Wondering if anyone knows anything about recycling.
It is always presented to us as the greatest good that one can do for the environment. But I read an article a while back in the New Scientist that seemed to imply that it is not as simple as that. For example, apparently there paper recycling centres are few and far between (I think they said there was only one in the UK). That means there is a lot of traffic caused in that one place. When they recycle the paper they end up with a huge load of black sludge from the ink, that they are not sure what to do with for the best. The botttom line was that on balance New Scientist was suggesting that x percent of paper should be burnt, x percent put in landfill, and only x percent to be recycled.
Now, what about glass? All those bottles we put into recycling bins. What happens to them? Why are they not refilled? Years ago, you could take some bottles back to the shop and get money back. In France they used to do that with wine bottles. Surely melting them down is not environment effective? And is the glass re-used? When you find "Recycled glass" in craft shops, it always looks a bit strange. Does that mean that the majority of glass isn't in fact recycled at all? Are there mountains of glass waiting to be recycled somewhere?
And what about "plastic film" - on packets, it often tells you that the film is recyclable, then you go to the recycling centre and there is nowhere to put it.
What about cardboard - is it better to compost it than to send it for recycling? ie, is the point of recycling to provide an alternative to landfill or is to there to save resources in the first place?
Just wondering...
Sarah.
That's a can of worms!!
One's local council produces a leaflet on it, but that doesn't scratch the surface. And it's all now being sold to China?? = Tim
We all recycle round here, and have a huge new tip that recycles almost everything, even rubble!
I have a funny feeling I read somewhere that they use recycled glass to make new roads, don't quote me it could be a figment of my very vivid imagination! We have council benches around that are made from recycled shopping bags! But as Tim says, I think is is a can o worms!! You hear some good, some bad stories, but it makes me feel that in some small way I am helping the planet! (though having loads of bins for this and that around a small house drives me nuts!) DP
Our paper and card goes to Aylesford Paper Mill. I've seen a video and they have to scim off the black sludge. (Can't remember what they do with it.) Rumour has it that our green bottles get shipped to China, but rest of glass supposedly gets recycled. Our council doesn't collect plastic film, only rigid plastic (bottles etc), some of which allegedly gets turned into drain pipes etc, but most of which is turned into fuel pellets for the Slough incinerator. Believe there's only one company in the country recycling our cans (Alucan?) but hear they're quite successful.
Here our City Council is responsible for collecting the waste. They collect recyclables (paper, card, cans, rigid plastic, foil) in clear sacks, residual waste in black bins and green (garden) waste in green bins. By 2010 I think all councils will have to be offering separate collections of at least 2 recyclables - EU regs. Because our City Council is ahead of the game, our recycling rates are the highest in the county. HOWEVER, the City Council is only responsible for collecting the waste: it is the County Council's responsibility to dispose of or find a market for it. The recycling targets are based on what is collected by the City Council, so the County Council could, if it chooses, just lump all the separate collections together, bung them in the incinerator they're building at Allington or the landfill in Canterbury and still claim we're recycling wondrous percentages.
Sorry, this babbling habit is catching...
Hello.
Used to know a bit about recycling, as I did a 4 yr post-grad course on Environmental Technology.
It is a can of worms. Essentially everyone should try to do the 3 Rs: Reduce - Re-use - Recycle to cut down on their waste - especially packaging waste (composting organic matter is an obvious one to everyone here!). However, reducing energy and resource consumption by waste management and recycling is something that has a lot of factors, including there being a valid use for the material at the end of the waste stream, the energy required to convert the waste into something usable, and the transport requirements for moving it about. However, these days there are more and more initiatives to use recycled materials, most of which make sense.
Waste paper is very dependant upon the market - a few years ago I heard of Materials Reclaimation Facilities that collected all the paper from the domestic waste stream, baled it, stored it awaiting a good price on waste paper but regularly ended up landfilling the lot!
Glass can be recycled into more glass products, and uses less energy than starting from scratch (but one brown bottle in a clear glass bin means the whole lot has to be downgraded to filler for construction work, so that's where most of it goes).
Metals have been recycled for years, are relatively easy to separate, and as they are melted don't need much cleaning. Transport is usually the issue, as metal items are heavy and bulky to move - better to crush metal items (e.g. cans) so someone isn't moving fresh air about the place.
