I read in the papers that England is having a spot of bother with their rubbish collection and that certain councils are being 'secretive' about the fact that the ratepayers will only get their rubbish collected once in every two weeks. I must say I find it amazing that England still has house to house collections.
House to house collections disappeared in France many years ago. Instead a large container is installed at stratigic intervals, you pop your refuse bag in and the dustbin men come once or twice a week, depending where you live, and empty it. The same system applies in Switzerland and in Spain, and probably in quite a few other countries.
Even when I lived in the middle of nowhere in the 'Grand Sud' of France the 'hameau' where I lived which consisted of two houses, mine and my neighbour, we had an enormous bin on wheels that was emptied every week and twice a week in the hot summer months. My neighbour and I used to take it in turns during the summer to give the bin a quick clean with a splash of Brobat and water, as although both of us recycled as much as possible the bin did tend to get smelly and maggoty during the summer.
Here in the village we have very posh log cabins for dumping the rubbish sacks! All they lack are windows to transform them into a charming little pied-à-terre! Next to the main logs cabins are bins for the recycling of glass, paper and plastic. In the supermarkets there are bins for recycling milk cartons. I have a wheelie bin in the garden into which I put my rubbish bags and twice a week I load up the car and drive to the cabins to dump and recycle - the nearest one is about 200m from my house.
I can hear people say 'Oh, well that's because it's Switzerland and they are terribly organised and their country is squeaky clean' ... not true, France and Spain manage it too!
I am amazed when I go back to England to see that on nights when people put out their bins, they are systemmatically ripped to pieces by mangy urban foxes; it's terrible to see and must be awful for the dustbin men to collect plus the waste of time shovelling up the split bags. If England is or has introduced fortnightly collections, it seems essential that these large wheelie bins are installed as quickly as possible to fight the vermin which must surely increase.
See the following BBC article
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6584497.stm
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6 comments:
I was going to post a comment on Shane Richmond's blog saying, "3 out of 10, Louise. Must try harder!" But I rather think they're getting too serious-minded over there and are best left to get on with it. They're creating a self-referential (not to say incestuous) little universe for geeks and sad old bastards who have nothing better to do than collate their own collected wisdom and revel in the complexity of it all.
Anyway, back to today's topic: In Toronto (and most Canadian communities have similar schemes) we divide our recyclables up into paper/cardboard; tin cans, bottles and jar, and plastic containers; and organic-but-uncompostable waste (the city also hands out free composters to anyone who wants one). These go into three separate containers. The first two are collected every other week. Organic waste (in a supposedly raccoon-proof bin) is picked up once a week, along with garden waste, which goes into hefty paper sacks. (In January, they'll also take your Christmas tree away.) Other "regular" garbage is picked up on the alternate weeks.
On top of that, if you have toxic garbage, such as old paint cans or batteries, you can call the city for a special pickup. They'll also collect old appliances -- stoves, fridges, washing machines etc. -- and if they still have some life left in them, pass them on to one of the agencies for the poor and needy to be reconditioned and given a new home.
The latest wrinkle is a small deposit on wine and liquor bottles to encourage their return.
It's not perfect but it's a pretty good system.
The system in Guildford works quite well. We have a weekly house-to-house refuse service, as well as a weekly recycling collection of paper, cardboard, tins, glass and plastic, too.
The council recently introduced a garden waste collection service every fortnight, for which the cost is £10 per bag annually. I don't support the charge (what is Council Tax for?) but I paid it anyway.
Foxes and badgers are nightly visitors to our garden and (controversially, perhaps) we are keen feeders of both. Deer look in every few weeks, too, and love to eat our flowers.
That really is a very fair trade for the enormous pleasure of seeing such rich wildlife in a suburban southern England setting.
I agree with your idea of a central area to leave your rubbish.I drop mine at a local council refuse centre on my way to the shops and I reuse and recycle and I compost.However, most locals put their rubbish out to be picked up on a Monday and the local dogs rip the bags open and the council workers leave the split bags and rubbish and only take intact bags.
I really think a lot more education is needed to show the true horrors of rubbish tips .
We have family in Geneva and when I was there last it was beautifully clean, my city has gum,cigarette ends and rubbish on every street but the council are now increasing fines for littering and enforcing them thank goodness.
In my experience rubbish and the average Anglo Saxon are indistiguishable. Indeed in French we call England the déchet of Europe.
Here in Orléans I have three solid plastic bins. The general rubbish is collected twice weekly and the two other bins, which contain paper and plastic respectively are collected once a week. There is a bottle bank at the end of the street. Twice yearly we have 'grande poubelle' when we can put out anyhing we want. There are no extra charges but we already pay heavy property taxes.
Garden rubbish we have to take to the tip or , in my case, burn it and recycle.
I have never seen rodent damage.
Quite honestly I'm surprised that rodents will touch English rubbish.
You're on fine form, Richard I see...:-)
Here in Grenoble, the rubbish is collected five days a week - twice a week for the 'green' bin. I think that must be the case for the bigger towns here.
I can't imagine having your bins emptied just once a fortnight...that's disgusting.
Yet another good reason for not living in the UK...
I seem to get stuck behind the rubbish lorry everyday but that's because everything's collected separately. Great for us but I do wonder about all those exhaust fumes.
Angela
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