Why the Net has the advantage in the ‘Undies world’
- Shopping blogger Emma Iannarilli
It’s recycle or be fined
Monday 30th March 2009, 11:50AM BST.
Families could be fined or taken to court if they do not recycle their rubbish, under new proposals by a Black Country council.
The plan by Walsall Council would be the most drastic by a local authority in the region to ensure it hits recycling targets. A report reveals enforcement may be introduced to tackle those who “refuse to adopt the principles” of its collection service.
Every household has had their 240-litre wheelie bins swapped for smaller 140-litre grey bins to coerce residents into using their green recycling containers.
Now a report by the head of the council’s Street Pride department, Mark Holden, says people who persistently fail to toe the line would first receive written warnings, followed by a visit from a council officer, then a fixed-penalty notice and possible court summons under the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005.
“Enforcement may need consideration in the future in relation to residents who persistently refuse to adopt the principles of the new service and contaminate recycling materials, or for those residents who choose to opt out of recycling,” he said.
The Home Office recommendation for “offences in relation to waste receptacles” is between £75 and £110.
The report on the scheme’s progress is to go before a meeting of the Tory-controlled council’s neighbourhoods scrutiny panel on Thursday.
The panel’s vice-chairman, Labour councillor Carl Creaney, today said he expected strong opposition.
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Great council officers snooping through bins and telling people off. Yet again an example of the over zealous officials telling us the people how to live.
Once the council get there act together by actually collecting the appropriate bin on the designated day, having the correct phone number on the front of the publicity they send out, repairing the pot holes in the roads, investing money in servies that help prevent antil social behaviour …. then I MIGHT just about be able to take them serious.
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what next? are they going to be watching what we eat and drink, this country is a complete joke
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It would also be nice if they actually took all the waste instead of letting 10% just blow off down the street! Plus how much extra water are we wasting by having to wash out all these plastic pots etc? Oh and one more thing, when I get home from a hard days work it’s nice of the council to leave my bin right outside the enterance to my drive so I have to get out of my car(leaving it running in the middle of the road), move the bin and then drive onto my drive causing me an extra 1minute of petrol which when you times it by however many millions of people adds up to a lot of pollution we don’t need!!!
Ok I’m being ironic but you get my drift!
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Welcome to the New World order, folks. As if we haven’t got enough punitive measures, they’re now going through our trash. Go clean up the mess left in Iraq..your mess.
Meanwhile, there is no commitment for ‘developing’ nations to cut their pollution. The hypocrisy of our leaders/dictators is beyond belief – you vote them in, now you vote the OUT..that’s ‘dealing with the trash’ in my book.
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I would be interested to know under which law thwy would use to prosecute persons so if anyone has the relevent laws and by laws please post them here for everyone to see. or are the councils making their own laws to fund their lavish posts of un needed council officials with their high bonus schemes and pensions?
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Yes we should be recycling .
It would help if the councils told us what we can put in our bins and when they will be emptied
One morning I woke up to find a new bin dumped by my front door (my bin is collected from the back of my house so why they never put it there I will never no)
And that was it no when it will be collected etc etc and I only found out that I had to use my green bin for recycling by going on there web site
And the green recycling are only collected two weeks and with all the recycling im doing it needs to once a week .but will they do that no! and now I have to have two bins cleaned as well
How about the people who recycle get 10% of there council tax bill!
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What a Load of rubbish :D
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It’s just another excuse to tax the poor..to keep them in their place so that ultimately they’ll willingly give up their liberty. The wording is deliberately misleading: people aren’t “opting out”..you’re not giving them an option. What you are doing is fining people for dumping their rubbish in a bin. That’s the reality. We need to stop the real rot; they work for us not the other way round and it’s about time we reminded them of that fact. They talk as though this is a proposition when in fact their battle lines have already been drawn.
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How about, StuWolf and John, people who don’t recycle, just pay more to have their rubbish taken away?
That would be fair – sending waste to landfilling is inefficient: most of it can be reused, or used to generate energy or heat; and the land itself that’s being used as a landfill could also be used in a more productive way.
So why should people who are too thick and lazy to reduce their waste and recycle more basically be subsidised by those who do?
Again, E&S readers show themselves to be thicker than two short planks. From under what stones do you lot crawl out of each morning?
