the original question of how you stop the waste in the first place. Perhaps the easiest answer would be a realistic cost for landfill, incineration or whatever? |
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| orangepippin |
I think "the polluter" pays should be the guiding principle here. Consumers may well be prepared to pay the "true" cost. My concern with allowing local authorities to continue to run waste disposal as a monopoly service is that there will be little transparency of what that true cost is. I think councils will be under pressure to use it as a way to increase tax revenues, and I also think that monopoly-run services are not as efficient as services where there is customer choice. Maybe I am a bit cynical on this, but this is based on my own experience including at meetings with our local authority.
Incidentally, I am not blaming councils for this as such - this is how waste disposal is set up, it's (I think) their statutory obligation. Just that statutory obligations that create monopolies are not ultimately a good thing. I do not think that if a council sub-contracts the refuse service it changes the monopoly situation - the consumer is still paying the council tax, and has no choice in the service provider. Consumers will quite rightly be very unhappy if it becomes apparent that the prime purpose of "eco" taxes is just to raise more revenue for the public services. Look at what has happened with speed cameras, it hardly matters whether they work or not, but a lot of motorists think they are just there to raise tax. |
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| Jamanda |
Ours is split into two. The council take the landfill stuff and a company called South Molton Recycle take the glass, paper, green waste etc. We also see vans from a company, charmingly called Clearing Rubbish At Prestige Prices tootling around.
So it isn't a monopoly. I'd like to see the council collection payed for as they do in Ireland, bag by bag. |
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| cab |
Myth. Choice does not make for efficiency. Choice may lead to competition, but the concept that private companies must be more efficient is simply untrue. They must compete on price and services; they may be cheaper, in fact such private systems often are, but more efficient? Who says? Why? Three bin lorries doing the work of one, more efficient? By what definition? Bottom line is this; one van picking up waste and taking it away to the same dump/recyclign centre is more efficient than multiple vehicles doing the same job. Thats unavoidable.
So you'd replace an efficient public service with an unefficient private sector solution. Welcome all, we're back to the dark days of the '80s and the dogmatic insistence on private being best
Support for the use of speed cameras in random surveys is usually 70-80% (see Transport 2000). The kneejerk reaction from loudmouthed anti-camera groups claims otherwise, but that simply is not borne out by the data. Same really is true of eco taxes. |
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| orangepippin |
I hardly know where to begin with this ... you seem to believe another myth, "private sector bad public sector good". Monopolies can be efficient, but I have no way of knowing that in the case of council refuse collection. I pay the council a heck of a lot of money, but I have no way of knowing if I am getting value for money, and, more to the point, no way of changing supplier if I think someone else offers a better service. In the absence of market forces, what other measures are there to ensure efficiency? How do YOU know you have an efficient public service? And there *will* be a backlash against eco-taxes if it turns out they are being used simply as an additional revenue stream. |
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| Treacodactyl |
My experience of our council certainly suggests to me they are far from efficient. I wouldn't want change for change sake but if you could prove private was more efficient then you'd be happy to privatise the services? |
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| Treacodactyl |
It is in the way you don't have any choice in paying your council. Currently if I want to recycle plastic, tetra-packs, cardboard and other things I need to take them to a local tip. As I recycle more than I throw to landfill I might as well take my small amount of landfill with me to the local tip and not pay for the door-to-door service, it'll not result in any more travelling although it's so cheap at them moment it's not worth thinking about. |
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| cab |
No, I don't believe 'private bad, public good', which is why I parodied that statement in my post. But take any solution with two companies running the same route as 1 and taking the same waste to the same places; justify that being more 'efficient'. Note: Thatcher and her subsequent clones in New Labour are wrong when they insist that 'efficient' and 'cheap' are the same thing.
Theres this thing called the 'freedom of information act'. Use it. Write to your councils information officer, refuse collection or environmental services and excercise your right to obtain the information you require. If you're not willing to do that, you have no moral right to complain about not knowing the answer to your questions. Asking here won't help, take your questions to those who can provide the answers. Changing the supplier to a 'better' service? Why does that necessarily lead to greater 'efficiency'?
How do I know? Because I've investigated how my local council collects and disposes of waste. Is it efficient? Yes, it is more efficient than would be the case with multiple vehicles and more people doing the same job. I've done my legwork, now you do yours.