Plastics are difficult, it really depends on what your local authority is doing about recycling - where we live there is no collection of plastics, but where my folks live they have a crate to collect plastics in which gets emptied once a week. Depending on the plastic there are a variety of uses for it, from making flower pots, the 'mock-wood' street furniture and fencing you sometimes see around, to filler in other plastic products.
The real issue is getting as 'clean' a supply of recyclables as possible - contaminated by neither 'dirt' or other materials. This means that less energy has to be expended in converting the recyclate into something else. Workplace schemes for collecting only white printer paper, or plastic vending cups, or aluminium cans are good, and there are penty of companies about that run such schemes, often for free. End of life vehicles are increasingly being scrapped in such a way that most recyclables are reclaimed before the metal bits are melted down. IT equipment and white goods are a major problem, as they often contain high levels of lead (in the solder) and other nasties, that need removing. Shipping it all to China is not an ideal option, I feel. The labour costs may be cheaper, but the transport costs (emissions and energy) must be huge. Hopefully more intelligent design of products with end-of-life issues in mind will make it easier to recycle things in the future.
Regarding domestic waste it really is a case of everyone doing as much as they can, given limitations of cost, time and space at home - but the Government must make an effort too, in getting local authorities to improve their practices. It's a shame that Tony Bluergh only seems to make some of the right noises about the Environment, without any real changes taking place.
Blimey what a ramble! I do apologise...!
Well it definitely is an interesting subject and it really is a can of worms.
You see, I think for people who are a "bit worried" about the environment, it's all too easy to shove something into a "recycling" bin and feel absolved of guilt.
Trouble is, the best thing to do, like Speedy said, is to "reduce". Now that clearly isn't happening. The packaging industry must be making a fortune and there don't seem to be any incentives coming from the government on how to reduce this problem.
And as for China, judging by the content of our toy cupboard, and the knee-deep mass of plastic objects all over our carpets, they must be shipping plastic over here by the freighter-load.
Ramble, ramble. And I don't feel like I've got any control over the rubbish that ends up in my house. It seems like anybody and everybody can afford to buy your children bits of plastic nonsense on a whim. And it's not even like the charity chops want great sack-loads of plastic toys - cos no sensible parent wants to buy any more of it. And god help the 3rd world, if we ship it back to them.
At least when I pick something from the lotty, it doesn't come packaged in plastic, but I do drive there (reaches for self-flagellation equipment....)
Sarah.
Know someone who shops regularly at the local supermarket. When she gets home she takes all the packaging off everything, transfers the contents to jars, and containers, and then walks back to the supermarket and hands all the empty packets to customer services for them to deal with. She also composts her kitchen waste (she's vegetarian) and recycles everything she can. The quantity of "residual" waste collected from her house for landfill is no more than a carrier bag's worth.
We've got ours down to a kitchen pedal bin's worth and much of that is plastic film. Can't do much more without Govt/LA help.
Hi,
I had every intention of having a good rant & rave about ... well about everything - especially HRH goverment's attitude to preservation and recycling, but about individual's too. But having written a long(ish) note (it started to look like a 50,000 word essay) I deleted it all before I posted it because I guess that not everyone feels quite so strongly about these things.
-- Biting my lip ...
-- Alan
I do (feel strongly, that is), Alan, so feel free to rant and rave ;D
We recycle whatever we can - all kitchen waste into the compost, food waste (if practical) to the birds, cans, bottles, rags/clothes/shoes into our green bin collected fortnightly by council, paper into paper sack, fortnightly collection, 'other' garden waste into brown bin, collected fortnightly (I have probably only used this 3 or 4 times during the year and then it has been filled with horrible weeds from the allotment and nothing from my garden!) then black bin to take regular household rubbish. Our local tip is complicated to use as it is a series of different sections depending what you are disposing off and there are bottle, paper, clothes, book, and can 'bins' in all of our supermarket car parks, some schools and some pubs.
The thing that amuses me the most is outside my nans house in Clapham, there are a series of bottle banks and she watched people religiously sorting the green from the brown from the clear....she then watches as the big lorry comes and dumps them all into the same skip in the back, mixing them all up again!
EJ, I was in a local "Bring" centre here in the summer and that happened. I asked the custodian was it not a bit stupid to sort, then mix them in the truck. He said that each coloured bottle bits were sectioned off from each other in the back of the truck...It did look a bit dodge though at first.
My folks in Cambridgeshire are about to have Brown Bins supplied..for...garden waste.This.. in a rural area where, as far as I know all is composted anyway.Agree about the transport cost of recycling, tis all a racket.
