From today's papers :
People in rural parts of a Lancashire borough may have to remove their own rubbish, under a money-saving scheme. Seven hundred households in Rossendale are affected by the plans for residents to take bin bags to collection points.
The council is also introducing giant bin bags that fit in car boots, which it said can easily transport waste. The council hopes it will save about £100,000.
Some residents feel they are being unfairly penalised for living in a more rural area.
From reading the papers, can't see any mention of Rossendale Council considering Council Tax rebates to these residents for doing the 'bin mens' job for them. (Unless any one has heard otherwise ?)
As for the collection points, 2 guesses where the 'fly tipping' is going to occur.
Any one else come across 'daft' Council cost-cutting ideas that they'd like to share ?
i presume they get a discounted council tax bill
I would favour post being sent to local PO's for collection. That woudl reduce a lot of rubbish in the first place.
Sounds terrible but think about it - most people aren't in to collect parcels and have to go to collect them anayway. Many parcles are delivered by non-Royal Mail anyway. What did you get in your mail last month? 80% insolicited stuff including far too much junk (ie litter), a few bills simply confirming your direct debit payments and one or two letters (your tax disc maybe or Tescos vouchers) that you actually want.
With just a little planning, going to online billing for your household bills for instance. Wage slips could be delivered to your desk by internal mail. And arranging to be emailed when something is posted to you. It wouldn't be that much of a hardship to drop by the local PO once a month for the stuff you want.
The advantages? More POs would have to stay open - there would be a constitutional need for them. And there would be no reason to touch let alone, collect, strip, recycle and otherwise deal with - all the crap that usually comes through our door. If they thrust it on us we can just leave it on the counter.
Maybe we work on an opt-out system - so my Mum, who doesn't have internet and doesn't get about much, gets hers delivered, but I (who drive past at least 3 POs on the way to work every day) can drop in when convenient.
Foxy,
Post Office or Sorting Office ?
Usually queuing out of door most days at our loval PO's and which Sorting Office, as they closing them fast and moving to regional centres miles from anywhere.
(the one covering the North West also repeatedly on local news for appalling record of actually sorting post and getting it out the door in anything under 3-4 days)
As for all the 'junk', very simple to deal with via certainly reduced the junk by circa 95% within 3-4 weeks, and our postie was well happy
(MPS cannot stop unaddressed leaflets, items addressed to "The Occupier", "The Householder" or a business, nor free newspapers and inserts in magazines and bills)
These others should help :-
1) Telephone Preference Service =
It is a legal requirement that all organisations (including charities, voluntary organisations and political parties) do not make such calls to numbers registered on the TPS unless they have your consent to do so.
2) Fax Preference Service =
Under Government legislation introduced on 1 May 1999 it is unlawful to send an individual an unsolicited sales and marketing fax without prior permission
My local council decided a few years ago that they would only collect the black wheelie bins with household waste once a fortnight, it didn`t last long.
Well this is an old thread that I can breathe some life into....
In my local authority they've now put us on notice with one of their 'Public Consultation Exercises' (short for 'we'll waste some money by engaging a very small minority of our electorate by asking questions/offering solutions to some of the financial issues....but pay absolutely no regard to what we get back and just plough on regardless' ) about waste.
What they're now asking/suggesting is ways to save money on waste management, they apparently need to save £5million on the waste budget and have come up with some solution as to how the householder can maybe help or how they can change policy to help save the changes.
They say that although it is a legal requirement to allow the householder to dispose of their household waste via landfill that they think they can make 'savings' with a variety of measures they're now considering.
They want to start charging householders money to dump stuff that comes from 'outside of the house but excluding garden' such as bricks/mortar/wood from fencing/sheds/roofing tiles/concrete ....they've limited the amount of rubble you can empty anyway, no more than 5 rubble sacks in any one day but now they want to limit it more. They say this will make a saving into the hundreds of thousands...this isn't a saving it's a charge surely? But i wonder if they're start charging then for white good or car batteries or lightbulbs or domestic use batteries or metal (they get money from recycling the metal thats dumped mind)
They say that charging those out of the county for dumping anything at landfill could be an idea? they estimate this to be in the region of £100,000 saving by again charging.....what they don't say is how they've worked out how many from other counties have used the landfill site? no statistics provided.
They state they could close at least 5 of the 20+ landfill sites dotted around the county, (this comes off the back of them spending nearly 4million in the last financial year to upgrade two of the landfill sites and update 7 of the others,...but now they offer closing some of them altogether to save (cant remember the amount but it's just over 100k)
They are saying they could make some of the landfill sites operate on just two days a week as opposed to the now 5 (down from seven two years ago) or even all sites drop to 3 days a week.....it used to be 8am until 8pm 7 days a week 2 years ago, now it's 9am to 4pm 5 days a week.
and so it goes on, I wrote to the council under a FOI requesting how many instances of fly tipping in year 2013/2014 were recorded and how much did each instance cost the council? I'm still waiting on the reponse but if they implement any further cuts to landfill by shortening hours/charging to tip they will make this county a dumping ground for flytippers to the point where even the most meek may be tempted to lay waste to their old sofa/bed down some country lane (probably mine cos they seem to appear here everynow and again) I have it in mind that the charges in dealing with flytipping will make their 100k+ savings for tipping various items insignificant...and thats without charges yet to be brought it.
Solution? mine would be to have a barrier up at the landfill sites, you want entrance to landfill pay a nominal fee £1 set in stone for 5 years) fee of £1 to gain entrance to the tip, this isn't charging you for tipping, it's charging you for the barrier to be raised thus removing the notion of charging to to tip waste?
I suspect that nowt anyone says/writes in/adds to the consultation will make the slightest bit of difference and they'll press on with their own way of doing things inevitably resulting in tip closures/ tip restrictions/ tip charges (which wont ever be cheap) and more fines for those that don't adhere and of course rubbish strewn across the county by some that simply don't have the money to pay for it ....thats not to say they haven't already by way of council tax.
Of course plans to revitalise a market in one of the towns at stupid money or to resurrect an old railway line thats lay dormant for 40 years at a cost so high it makes your eyes water....and to remove all the graffiti from the town centre walls...these are all projects with green lights attached come the next financial year.
Toots (flytipper in waiting)
Brighton (which used to have a Green Party Council) appears to have one of the worst records for recycling in the UK - the binmen are forever striking, piles of rubbish and recycling everywhere, beach chickens ripping bags to shreds, rather nasty at times, particularly in the summer.
Ive been using the local tip a fair bit these days, I asked if i could take a couple of doors that someone had chucked in one of the skips there and they said o!!!! Surely my commitment to recycle might save them at least 50p, I just dont get it!!!!!