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Interesting that they would seek to prosecute under the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environments Act. Here is the link http://www.statutelaw.gov.uk/legResults.aspx?LegType=All+Legislation&title=environment&Year=2005&searchEnacted=0&extentMatchOnly=0&confersPower=0&blanketAmendment=0&TYPE=QS&NavFrom=0&activeTextDocId=1417210&PageNumber=1&SortAlpha=0 ….. Now I cannot find anything in it which gives any authority the power to issue fixed penalties or to prosecute. Perhaps the authority would show me.
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6 – your last comment was exactly what I was going to say. I recycled religously before we had the new bins and thought it was a good idea. Thing is you never see the coucil rewarding people do you. It’s another way to make money out of already paying tax payers.
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Rebecca
I have no problem with councils recycling drive. What I do have problem with is being dictated to by an unelected council offical who feels that we the naughty children have to be slapped into place.
Your views are correct we of course should do more to reduce our waste. However what we can do is a drop in the ocean in comparison to the newly emerging countries who are genertaing more and more waste with no intention of imposing punative restrictions on the amount produced.
Recent reports have shown that the UK’s drive to recycle has resulted in more waste being exported to other contries for processing – which results in our waste being dumped in a hole somewhere else.
Therefore my earlier comments about the council getting its act together refer to ensuring items are in fact recylced and not just dumpled elsewhere.
I pay a huge amount of money each month in tax – both the local government and central. I’m a paying customer and if wish to complain about how my money is spent I will.
It strikes me that rather being as thick as two short planks E&S readers have a greater sense of individual freedom than someone who has crawled from the stone and seen the light like yourself!
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Just 10% Rambo…its more like 60% down our street, there has never been so much rubbish on the ground, i often have to fetch my green box from across the road on very windy days and always have to search for the white bags (plastics & Card) The councils answer…wedge it between the bin and green box, nice one as if we hadnt already thought of that its just a shame the binmen let them fly off after they have emptied them doh..
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They have to raise money for their high wages and
pensions from somewhere. The people are the politicians cash-cows and they want to milk us dry.
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i wish our council would provide us with bins so we can recycle things like plastic/cartons and cereal/food packaging.
I reckon if they did i’d probably only have 1 bin bag of food each week
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For everyone above… I don’t think the Council are going to go snooping through your bins. No local authority in the land has enough resources to inspect the waste they collect from every house and any one that claims they do, is being stupid.
I’d guess what they are aiming do to is reduce the percentage of households who just squash more rubish into the black bin and don’t recycle at all. Or those who just continue to put all their rubish in the recycling bin regardless.
OK, so the new collections have been less than perfect and the bin men aren’t the greatest (believe me I complained on more than one occasion). But some people just aren’t playing the game with the rest of us. Maybe taking some money out of their pocket for not doing something that in honesty, isn’t that difficult is the only way to get through to them. Walsall’s recycling scheme is a damn site easier than some than the authority I work for, who have a box, bin, bags and pods for different things.
Anyway, if all of you do the recycling properly, you have nothing to worry about.
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Oh dear Rebecca, yet again, you let yourself down by “name calling”. When will you ever learn that you can put your point of view across without casting aspertions on individuals you do not know?
Comment 1 and 10, well said.
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I totally agree with the comment from John (no. 8) “they work for us not the other way round” We pay them for a service. Or get the criminals who carry out community service to sort through our rubbish for the stuff that can be recycled – they have done the crime now sort out the grime!
And also you don’t get any ‘discount’ for doing your bit of recycling anyway!!! If there was an incentive in it then maybe more people would recycle!!!!!!!!
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another tax to fund their lavish lifestyles, however maybe Sandwell MBC would like to get their act together and sort out their Recycling Team, they drive around my estate but dont collect from my road i take mine to the tip myself maybe i should get a reduction in my Council Tax and as for their rubbish collections well lets not go there shall we
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“Anyway, if all of you do the recycling properly, you have nothing to worry about.”
Well round by me two weeks ago, it were total carnage. they arrived at 4pm!, by which time kids back from school had got hold of peoples recycling and were throwing it all over the street! and Walsall Council think it aint their fault? It IS THEIR FAULT for not coming sooner!
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Lets not forget people, that the councils dont do anything for nothing, Wherever the rubish or recycling as they call it goes, here or abroad, it is not given free, the councils make a vast profit from selling it to recycling plants and where does that funding go, not on roads or public services thats for sure. So look at it logically, we pay for overpriced overpackaged goods, pay tax on them then pay tax to have the waste taken away, have now got to pay fines for something WE pay for anyway 2 or 3 times and even more money goes to the fat cats. something isnt adding up here.
