My commiserations to the good people of Monmouthshire, who are to be limited to putting out two bin bags of rubbish a fortnight in an attempt to make them recycle more.
For why?
The council's non-recyclables limit is the strictest in Wales; as it aims for recycling rates of 58% by 2015/16. Unsurprisingly, according to the BBC, more than 1,000 people have signed an online petition against the limit.
However, if the council is to be believed (who actually believes what their local council tells them?) they are in something of a bind; for they cannot afford to keep paying millions of pounds in landfill tax, nor fines for missing recycling targets.
Q: Why do the government/EU fine councils for not hitting recycling targets?
A: Because governments need money to function, and fining councils (which then pass on the fines to us) is an easy way to raise revenue.
The council believes up to 70% of what is thrown away is recyclable or food waste.
Belief is one thing, but facts are more often than not another.
That being said frankly speaking (to mount my hobby horse....can I say "mount" at this hour?) wasting food is a disgrace, most especially as there are so many people in the UK who are clearly eating too much anyway compared with the millions who starve elsewhere.
Has no one heard of bubble and squeak??
At some stage the profligacy of food in this country will be brought to a juddering halt. We are an island and cannot grow enough to feed ourselves; ie we rely on imports, which are becoming ruinously expensive as staple food prices (rice, grains etc) rise in response to lower yields and rising demand from a wealthier Asia Pacific.
Anyhoo, disregarding the fact that market forces will correct what Nanny's interference won't wrt food waste, the simple fact is that an average household (wasteful or not) will generally produce more than two bin bags of waste in a fortnight.
Monmouthshire has form for being bin fascists, in April, plans for clear bin bags that would have allowed the council to check on what people throw away were scrapped following opposition.
Whatever happens, one thing can be certain the good people of Monmouthshire will be fined for every "breach" of Nanny's rules.
Ker Farking Ching!
Visit The Orifice of Government Commerce and buy a collector's item.
Visit The Joy of Lard and indulge your lard fantasies.
Show your contempt for Nanny by buying a T shirt or thong from Nanny's Store.
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Why not really indulge yourself, by doing all the things that Nanny really hates? Click on the relevant link to indulge yourselves; Food, Bonking, Gifts and Flowers, Groceries
Here in Wokingham we have bin bag rationing too: where as we used to supply our own black bags for our refuse, Nanny now supplies blue bags and will not accept the black bags. We are supplied with Eighty Wokingham Borough Council bags each year, which is less than two a week.
ReplyDeleteNanny states that the reason for this policy is to encourage recycling and to avoid the fines and charges however, the bags are so flimsy that we have to put our rubbish into a black bag first and then put that into Nanny's bags.
You are of course right about the Kerching aspect of this policy however, my real question is why did our government allow an unelected, foreign body to be able to impose charges on us for dumping our own waste in our own land?
I don't know if they still make them, but years ago, in those little adverts they used to have in the back of the Radio Times for sheds and stuff, there used to be a rubbish compressor device, worked by a foot pedal I think, which squeezed all your rubbish down into a block. If you worked at it hard enough you could probably compress a couple of week's worth of rubbish into one sack which would have the density of a collapsed red dwarf star. Let them sort that one out.
ReplyDeleteKirklees council stopped the monthly glass collection earlier this year, however very kindly let us keep the recycling bin so that we could "use it to take glass to the recycling site yourself". I've found it's perfect for growing a couple of tomato plants!
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