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Mrs Fiddlesticks

Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 10460

Posted: Wed May 24, 06 12:14 pm Post subject:
the alternative at the moment is to buy green plastic sacks from the post office for garden waste at 65p each which are collected and dumped in landfill. Neither solution is ideal I can see. Dunno, it does seem like a sneaky 'tax' on recycling and I can see why perhaps there won't be much of an uptake. Still thinking...

bernie-woman

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 7824
Location: shropshire

Posted: Wed May 24, 06 12:16 pm Post subject:

Rowanlady wrote:

mark wrote:

.......... I have never heard of a council charging for picking up green waste - i.e garden waste - we have a collection as part of our council tax - I would be asking a few pertinent questions............

Our council charges for collecting green waste -

" After 29 March 2004, garden waste is not allowed in wheeled bins. Instead there are three ways you can compost your garden waste.......Home Composting; Household Waste Recycling Centres; and -

Garden Waste Collection
For just £20 a year, we will supply you with a tough, re-usable sack and empty it once a fortnight. Additional sacks for the same address are just £10 a year each. To subscribe to the garden waste service either call us on xxxxxxxx "

Many questions have been asked and the gist of the answer is that it is part of the agreement with the waste management contractor, Project Integra - covers all Hampshire

Then after it is all composted they SELL it back to us as ProGro - good stuff and almost peat-free (depends on what people put in)

I would still ask why certain councils can do this - were you putting all waste into one bin - we have a black wheelie bin for household waste which is non-recylable (ours usually has any plastics in it) we have a black box for tins and glass, a blue box for paper and a green bin for garden waste all provided by the council - and as I understand it we have one of the lowest council taxes in the country

I know 20.00 isn't a lot of money but times it by the number of houses in your borough/district and then they are asking you for money to buy it back

As I understand it teh government has put recycling targets for all councils to achieve - you shouldn't IMHO be paying anything extra to your council tax

culpepper

Joined: 16 Dec 2004
Posts: 638
Location: Kent

Posted: Wed May 24, 06 12:19 pm Post subject:

we have a green waste collection but it is not free either.Ours works by the council selling marked green bags which you have to buy from the town hall for 3.50 for 5 bags.You leave them out every 2 nd week and they empty them all into a dustcart.The bags are just thrown away as far as I can tell.It useful if you have a lot of brambles or couch but otherwise its not worth the money.I stick all the weeds in black plastic bags now and just leave them to rot.

bernie-woman

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 7824
Location: shropshire

Posted: Wed May 24, 06 12:21 pm Post subject:

culpepper wrote:

Well you learn something new every day - I am really quite shocked that many of you are paying

Ooohh it is a good job I don't live in any of these places I can feel a placard outside the town hall moment coming on

Rowanlady

Joined: 21 Apr 2006
Posts: 195
Location: NE Hampshire

Posted: Wed May 24, 06 12:23 pm Post subject:

There's been black wheelie bins since we moved here - 14 years ago - and separate blue recycle bins for at least 5 years - paper, cardboard, tins, plastic bottles

Last year there was a trial for glass collections and it will be rolled out District-wide this autumn

Garden waste was collected in the 'general' black bin until 2004 - it seems that most people now drag their garden waste to the Recycling Centre and the 'bag' system is used mainly by the elderly without car facilities

We compost in the garden, but occasionally take heavy clippings (ie lleilandi) and invasive weeds - we pass the place on our way to the monthly supermarket shop

cab

Joined: 01 Nov 2004
Posts: 32429

Posted: Wed May 24, 06 12:32 pm Post subject:

We're lucky. Green bin for compostables (including scraps of food, bone, meat if need be), blue box for plastic bottles, black box for paper/cans/glass, and a black bin for anything else (plastic wrapping, basically).

No extra fees for any of this.

If I had to pay for the green one that would be okay. But if it didn't take kitchen or food waste then basically it would be taking things that I already compost at home, so I wouldn't bother.

sean
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 42207
Location: North Devon

Posted: Wed May 24, 06 12:34 pm Post subject:
Oddly, one of the permitted substances for our newish green bins is 'clean straw'. Now I haven't got any, but if I was the sort of person who had, why would I be throwing it in the bin?