Yes, like there would be a backlash against lemons if it turned out they were plotting the overthrow of the Guatemalan government. You're making an unsupported accusation that such taxes are not appropriate, its an inference that they're wrong, and as such it has no more credibility than the Citrus Revolutionary Party. |
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| orangepippin |
Fair enough, we will have to agree to disagree. We have no common ground on this one. I've done my homework on this topic. | ||||||||
| Behemoth |
Incidentally, you have no way of knowing if you are getting vaslue for money with a private supplier, all you know is that you are happy with the price, which isn't the same thing. Lots of info here about auditing of local authority waste management services: http://www.audit-commission.gov.uk/localgovernment/ Look under Local Government/Environment/Inspection reports |
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| orangepippin |
I think the thing is, none of these things are that simple - I am as guilty as anyone of trying to make it black and white, but it hardly ever is. I guess what we all agree is that things need to get better - even if we don't agree how. | ||||||||
| Rob R |
Neither do I. It would have to be built into the framework that each private sector service provider would be obliged to fulfil an equal number of rural/marginal area contracts for every urban one. Without that us in rural areas (Pock included) would pay more than those in the middle of the city, and coupled with that most of the dumping grounds are out in rural areas, so we get to pay more for the priviledge of living next door to landfill. More likely than it just being expensive I envisage most companies concentrating on competing for urban contracts, leaving the rural areas with either no service or a private monopoly at a higher rate.
They are the same thing, cheap is economically efficient, but that's only as far as it extends (if you ignore the hidden costs of clearing up the mess than some of the cheaper options create). |
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| thos |
Get a tight specification of service and adequate penalties for non-compliance with strict criteria for measurement and you can happily take the lowest bid. |
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| orangepippin |
Well said, Thos
Rob R ... if you or I choose to live out in the sticks should we not pay more for waste disposal? (Or, if the landfill is just down the road, maybe you can take it there yourself and pay less). If you live in a rural area you implicitely pay more for lots of things, but presumably you are prepared to pay the price for the benefits - like the view of the Wolds from my window. |
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| Behemoth |
Making it too expensive to live there is one way of reducing the amount of waste generated.
Those pesky ill people don't half put a strain on the NHS. |
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| Rob R |
Erm, we're on a downsizing forum here, I don't think making it relatively cheap to chuck in urban areas will have a beneficial effect on waste production overall. Taking it there myself might work, providing the charge doesn't follow the normal business model of being cheaper for more quantity, but that still won't be a more efficient system.
It might work another way though, I could go live in York & commute out to work in a morning & use the same car as the businessman who can afford to live in the rural house but works in the city 
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| cab |
Done your homework? Not you haven't. If you have, you'd not have said:
You've chosen to remain in ignorance of what happens to your waste and how its movements are costed; your perogetive, but don't kid yourself that you've done the legwork to find the answers to your questions. |
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| cab |
While paying more money for a regulatory system. The alternative, of course, is just to manage a publically owned system efficiently. A rare viewpoint these days, I know, but it does happen sometimes
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| Behemoth |
That assumes you value such things highly. Many people would view rural living with horror. A place in the country may be the dream of "Middle England" but it's not everybody's aspiration. I value the benefits of walking to the corner shop any time between 6am and 10.30pm more highly, I can go see the Wolds and consume them if I want, but live there, no thanks. |
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| Behemoth |
Would you not ensure that the business model, costs and revenue stack up? The cheapest may not be the best if it goes bust and leaves everyone in the lurch. |
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| cab |
In this scenario, course everyone who was thus left stranded would make a hell of a noise until the publically funded operator collected their waste. |
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| Behemoth |
As if by magic this appeared on the Defra website. We talk they, they listen:
http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/localgovindicators/index.htm |
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| Rob R |
Dunno, do you want me to tell them lads with the land up on the wolds where they can send the bill?