My pet peeve with our council is not the fact that we have to recycle round here,I am all for it, if it helps! but now we can't put kitchen compost waste into our green bin. (I don't cos mine gets composted, but many others used to do!) We do not have curbside collection for bottles (a few of them in our house!!) or plastics. So we take them to a local recycling place. (in car of course,) We only get our household rubbish collected once every 2 weeks, which is a bit of a nuisance with 4 in the house,(especially in the summer heat!) so yet another trip to the tip, (using car again) and after WE do all the work our DEAR council ups our tax!! >:( Rotten toads, we should pay less cos we make the effort! Maybe thems that doesn't bother should pay more!!! :-\
Geez Doris a collection once a fortnight? :o I hope our council don’t get to hear about that up here, heaven forbid we struggle to get all our waste into one and sometimes two bags in a week and there are only two of us (TMI). :o
Is that the norm in the southern regions I wonder? ???
I hire a van once week to dispose of my bottles. ;D
Our City Council is introducing a fortnightly collection of black bin (residual) waste in the new year, ostensibly to encourage us to recycle more. It'll be coming your way soon, Roy, just you wait and see!
Son no 2's main task in the house is taking the bottles to the bottle bank up the road. Not willing to say how many visits a week he makes tho' ;D
it will reach you roy, no doubt! government targets see!
east of you in leicestershire we have just had this introduced by our district council. just gone over to wheelie bins, every fortnight for household waste, alternate fortnights for the 'green' waste. which naffs me off somewhat as i compost the majority anyway. and there's been a masssive increase in tax.
they also have had protests in summer about once a fortnight not being enough.
we do have an element of recycling too-bottles, tins, foil, paper and clothes are taken, but not plastic.
my major bugbear is our ash- obviously the new bins are plastic, so hot ash.....!
so, out of our own money we've purchased new metal containers for ash, this has to then be tiped into the household waste bin. it takes up half the wheelie bin in winter. there are no concessions to those in the coal areas, which is a lot here, it's just tough. and they wanted it in a plastic bag separately!! fat chance!!
grrr! must stop now!
We used to have fortnightly collections of household rubbish, but during last summers heat, our local tory councillor received over 500 photographs of wheelie bins full of maggots, bluebottle and flies! He used the wheelie bin issue to get back into power really as he promised if we voted him in, weekly collections would begin again asap, and you know what, he got in, and amazingly, within weeks we were back on weekly collections! Now we recycle, I rarely fill our wheelie and that is with 4+1 (stepdaughter), unless I am having a sort out of course.
My mums council provide them with clear plastic bags for garden waste but only collect during the summer months, so now when she could do with it due to all of the leaves - she isn't a gardener and doesn't compost unless I ask her sweetly, they don't take, so she has to drive to the tip to fill up the green waste bin for them!! >:(
I will not welcome fortnightly collections and will put up a fight if it is to be. >:(
What really peeves me is when I accumilate more bulk rubbish like the remnants of decorating old carpet etc and load up the car to make a trip to the tip and along the way see rubbish that mindless fly tippers have dumped. >:(
I then phone our council who will willingly send out a large wagon and clear it up within 24/48 hours. If I politly ask them to collect my said bulk rubbish they tell me if I'm in a hurry, dispose of it myself, otherwise they will collect from my front garden within 3 weeks ???
We are being given two extra wheelies next year for recycling and will then have them emptied on alternate weeks. If we wish an uplift of a large item then there is a separate charge of £15.
We also have the second highest rate of Council Tax in Scotland. >:(
Howya,
our wheelie bins were not collected yesterday. Maybe they're going to fortnightly. Only two of us, not much stuff, compost all kitchen waste, recylce glass, paper and cans, tins in green bin. A young couple 3 doors up with a 1 yr old, bin overflowing. Mostly leaves this week, I think. It's the big story over here these last three years, bringing in a bin tax. Double taxation. Big meeting of dublin city council next monday night. Setting the fees for next year. If noone pays why bother. If councillers vote down the charges, the city manager annuls the council and we get a city ceo type person who decides him/herself. I recylce the demands and threatening letters into the green bin.
Fly tipping is rampant. And going to increase. Must remember what happened to that inquiry into the hospital waste (a children's hospital near me) that was found dumped on a local green area/ football pitch.
