have you heard the news- cos i'm mad

[maggie144]

Hi Everyone

Has anyone heard the news today, it has got me real mad, some local councils have decided to (without the householders permission) to put bugging devices in the wheelie bins, if you have a wheelie bin then check under the rims, there is a round hole the size of a 2 pence piece, this is where the bug is placed without your knowledge.

I don't know how you all feel about this, but it got me and the hubby rather mad, we have checked our bins, and are at present bugless. i have now locked my bins in my garage,

We have informed the council of what we have done, and informed them that we feel that this act is a breach of our privacy, how does anyone else feel?

the idea is so that they can monitor what you are throwing away or recycling and if you are not doing it right they then have the evidence to fine you heavily.
I am all for fining people that blatently flout the rules, but surely this underhand bugging is not the way

maggie

[Martin]

if they try that on my bin, I hope the local hospital has an expert proctologist to remove it from the fundamental orifice of anyone with the temerity to put "big brother" in my waste bin!

[PurpleDragon]

...

[Andy Hamilton]

I expect to get some backlash from this reply but.....

I am not against this I am however, against the way that the councils have gone about putting them in; all a bit cloak and dagger. I think the media have picked up on this issue and distorted it all out of propotion.

The chips are to measure the amount of rubbish that goes in your bin in a proposal to combat the amount that goes into landfill. They weigh the amount of rubbish in each bin when the bin goes on the truck. At present I pay for the amount of electricity I use, I pay for the amount of phone calls I make and for the amount of gas. Why not pay for the amount of rubbish I throw out too? When I look down my street and see single occupant households with wheelie bins full to overflowing with rubbish and consider that I am subsiding that then I think this is not fair either.

We as the public do need to be told what the council is doing and if other information can be taken from these chips. If it is the case that they only weigh the rubbish then whats the problem? We do need to be told about anything like this before it happens too, but how many people would have willingly put their hands up and said "oh me, yes I will have a spy chip please."

I do think that if our rubbish gets weighed we will need to somehow stop other people from swapping bins with one that they know weighs less or simply putting their rubbish in other bins. How this can be acomplished I don't know. It might be that it is totally unpolicable in which case the chips will be useless anyway.

[baldowrie]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/a ... ge_id=1770

[baldowrie]

2 things wrong with what you are saying Andy, although I don't generate a lot of waste.

1) if people pay per weight then refuse collection needs to be removed from council tax

2) to avoid extra payment more people will fly tip

[Martin]

to my mind, it's the thin end of a VERY dangerous wedge - we are already the most security camera saturated country in the world - what next, an underpants gas sniffing chip to check on our diet???????????????
It's more profligate waste of OUR money by the otherwise unemployable, trying to justify their miserable existences by dreaming up more "1984" control-freak apparatus - this is using manufactured technology that we neither want nor need!
I have a simple low tech answer - ask the binmen who's cheating! - it's rather like the Americans spent a billion dollars on developing a pen that could write in zero gravity space missions - the Russians shrugged their shoulders, and used pencils! - we need more pencils!!!!!!!!
Gosh I feel better for a good rant!

[wulf]

I agree with Andy to the extent that, yes, it is good to think - both as individuals and as a society - about how much we throw away. It is an interesting application of technology but "cloak and dagger" don't help (of course, it may turn out that it was widely publicised and no one bothered to read the leaflets!).

However, I'm also with Martin on the value of thinking around the problem and looking for "pencils". Perhaps the councils should do some experiments with rubbish collection vehicles that don't grind everything up and employ some researchers to build neighbourhood profiles that will inform local information campaigns on what can be recycled or reused rather than the "big brother in the bin" approach?

Wulf

[red]

I think the media have picked up on this issue and distorted it all out of propotion.

and

At present I pay for the amount of electricity I use, I pay for the amount of phone calls I make and for the amount of gas. Why not pay for the amount of rubbish I throw out too? .

I'm inclined to agree. Why not have metered refuse collection too. the beeb have a reasonable page on the subject. of course - like everyone else i don't like the idea of sneaky bugging. and yeh - i can see more fly tipping too....

[Muddypause]

I wrote this before I read Andy's reply. It pretty much supports his views, but here it is anyway:

This is another piece of absolutely irresponsible journalism that is intended to make you react in exactly the way you have done.

It's just mis-information. These are not bugging devices, they do not monitor your actions in any way.