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Well said ZeElk (no. 16).
Of course they should have an enforcement policy, otherwise this new collection service – which is deisgned to reduce landfill waste and improve the environment for generations to come – would fall flat on its face.
I don’t believe your average Jo Bloggs is going to be fined. As it says in the comment, only those who “persistently refuse” to adopt these new procedures will be. And damn right!
If the rest of us can recycle then why should those who are too lazy to change their ways not be punished.
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I’d be more inclined to recycle if I didn’t keep getting junk mail from the council and parliametary candidates!
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People who live in tower blocks would like to recycle a lot of things, but getting the council to get their fingers out and give us bins is like getting blood from a stone!!!
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Obviously more people will have to be employed by the council to `operate this scheme`. I am unemployed at the moment, WHERE CAN I GET A JOB APPLICATION FORM FROM? Welcome to BIG BROTHER!
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great news i put my green box out everytime the recycling truck comes yet 70% of my street don’t,fine the lot because in 20 years time when there are no more land fill sites then our kids will be picking up the bills,paper bottles card it takes seconds to put it in the box,lazy gits some folk,so yes fine the wasters.
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oh it gets better are the council going to provide 24 hour security guards for every dustbin in the authority, because once you have put the bin out for collection the right way round no more than 6 inches from the edge of the property with the lid closed, anyone can walk past and put things in the bin without you knowing and then when you get the letter and fine for something you have not done how do you prove otherwise?????
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About 90 to 95% of waste of recyclable and this is now collected every two weeks. If the council want residents to recycle they should provide the collection service to match. The council have reduced the green bin collection service and this is not reflected in the council tax charge but threatening to charge for this slip up is not very clever.
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I LIVE IN TURKEY WE DON’T HAVE THIS TROUBLE THERES ALWAYS SOME ONE GOING THROUGH THE BINS TO LOOK FOR STUFF THEY TAKE TO RECYCLE DEPOT AND THEY GET A FEW LIRA WHICH WILL FEED THEM THAT DAY
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Rebecca,
Half of the time it ends up in landfill anyway.
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Yeah right what a joke! How about we fine the council when they dont show up to pick up the recycle bins,and when they throw the recycle bag half way down the street,never to be seen again because its floating round some main road causing near accidents when they get stuck to a moving car winscreen.I am on my fifth recycle bag and i am not ordering another one so therefore i wont be recycling SO FINE ME!
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Regarding washing out cans and plastic food containers: I get through a lot of cat food, and I just wash them out after I’ve done the rest of the washing up. No need to waste clean water.
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How arrogant! Walsall MBC introduce a new recycling scheme and in less than a month they start issuing threats to hard pressed taxpayers many of whom have lost their jobs, whilst they [Walsall MBC], sit in their ivory towers and hike council taxes above inflation.
This was the same council that refused to empty the bins because of a couple of inches of snow a few weeks ago when Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Dudley and even Sandwell managed!!!
Just which planet are these councillors and their overpaid officials living on?
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I live in sandwell and haven’t even got a rubbish bin!!
I pay £1,500.00 council tax and have to buy my own bin bags !!
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Easy targets. Why aren’t these council doing their jobs?
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yes, welcome to the new world order, marshall law.
they brought in plastic, polythene, and alaminium cans, that caused all this rubbish in the first place. they dont give you enough bins to accomidate all and its only emptied once a fortnight, the small grey bin is totally rediculous. bleeding people dry, and who gets rich out of this, Gordon brown. he gets more in his pocket.
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WELL WELL WELL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I WISH THE COUNCIL WERE AS QUICK TO ISSUE FIXED PENALTY NOTICES TO THE LOW LIFE OWNERS OF DOGS WHO CONSTANTLY FOUL OUR PAVEMENTS.I AM SICK TO DEATH OF HAVING DOG C**P OUTSIDE MY GATE AND SURROUNDING PATHWAYS,THE STREETS AND IN PARTICULAR THE MOXLEY AREA ARE A DISGRACE EVERY FEW STEPS THERE IS DOG FOUL IT HAS BEEN REPORTED ON MANY OCCASIONS BUT NOUGHT GETS DONE OBVIOUSLY THE DOG OWNERS ARN’T BOTHERED CAUSE THY DONT ALLOW THERE DOG TO FOUL THERE AREA,I ACTUALLY FIND THIS DOG FOULING AND WE WONT MENTION THE “LITTER” MORE OF A HEALTH HAZARD AND DISGUSTING. YET FIXED PENALTY NOTICES ARE MORE IMPORTANT FOR THOSE WHO DONT RECYCLE???????????????????
