Blackburn council bin collection website

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haveagohero
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Re: Blackburn council bin collection website

Post by haveagohero »

I found out the other day that New York residents have daily refuse collections and they will dispose of anything left on the kerb, sofas, fridges etc. that's the world I one day hope to live in! haha
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Pooneil
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Re: Blackburn council bin collection website

Post by Pooneil »

Inky Pete wrote: Given the amount of mining and quarrying which has taken place in this country over hundreds if not thousands of years, one thing we are NOT short of is holes in the ground to shove landfill.

You never know, if we stopped recycling glass we could even put it in the holes we'll make by digging out the sand to make new glass!

If we all obeyed the current dictats of the recycling nazis the inevitable result would be:-

1. that landfill sites would ONLY contain high concentrations of the highly toxic and difficult to recycle materials which - without being diluted with inert and harmless materials - most definitely WILL cause damage to the environment.

2. that substantial areas of forest will NOT be grown to produce new paper, instead we'll have to deal with vast quantities of the chlorine bleach and other chemicals which are used in paper recycling.

3. that huge amounts of diesel will be burned and pumped into the atmosphere by lorries performing all the additional collections, and by yet more lorries ferrying bulky and heavy materials like paper and glass long distances to the relatively few places in the country where they are recycled.

4. that vast quantities of energy will be consumed in smelting recycled glass down into new glass - FAR more than it takes to make new glass from raw materials.

The ONLY reason that it is economic to recycle glass and paper at all is down to the artificial market created by the Landfill Tax and the tax breaks and direct subsidies paid to the big waste management and recycling companies. They are getting very rich at the taxpayers expense by disposing of harmless materials, whilst doing NOTHING about the residue of nasty toxic stuff.

Recycling is also used by both national and local governments as a cover for the fact that they are also doing NOTHING to encourage RE-USE of materials, and NOTHING to REDUCE usage in the first place - both of which would SAVE us taxpayers money.
Sorry, Pete, you are completely wrong about availability of suitable holes and the risk of pollution.

You have a good point about energy used recycling, but I think on balance it's the lesser of two evils because it sends out the message that we can't just throw stuff away.

You are bang on about the need to reduce what we waste. It's like the whole energy generation 'debate', the real solution is reduction. :thumbright:
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Inky Pete
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Re: Blackburn council bin collection website

Post by Inky Pete »

Within 3 miles of where I'm sitting there are at least six former sandstone quarries and a large former open cast mining site - I know because I used to play in them all as a kid.

These days they are all just sitting there fenced of for 'elf & safety reasons. Any one of them would easily take all of the rubbish generated by the town where I live for the next couple of decades.

On a larger scale - 350,000 tons of coal a year used to come out of this place, and it was in operation for years and years. Plenty of room in here for a couple of cities worth!

http://beta.peoplescollectionwales.co.u ... -mine-2007
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Re: Blackburn council bin collection website

Post by scot-canuck »

One issue I_P groundwater.....Part of the issue is that many sites that were used for rubbish would never now be greenlit due to the risk of polluting groundwater and various aquifers.
Though part of the issue that many were levelled and unmarked, example locally....shore of the local loch was used as a rubbish dump, about 50 years ago they hauled away the vast majority out of town to the current landfill and backfilled what was left with soil for a pitch and putt course and the sports centre...ocassionally odd things get kicked up....but no one knows what is *exactly* down there....
Other issue is there was a previous dump site across the road, council disputed this and had planned to build a school on the site...to silence the critics they did one last set of boreholes where the critics suggested and up came a LOT of waste....school site moved due to the clean up cost....and site left as it was previously......kids football pitch..... :wtf: How can it be ok to play sports on?? (Though waste management in the USA turns their decommissioned sites into parkland, golf courses etc.

The kiwis have a target of something like 95% recycling by x date....they are already north of 60-70% in many areas, partly as packaging has been heavily reduced and in rural areas many people will use the packaging discard bins at the other side of the tills to ditch the packaging they don't need (cardboard etc) as many live 10s of kilometres away from town and therefore have to take waste into town so crucial to minimise how much crap you bring home.