Some boroughs are experimenting with the practicality of 'pay as you throw' waste disposal. At the moment, all the non-hysterical comentators are suggesting that this would only work as an alternative to including your bin collection in your council tax. It's a bit like metering your water, instead of paying a general rate for it.

The chip on you bin means that the collection lorry will be able to identify which is your bin (which of course, being from a SS-ish household, will have very little in it) at the same time as weighing it. This means you won't be paying for the waste disposal of that family down the road whose bin is always overflowing all over the place, as you do now.

The proposal is no more complicated than that. The only record keeping will be of the same nature as your electricity meter, gas meter, etc., which keep a simple record of how much suff you use. It's hard to think what other purpose a chip on your bin could be used for.

In any case, all of this is just a feasibility study, at the moment. But I do think that some consultation and information would not have gone amiss. And I also think the whole concept will be open to abuse - you put your bin out the night before collection, and your irresponsible neighbour fills it with his junk. When I put out my bin, I also tend to pick up rubbish from the road and put it in; but if this idea is put into action, I'll be paying more because I'm trying to be a little bit socially responsible.

And of course, it does chip one more piece off the rock that makes us more accepting of 'chips with everything'.

[Andy Hamilton]

good point wulf and perhaps even give grants to websites that promote reusing and recycling searously though - our local council only collects the rubbish once a fortnight now and many are struggling. There is a family of I think 6 living next door and their bins are always full to overflowing. There should have been some kind of local demonstrations or videos screening with how to reduce your waste before just saying right then you have to change......NOW!

Really this issue is one that the supermarkets should also be addressing - after all most of the waste is generate by their overpackaging.

[baldowrie]

that would be fine but there are some area where the residents are meet with objections for recycling unless it's collected by the council. I had a compost bin in my garden and my neighbours was constantly complaining to the council that is was smelling etc, which it wasn't.

A family of 6 will generate more rubbish, but also if a larger family is penalised for that they are more likely to burn or fly tip rubbish.

I think that the council should encourage more recycling..proper recycling none of this you can't put that in or that in. God if they realised I was putting chicken litter in the the green bin they would have black listed me!

[den_the_cat]

I do object in principal to being monitored but I think that we have to accept that sometimes the ends justify the means. The report I heard was saying that the councils were concerned that they weren't going to meet the EU deadlines on recycling and therefore wanted to see not which individuals but which areas they needed to concentrate on so that they could spend the budgets properly on promoting recycling etc.

It would have been a lot better had people been told in advance though....

It would be considerably easier to recycle if all councils actually recycled all recyclables. I used to have to make a special trip to recycle cardboard and now it seems I can't put plastics in the recycling bin so I'm saving them up for when I visit my dad (its a different slant on the old taking washing home to your parents ) It does make things very much harder though. Its also almost impossible even for our two person with pets household to fit all the recyclables for two weeks into the single black box they give you so it doesn't really surprise me that people cant be bothered and stick it in the main bin.

So if the councils are going to use the info to ask people how they could be helped to recycle more then it has to be good on balance, and its worth giving up a small amount of privacy (do I really care who knows how much my wheely bin weighs?) for a much larger benefit in the long term.

[Boots]

Such a priviledge it must be to have a man and a truck arrive to pick up your rubbish and cart it away for you...

Bug chip or no bug chip, folks will always think twice, compost and minimise their waste when they actually have to load and cart it themselves. No-one likes carting fermenting food, and anything organic 25k's to the tip on their lovely upholstery, or in their boot. And hooking up a trailer is just another job you extend as long as is conveniently possible, because dragging that around all day is just a nuisance.

It's kinda the same as water, I think. You only really start caring about quantities when you actually have to collect and cart it.

[red]

Really this issue is one that the supermarkets should also be addressing - after all most of the waste is generate by their overpackaging.

thats absolutely true!

out here in the sticks we don't have any recycling collection.. we have to take our own recycling to the recycle bins - so thats cardboard newspapers and mags, some (but not many cos the dont take em all) plastic bottles, glass and tins, feed next door's dog any left over meat and compost all other food. all that is left in our bin is packaging. We get our meat from the butchers, so no plastic box containers.. and have a veg box to supplement our own efforts. even with all that I'm m still stunned that we have a half bin full of just packaging...... Its really hard not to buy plastic eh?