OBVIOUSLY THE COUNCIL JUST HAVEN’T GOT THERE FACTS RIGHT OR HAVE THEY????????
WHAT A JOKE
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What the hell is going on?
We vote these people in to do what we want.
Once they are in they turn against the very folks who voted them in and start to kow-tow to London and Brussels.
Time for this country to stop being so apathetic and show ‘em who THE MAJORITY is in this country.
It’s the ordinary folk who are pissed off with this Nanny/Police state that we are rapidly sliding into !!
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It’s probably a master plan to solve unemployment in Walsall. They will need so many inspectors to monitor all of the bins, they can employ all the layabouts and people on sickness benefits and save millions in dole money.
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they want us 2 recycle, well supply us wiv the bins that u want us 2 put the recycling stuff in!!!
just moved in2 a new house were the bins av been stolen while the property was empty, asked the council 2 replace them and were told id av 2 pay 18.50 each for the green and grey bins!!!
y shud i (im not goin 2),av 2 pay for bins that were stolen while their property stood empty???
good job i live around the corner from tip cuz it looks like im drivin there to dump my rubbish, o and seen as they put it ALL RECYCLING rubbish in landfill it dont matter anyway does it. walsall council u can keep ur bins unless ur giving me the 1s i shud ov had wen moved into the property!!!!
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ITS A JOKE!!,WE HAVE RUBBISH BLOWING EVERY WHERE ON OUR STREET, WOULD BE BETTER IF THEY HAD KEPT TO EMPTYING GREEN BINS EVERY WEEK NOT EVERY 2 WEEKS.OUR GREY BINS ARE ONLY A QUARTER FULL BUT THE GREEN ONES ARE TWICE AS FULL.
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These enforcement powers were introduced in 2006 and all councils have similar powers. Since then Walsall Council has followed the approach of trying to work with residents to recycle.
Our enforcement powers remain but they really are a last resort for those who don’t recycle despite the council helping and supporting them to do so.
We’re really pleased to see how well the majority of residents have really embraced the changes to their rubbish and recycling collections and we’ve seen a huge jump in the amount of recycling we’re collecting – and a massive drop in the amount of rubbish for landfill. That’s exactly what the scheme is about.
“We want to thank residents who are making the effort to recycle and are taking the trouble to squash down their plastic and cans and rip their card to maximise the amount of material that can be put into their green bins.
It is in all our interests to reduce the amount of rubbish that is taken to landfill sites.
Councillor Rachel Walker, Walsall Council cabinet member for environment
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It’s ok forcing us to recycle more, but half the time, I have had the recycle bags and boxes left without them being emptied and I physically do not have the space to keep storing stuff week after week when they just seem to keep missing me out !!!!!! What happens in the summer when the trucks constantly break down – we will have more smelly bins and foxes/stray animals around – not good
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It’s nice to see that Walsall Council are quick to praise the residents who are doing their bit for recycling. It’s also nice to see that they haven’t lost their ability to completely ignore peoples genuine issues.
I agree that the recycling bins should be emptied weekly, but that would mean that our elected officials would have to pay for it from collected taxes. Come on people, if they provided another rubbish collection we would have to miss this years completely pointless Walsall extravagance (such as Butler’s Passage, or the pedestrianised area at the front of the main Post Office).
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Heard the latest? It’s only a ‘last resort’ against people who ‘don’t recycle’, which could quite possibly mean everyone who doesn’t agree with council policy. What next..it’s all about ‘change’ and a new ‘order’? Never turn your back for a moment..
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“Again, E&S readers show themselves to be thicker than two short planks.”
No Rebecca..I think it’s just a case of you acting like a troll. How about actually putting your own hot air to good use instead of havng a go at Express & Star readers in general.
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threw out an old bike the other week,new one hasnt turned up yet,just proves this recycling doesnt work ???
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The third-world population doubles every few decades. There is an unprecedented movement of people into the United States from such countries, via Mexico. Natural resources are being depleted at astronomic levels, with different commitments from third-world countries in so far as how they are prepared to tackle it. Deal with that instead of making us out to be criminals. Tackle real issues instead of ‘climate change Inc.’.
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