Used a load of 2L bottles of milk cut in half to plant up to 50 chestnuts this year. Looking to get rid of the top halfs!!! Need a lift to the bring centre for plastics. I have them all in sacks. A bit unsightly. I have REALLY long hedges out back, and can't compost it all. I have to pay to get rid of it i.e. at a council compost centre or just dump it in the weekly pick up. Our Environment minister just spent E52million (30million stg) on an electronic voting system that has been scrapped. Authorities got rid of old equipment anticipating electronic version. had to buy all new stuff. Heard on radio today that Health minister spent E130million commissioning reports, which gather dust....
Getting back to rubbish, they are in Dublin determined to go to a pay by weight system in the new year, but people will just tip their stuff in next door's bin. Guaranteed. You'll need a sentry for your wheelie bin.
Had to laugh at Ken68, brown bins in the rural areas!!!
I need on of them.
A couple of years ago, the city council in Cork refused to collect rubbish from houses who hadn't paid their bin tax. Households brought their stuff to the steps of city hall. Legally they had to tidy it up and collect all paid and unpaid households. Quickly, rather efficiently, and bypassing other needy legislation, the laws were changed. Like in the uk where the number one issue is banning foxhunting when there are other more important issues 10 a penny that should be looked at first. Mad innit?
My ash is building up and up. Mostly turf ash, bits of wood. Most of my garden is grass, only a small area of open soil. I hate to just bung it in with the regular rubbish.
ramble ramble sorry.
ok, just one more bit of good news. In 1990 they banned smokey coal in Dublin, so less people die of lung complaints every year, similar to the Clean Air Act in the UK, I suppose. Dramatically less so. And 4 years ago they put a 15c tax on the normal tesco type plastic bags. Worked a treat.
And NO SMOKING IN PUBLIC PLACES.
I changed my mind, Ireland is great after all.....
Roy, if we want extra rubbish to be collected then we pay!! :o my bin in the summer was revolting, full of maggots, but the local flies as you can guess thought it was GREAT!!I felt sorry for the blokes that had to collect it cos it ponged big time!
Fly tipping round here is rampant too, you never know where you are going to find an old fridge! But thats cos in our councils wisdom they decided to build a housing estate on our old tip and wait 3 years till they built the new one! (no doubt on the "new estates" council tax!)
Must admit DG that I nip the odd bag of rubbish to me Mum's bin, we find with 4 adults in the house (well 2 adults 2 teenagers) a once every 2 week collection doesnt suit, and we recycle everything we can! Christmas is a nightmare!! And in our parish if it ain't in the bin (ie: a bag on the side)they won't collect it! If your ash is mainly from grass and wood, think I am right in saying tis good for the garden! Coal on the other hand isn't! Now I am ramblin!
We are quite lucky. In our neighbourhood, once a month there is a bulk refuse collection, so long as you can take the bulk to the school car park. I know it is only once a month, but it helps, and is good for the old peeps who don't drive. (Our local tip is a good 10 minutes drive, in no traffic!) Also, at 'peak' times of year, namely Easter and Christmas, the dustmen collect 'extra' rubbish so long as it is bagged, sealed and piled next to your full wheelie bin. They do this for 2 collections, so we are able to get rid of all of the excesses of the season. Wish the excess calorific poundage was as easy to shift!
I live in Belgium now and re-cycling is the norm. Ha! Initially it was OK...It's turned out to be a load of brain washing.
We started out by being given a green bin into which we put all garden type and kitchen waste. We were also given black bags for general rubbish which were biodegradable and had the council logo printed on them. All other bags were not collected. Once a month the council picked up for free, all paper waste and once a month any large items such as fridges, TV's doors etc were piled up outside and also collected at no extra cost. This encouraged people to join in the re-cycling idea....
Then, slowly, over the years we have had a bit of a change!
The black bags we now have to buy from the local shop. These cost about £1 each. The green bin has been replaced with another green bin with a bar code printed on it. When it's emptied we are sent a bill for the weight of it's contents. Many people now have lockes fitted to their green bins to prevent other people using them!
Paper is still collected free but if there is so much as a tiny bit of anything among it, it's regected, even putting them in a plastic bag is a no-no.
The once free collection of bulky items is now chargeable, and it's not cheap.
All this cost is extra to what we have always paid in local taxation. Not a bad scam that, getting paid twice for the same job!
The road-side waste-bins have gone so we have no where to put 'street waste'. (No public loo's either!)