Nick J

Joined: 19 May 2006
Posts: 94

Posted: Wed May 24, 06 1:03 pm Post subject:

Our council is very good. Green box for paper/card. Red box for plastic and cans. Black box for glass and a large brown wheelie bin for compostables including cooked food scraps. All bins provided free and collection with ordinary rubbish although the paper and Glass/Plastic are alternative weeks. The composot one is useful as they take stuff I can't put on my own heaps like woody material. I think all councils should be looking to do similar things. The simpler they make it for people the more chance of getting the message across.

Sorry doesn't help you Mrs F but it might be worth pointing your local authority in the direction of councils like Bexley which is my own and say to them "If they can do it why can't you ?"

marigold

Joined: 02 Sep 2005
Posts: 12458
Location: West Sussex

Posted: Wed May 24, 06 2:04 pm Post subject:
Our council "charges" for green waste collection by selling bags at 50p each - collection is fortnightly I think. The bags are brown paper and presumably composted along with the green stuff. Alternatively you can take stuff to the tip or compost it yourself (subsidised compo bins are £6 each).

Mrs Fiddlesticks

Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 10460

Posted: Tue Jun 06, 06 1:08 pm Post subject:
We've decided to go for this scheme as it will reduce the amount we put in bins or burn on the plot. However we have e-mailed the 'waste team' at our local district council who are administrators of this with our comments (and copied it to our parish council). Any replies I'll put here.

Mrs Fiddlesticks

Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 10460

Posted: Wed Jun 07, 06 9:19 am Post subject:

had a pleasant e-mail in return to our enquiries about the cost of the brown bin scheme.

I'll paraphrase, basically the council decided that as not all residents would be able to make use of the scheme, then they felt that diverting council tax money for it was unfair so that's why they're charging ( Mrs F comment - we're in a mostly rural area of villages, and small market towns with mixed housing, whilst arguing that not everyone may use the scheme is defenceable we're not known as an area of high flat ownership for example, so an inner city council would have a better leg to stand on using that one, but there you go..)

They also said that some councils are able to offer such things free as there are government grants and aid for poorly performing councils to improve their recycling rates - our council is a good recycler so isn't entitled to any government financial help.

Just thought that was interesting!

Platypus

Joined: 14 Apr 2005
Posts: 56
Location: Hampshire

Posted: Wed Jun 07, 06 11:24 am Post subject:

Rowanlady wrote:

Many questions have been asked and the gist of the answer is that it is part of the agreement with the waste management contractor, Project Integra - covers all Hampshire

Sounds like another dodgy excuse to me.
I live in hampshire (Fareham) and we have three collections ALL FREE.

Green wheelie bin for household waste
Blue top wheelie bin for recyclable plastics and papers
Large reusable sack for garden clippings etc.

The only thin we don't get collected is glass! Which is a shame as we always seem to have loads of empty wine bottles for some reason

Northern_Lad

Joined: 13 Dec 2004
Posts: 14210
Location: Somewhere

Posted: Wed Jun 07, 06 11:31 am Post subject:

Mrs Fiddlesticks wrote:

...basically the council decided that as not all residents would be able to make use of the scheme, then they felt that diverting council tax money for it was unfair so that's why they're charging ...

Could you ask for a list of all the services they provide and charge for and then opt out of the one's you don't need/use? Best done in one's best Margo Ledbetter voice.

Mrs Fiddlesticks

Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 10460

Posted: Wed Jun 07, 06 11:37 am Post subject:

Northern_Lad wrote:

Mrs Fiddlesticks wrote:

Could you ask for a list of all the services they provide and charge for and then opt out of the one's you don't need/use? Best done in one's best Margo Ledbetter voice.

tempting although we pay part of our council tax to the parish council (who I know do street cleaning and a few other things) so it would be quite complicated to work that out

Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Wed Jun 07, 06 11:39 am Post subject:

Northern_Lad wrote:

Mrs Fiddlesticks wrote:

Could you ask for a list of all the services they provide and charge for and then opt out of the one's you don't need/use? Best done in one's best Margo Ledbetter voice.

That's a little odd, I must be using all the services our council provides for children even though I don't have any.

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