Locally the council are finally aiming to do a kerbside collection of cardboard and a wider range of recyclables...currently at 45%, aim is something like 70+% by 2030 or something. I already take bottles, marg tubs, cardboard etc to the recycling centre weekly, which means my rubbish bin is only 1/2 - 3/4 full at most every 2 weeks. If I didn't have x bags of dog poo...then it might only be 1/4 full....Though don't see them offering a dog poo collection service anytime soon...
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Re: Blackburn council bin collection website

Post by scot-canuck »

We here currently have
- Grey Bin (more like black) - General waste
- Green bin - Plants etc (Don't have one currently, postage stamp garden each side, mainly covered in gravel, might request one though at some point)
- Green box - cans, bottles, paper
Green box every week, bins alternate weeks

Soon
Purple small bin - non recyclable waste every 2 weeks
Grey bin - mixed recyclables - Stockpiled in Arbroath before being sent to WALES (Shotton to be exact...a short 328 mile jaunt) to be sorted - collected every 2 weeks
Food bin - every week
Green bin - as before

Already people are warning the council that using the old general waste bin for recyclables is going to be a disaster as the grey brigade, the neds and those opposed to recycling will just bung whatever in it.......We already pay enough in council tax and most of these bins were issued in 1987 when they were introduced.....
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Re: Blackburn council bin collection website

Post by warmadmax »

two wheelie bins and a plastic tub here,

black/grey lid = non recyclable
Green lid = recyclable card, paper, tins and plastics
blue tub = glass

they alternate each week, tub and green lid one, black lid the next,
no idea where it ends up, but they finally did a collection this morning, was supposed to be monday but the streets where white over.
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Re: Blackburn council bin collection website

Post by Inky Pete »

scot-canuck wrote:One issue I_P groundwater.....Part of the issue is that many sites that were used for rubbish would never now be greenlit due to the risk of polluting groundwater and various aquifers.
Though part of the issue that many were levelled and unmarked, example locally....shore of the local loch was used as a rubbish dump, about 50 years ago they hauled away the vast majority out of town to the current landfill and backfilled what was left with soil for a pitch and putt course and the sports centre...ocassionally odd things get kicked up....but no one knows what is *exactly* down there....
Other issue is there was a previous dump site across the road, council disputed this and had planned to build a school on the site...to silence the critics they did one last set of boreholes where the critics suggested and up came a LOT of waste....school site moved due to the clean up cost....and site left as it was previously......kids football pitch..... :wtf: How can it be ok to play sports on?? (Though waste management in the USA turns their decommissioned sites into parkland, golf courses etc.

The kiwis have a target of something like 95% recycling by x date....they are already north of 60-70% in many areas, partly as packaging has been heavily reduced and in rural areas many people will use the packaging discard bins at the other side of the tills to ditch the packaging they don't need (cardboard etc) as many live 10s of kilometres away from town and therefore have to take waste into town so crucial to minimise how much crap you bring home.

Locally the council are finally aiming to do a kerbside collection of cardboard and a wider range of recyclables...currently at 45%, aim is something like 70+% by 2030 or something. I already take bottles, marg tubs, cardboard etc to the recycling centre weekly, which means my rubbish bin is only 1/2 - 3/4 full at most every 2 weeks. If I didn't have x bags of dog poo...then it might only be 1/4 full....Though don't see them offering a dog poo collection service anytime soon...
It's exactly these percentage targets which are the problem!

That's percentage of total weight, it takes no account of what the stuff going to landfill is composed of!

It actually discourages reduction in total waste and reuse of things like glass bottles and jars, because then the substantial weight of these items would disappear from the "recycled" side of the percentage - even though the total weight of rubbish would be reduced.

As I've said before, glass is completely inert and paper biodegrades naturally and harmlessly - so neither pose any risk to groundwater in landfill. In fact, paper and cardboard act as a buffer and diluter for other more harmful landfill waste.

And I can't help wondering where the environmental balance between recycling a few marg tubs and cardboard boxes versus the fuel you burn taking them to the recycling centre lies!
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Re: Blackburn council bin collection website

Post by transitboy »

Do what i do put it in my neighbours bin :mrgreen:
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Re: Blackburn council bin collection website

Post by scot-canuck »

I_P - I go when I'm headed that direction anyway (recycling point is just off the centre of town...bout a mile from where I live so not miles out of the way), If I didn't recycle the stuff they don't currently pick up kerbside, then my bin would be lipping full by the end of week 1.
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Re: Blackburn council bin collection website

Post by Inky Pete »

Our local tip actively encourages people to drop off trade waste from outside the area for free - provided that it is heavy stuff like rubble and hardcore which puts lots more tonnage into "recycled waste" column of the spreadsheet.

More than once I've seen the skip rats who work there almost fall over themselves to open the barrier for a flatbed transit with an out of area builders name on it full of builders rubble, but then I've also seen them turn away a guy with half a dozen uPVC window frames in a trailer because "that's trade waste, mate."

FAR too much attention paid to the weight of waste recycled, none whatsoever to looking at its composition.
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