All of this has led to fly-tipping. My local wood is littered with rubbish. Up to last year I always took a bag with me when I walked my dog in the woods. Not now, it would mean I would have to pay to have it collected! It must cost more to remove all that rubbish than what they make in selling bags.
In down-town Antwerp there is dumped rubbish on many of the back streets. It would be hilarious if it wasn't so serious watching how people drop rubbish. I've seen lots of then put a bag down, pause to light a f*g and calmly walk away from what is just a bag of rubbish!
So, although the idea of re-cycling must be encouraged, the councils must also encourage us to join in and do it correctly without adding to local taxation.
Having read Kens thread I can see why fly tipping is getting so popular, catching the odd fly tipper will not deter peeps and sneaking in the odd charges here and there will only flame even more peeps to copy the trend.
We have a regular weekly unknown fly tipper in our street, come Christmas it will be his/her anniversary for doing just that. That is how long I and others have been reporting them and the good old council collect without as much as groan. ;)
I guess that one could organise a "neighbourhood flytip" where everyone in a street could dump their rubbish (on the common, say) then call the council who whould have to arrange for it to be collected (for free) and would not then be able to charge householders for rubbish collection - could even ask for a rebate because there woild be no rubbish to collect from houses.
I am joking folks (just in case) - but I can see a similar scenario being carried out across the country.
Another fine example of the difference between what politicians say and what they do!
What kenkew describes is probably what's going to happen in Dublin. Pay by weight. Could you delete it Ken, so they don't get the idea sooner than necessary!!! The lock idea is good, but between taking it off before going to work and the bin collection is the crucial time for fe*kers to dump stuff in your bin.
And Doris_Pinks, I would put my stuff in my mother's bin, but not in a stranger's or welcome a stranger putting his/hers in mine.
Had to laugh last week, bought a new pair of football boots. Girl at desk said "if they don't suit, just bring them back, including the box". Shudda given her the box there and then!!!!!! Must take a trip into town and return the box to see what they say.
My mrs. complains or slags me off for robbing skips of junk! I am raging that about a month ago I missed out on the chance of two washing machine insides, Roy's recommendation for containers....
Quote from: EJ - Emma Jane on November 25, 2004, 14:58:21
The thing that amuses me the most is outside my nans house in Clapham, there are a series of bottle banks and she watched people religiously sorting the green from the brown from the clear....she then watches as the big lorry comes and dumps them all into the same skip in the back, mixing them all up again!
We spotted a similar thing happening at work - they provided us with special bins for vending machine cups, which we thought was very noble until we spotted the cleaners emptying said bins into the general waste on their rounds! Upon enquiry it turned out that the company had no cup recycling policy, just the bins! It didn't take long for pressure to be brought to get the cups recycled properly - not much of a chore considering the recycling company take them away for free!
One thing the Council is good at disposing of is flip top plastic kithen bins. I know I shouldn't put them out, but I use them to separate out cut glass from picture framing.
So - new crew yesterday. Had 2 out there. Saw they hadn't been replaced, so rushed out (at a fast walk) shouting 'don't crush them'. Managed to dig one out of the muck but the other was too deep under. No Christmas bonus this year! = Tim
amazing reading all the comments, I recycle what I can.
I cleared the garden a bit and took trailer(small)to the tip to dispose of rather than fly tipping!
I use the trailer for the dirty stuff and save journeys,the car was a taxi so had to keep clean, hence the trailer!
Told I couldn`t bring trailer into tip.
Complained to council about it and said if \I can`t bring trailer into tip then I would fly tip :o or dump at the tip gates and run like buggery!
They said can take trailer of any size I like but not for sheds and rubble of kitchen or bathroom reovations?
Funny that cos I need to renovate kitchen or garden or bathroom once in 20 yrs and cant take stuff anywhere unless MILES away and pay by weight( or fly tip for free)
so went again and bloke at tip said no, I said YES, ask your boss,ask the council etc and bugger off and let me do the right thing,didn`t try stop me as said would leave out on main road if had to but not taking home ;D
What a planet we live on! always on about environment and wont let us comply!
Bus stops traffic for priority,stops 20 cars at Gatwick with 30 odd people in it, bus has 7 on it. 20 cars have to excellerate again using much more fuel than the bus ???
I just recycled 10 beds from a hotel that were destined for the landfill! Call me a pikey but I couldn`t bear to see the wood go to waste,many staples and blisters later but I have saved all the wood from these and used it as a compo heap!