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| Treacodactyl |
It would depend on how you implement it, after all you don't have a dozen or so electricity cables entering your house just so you can choose a supplier do you? If there was more choice in refuse collection people might pay more to a company that recycles a far greater amount of rubbish (I would). It doesn't have to be your exact bag, just like people who buy 'green' electricity do not actually get their electricity direct from green sources. |
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| cab |
While thats true, I'm still reticent to have multiple vans doing the same routes; it may be cheaper but you'll not make it more efficient. And to be honest I'm no firm believer in personal choice if it comes down to 'cheaper', 'recycles more' or 'pay per unit mass'. This is one of those areas where, collectively, we all do better if we aim for all three (because economies of scale in recycling and picking it all up at once, and of course in reducing waste with unit mass payments, chould lead to an overall cost reduction). This isn't an area where I see any greater good argument for free market involvement. |
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| Behemoth |
If we want to encourage that sort of behaviour shouldn't be the other way around, you pay less for recycling? | ||||||||
| Treacodactyl |
You don't have to have multiple vans, just as you don't have multiple electricity cables. Just one possibility, your rubbish is weighed when collected (technology exists for this) all by one company. Then if, say, 10% of people are on a green tariff where they are happy to pay more to ensure nothing goes to landfill or is burnt then 10% of all the rubbish collected is processed in such a way. That's just an idea of the top of my head and I bet there are many better ways to allow for more choice that doesn't mean more lorries. If more people went for monthly collections it could mean less lorries, but we don't have much of a choice in the matter at the moment. |
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| cab |
That isn't how recyclable waste is collected though; its either sorted by the user or sorted at the kerbside. The complexity involved in having a twin chamber van (compostables and non recyclables) with multiple chambers for glass, metal, paper and plastic... Gosh, but I just don't see it happening.
People aren't going to go for a montly collection though. If its much less frequent than once a fortnight then there will be serious problems (arguably fortnightly collections are already causing all sorts of trouble). I'm not sure that there are more ways of doing this without simply having more vehicles, more collections. Besides, I see no clear advantage in relinquishing the obvious economies of scale we already see in refuse collection. |
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| orangepippin |
The "multiple vans" thing feels like a red herring. We have plenty of delivery vans in our street, from different companies - and distribution companies have this kind of thing down fo a very fine art. Also, I might not need a van at all because I am taking my rubbish directly to a collection centre, or I am on a 3 week cycle whilst my neighbour is on 1 week etc etc. As a general rule, competition drives efficiency, and if you can link beneficial behaviours (more recycling) into a competitive environment you will achieve the desired outcome - and at lower overall cost to the country.
I suppose it depends on whether you prefer to give individual choice to do the right thing, or you remove choice and tell people how it is going to be. I prefer choice to dictatorship, but that's just my view! |
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| cab |
Yet the company making most deliveries more economically than all others is Royal Mail. Really, it isn't a red herring at all; multiple delivery companies as you refer to are driving more trips, burning more fuel, causing more congestion and noise. It isn't more efficient, although by cutting corners it could be cheaper.
Replacing one van trip with dozens or hundreds of car trips...
Dogma. Sheer dogma. The idea that competition necessarily leads to efficiency is untrue; it should lead to cost reduction in a real free market, but that is not the same as efficiency. Why do you assume that it is?
More dogma. I demand freedom from policing. Its interfering with my personal choice, I hate this dictatorship. I demand freedom from road networks. I hate paying for them, so the part of my taxes going to them should be scrapped. Damned government thinking it has business spending money on roads, it should be left to the free market to decide where infrastructure goes! (or, in other words, you're applying free market dogma, and like all dogmas it is flawed). |
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| Treacodactyl |
It can be sorted in a central place and they would be able to recycle all the stuff from people who don't bother. Currently we have two lorries on a recycle week. If you want cardboard collected then you phone and a lorry makes a special trip to you, if you have compostables then that's a special trip, if you want to recycle tetra-packs you have to drive somewhere, if you want to recycle plastic you have to drive somewhere else. Perhaps that's a fantastic publicly run scheme but personally I can see plenty of scope for improvement and cutting down on road use. I agree that there might be more vehicles on the road or less depending on how it's done, surely you can see that? |
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| orangepippin |
Cab, it sounds like you are the dogmatic one. Society would be so much better if we did it all your way and everyone did what they were told, think of the efficiency gains. I wonder how many dictators started out like that - well-meaning to begin with, but oh so wrong. | ||||||||
| Rob R |
That's just cab's debating style, even when he's right he can sound wrong
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| thos |
And never mention cyclists! |
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| Rob R |
Actually I'm little unsure, are we proposing to put both waste processing and waste collection entirely in the hands of private companies, or just collection?
I'm thinking of the current provision of farm plastics recycling, which is entirely in the hands of the private sector right now, as a model. |
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| cab |
At even higher cost I should think, once you mix everything in together. Rule of thumb is, I believe, that the more diluted a resource the more expensive it is to extract.