(http://publish.hometown.aol.co.uk/andya2b/myhomepage/beds01.jpg?mtbrand=AOL_UK)
(http://publish.hometown.aol.co.uk/andya2b/myhomepage/beds02.jpg?mtbrand=AOL_UK)
We have a new twin bin recycling service. We have 2 black bins and one red recycling bin. We also have a green cone food digester, and an 800L compost bin.
Also a tip skip comes once a fortnight to the town car park for "big stuff". The guys at this skip are very helpful and take green waste as well.
Yet other people seem to not bother at all. OK its a pain to separate everything when you are busy - but what is the cost if we don't?!
Flytipping of old cement sacks?? is common around here.
I agree with what's being said here. Why don't we get 10 p for taking a bottle back like in the old days? That was the only pocket money I got! So it was in my interests to take back as many as possible. We import so much food - all in plastic containers, eg green beans from Zimbabwe or somewhere, plastic junky toys from China etc. Why import all this stuff in the first place? I know it might be about choice but what does it do for the planet to fly stuff right round the world when we could produce it here, green beans being an example! When I got to the supermarket for any veg, eg ginger I don't put it in a bag. That's a small thing but it's a start and if everyone else did it ...... Any small placcy bags I do get become pooper scoopers. I divide my used carrier bags up and take them to our local small shops who are always glad of them. Any plastic fruit boxes become plant pots etc. I'm trying not to put anything in the bin that can be re-used. Pity everyone else doesn't do so but it shouldn't be an option. I've even got my OH at it now and I noticed those plastic triangular sandwich things he's using to keep nails in :)
I just posted a great big rant and managed to lose it. Grrrrrr. I used the back button instead of post. Why oh why do I keep doing that ;D Cos I'm a berk.
I'm doing my best to save the planet and can't bear to chuck stuff in bin if it can be re-used. It's like a challenge :) I've noticed a reduction in the amount of stuff going in the dustbin but an ever increasing pile of stuff in the shed and at the allotment ;D
i am going off buying inthe supermarkets, because so much is pre-wrapped in plastic when it doesnt need to be. i am now shopping at small shops that use paper bags and cardboard for packaging, and the market for fruit and veg - then i can bring my own bags along (fabric)
i also use 'bags for life' when shopping - still plastic but at least it gets reused 100 times before they break.
as was said: first - reduce, then - reuse, then - recycle. it's the last option of the three, not the first! people forget this far too quickly.
svea
i'd really like the 2 bin fortnightly collection thing, it works well for friends in different council areas and i thinkl it has to encourage people to think about what they are throwing away.
We too have the new super-dooper two bin, alternate week collection. NOT. >:(
It only started mid-autumn. What a health hazard...
Flies, maggots & putrifying refuse standing for up to two weeks in a nice enclosed warmish environment. Gawd knows how bad the stench is going to get once it sits in mid-summer.
In the wildlife hospital, come summer you always got the swans and other birds coming in with botulism - rubbish tip feeding in the heat. Can't see a lot of difference between that and fly/rodent/bird access to two-week old heaving refuse. Could be a big rise in tummy bugs - and worse - come the warmer weather!
A few years ago, our local council, in its standard abject stupidity, decided to save money by closing several of the local tips. They said we didn't need them. Result - fly tipping all over the countryside. Cost them more to clean the mess up, than they were trying to save. Spouted usual drivel for years, then re-opened them all. Rules up to the eyeballs, of course. It is a rubbish tip.... BUT.... (a) + (b) + (c) + ad nauseum apply, and if you can't prove you are all the things you should be, then bugger off, and take your rubbish with you. Fortunately a modicum of common sense now seems to be applied at the gate... could be something to do with the massive piles of cr*p that miraculously appeared each and every night, just outside the tip gates.
Now they are announcing a new, extra-super-dooper rubbish opportunity, for you, the consciencious householder ( ???) ... just pay us another £26.00 a year and we'll be kind enough to give you a little green bin into which you may put a tiny amount of garden waste, and we'll take it away for you AND woe betide if you try to circumvent the system and put any green bin stuff in either your blue or black bin. I just love all the politically correct bull dottles, that as plain english translate into nasty blackmail threats. Makes you want to bop the genius responsible for this ludicrousness right on the nose, then give him a brain transplant so he can see beyond the (now squashed) nose on his face.
Grrrrrrrr!!