What a dreadful system you have then. We have two lorries every week. First week its general refuse, and glass, metal, paper, then the next week its compostables (including plastic) and plastic. If you must buy tetrapak, then there are recycling facilities at some of the supermarkets.
Less than you have there? Yes. Less than here? Not easily. |
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| cab |
With respect, I'm not the one reciting dogma. You are. The statement that private sector handling of things leads to efficiency... Who says? Why? Its a dogmatic statement.
And there you go again, more dogma. To maintain that certain services are better for all of us if handled by the public sector (say, like, defense, policing, refuse collection, railway infrastructure, road networks...) is not dictatorial. Its practical, its an acknowledgement that replicating the same systems over and over again (as is needed for organisations to compete) is not practical, does not lead to the same cost reductions from scale, and is not any more practical than the way we do things now. And the attempt to portray that as a dictatorial view, you do realise, is comical? |
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| Treacodactyl |
That proves my point. If a parish, village or even a few streets got together then there could be real benefit in being able to choose a refuse provider, or more likely just a better service from the existing company the council has sub-contracted out. It could mean less vehicles on the roads. Re the tetra packs, we don't often visit supermarkets and I think there's only one locally that does it. So they're saved up, probably for a couple of months. I expect most other people landfill them. |
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| Behemoth |
So as EasyBin Area manger i would charge your neighbour more as his demand n the service is greater and the operationa costs are higher. You of course are paying less. So this is about cost, your pocket and the driver is cost. This hasn't addressed the service or how the waste is disposed of. How do you encourage waste reduction (pay less, easy) and recycling (pay more) without relying on good will, what drivers if any, would you suggest? Mind you thniking about it, people who've invested in rubbish lorries and recycling kit want it working all the time. For a private company to have kit standing idle is inefficient. The people who reduce the number of collections are incurring greater capital costs. Hmmm, tricky this business. |
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| cab |
It really proves you're wrong
We only manage that kind of recycling here in Cambridge because of one big, central investor who has taken it seriously (City Council). It isn't economical to do that scale of recycling on a smaller scale; a parish will not find that feasible. |
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| orangepippin |
Yes, I can agree with Behemoth it is complicated. Yes, the main aim is to reduce the amount of waste. You perhaps don't think that competition will achieve that, and may just end up with private companies putting more vehicles on the roads. I on the other hand am concerned that the local councils will be true to form and put their thirst for tax revenue ahead of reducing waste. In a nutshell you are concerned about profit (I think) and I am concerned about tax. Meanwhile the landfill continues!
I'd be a bit more persuaded if I could see good examples of local authorities being innovative and efficient, and demonstrating clear reductions in cost at the same time as improving services ... instead of being hell-bent on tax increases. I am sure there are such examples, but I think the tax motive distorts things more than the profit motive does. |
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| Treacodactyl |
I'm not sure how you work that out. At the end of the day there's a good chance you'd still be using one of the large providers such as Biffa (which are larger than one councils team). On a small scale I gather there are neighbourhood compost schemes. Plenty to look into unless you wish to bury your head in landfill and insist only public service have the answer. |
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| Behemoth |
I'm interested to know how a competitive waste sector can encourage recycling when the aim is counter to its operational costs and competitive tariff structure. Also unless regulated to do so, reducing charges and volume of your primary product (pay less for binning less) is not a great business model. If recycling is advertised and charged for as a premiunm service it will not become mainstream and landfill will not be reduced. |
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| Treacodactyl |
How do the private water companies cope with trying to get people to use less of their product? | ||||||||
| orangepippin |
OK, good question well put, I'll have a think about it. I'm equally interested to hear examples of local authorities achieving the same end. Meanwhile, as per other thread, I have an IPlayer programme to watch. | ||||||||
| Behemoth |
We have a legal duty to encourage water efficiency, the only real benefit is to smooth out peaks, which helps operate the system better, total consumption continues to increase slowly. Most apparent slowing in the rate of increase is due to the closure of industry. It is contradictory though because we also have a duty to supply adequate supplies of water all day everyday. Adequate is pretty much what the customer wants when they want it, we can't stop them and wouldn't want to. That gets a bit messy.
The bin men though could refuse to take the second bag if you're only contracted for one or charge you a surcharge for your extra demand of their service. Possibly, I'd have to read the small print. |