Selfsufficientish.com

At the tip the other day, ridding myself of weeds from the 'lottie, and the guy next to me pulls up with a wheelbarrow in his car. As he gets it out I asked him if he was throwing it away, as I'd love to use it down on my allotment. The guy from the tip, overhearing this tells us that once it's out in the yard, no-one else is allowed to take it away so it has to be thrown out. The next trip down there, some people were throwing away decking boards - would have been brilliant raised beds but I couldn't have them.

Talking to the guys at the tip, it's a rule the councils have imposed and apparently there have been prosecutions of people who took stuff away with them.

All this, and the tip is covered with posters saying 'it's only waste if you throw it away'. I agree, but I couldn't do anything and now the council has to pay to dispose of the perfectly usable things. I need to write to them and suggest they put up posters advertising freecycle but the whole thing just seems so ill-thought out!

Some freecycle groups have tried to get policy changed on this, not with great success, but a little, from what I have heard.

I think that if you can directly transfer vehicle to vehicle the council cannot stop you. The secret may be to canvas people on the way in if you can on those days when there are huge queues to get in - like Bank Holidays!

Stand outside the tip with a board saying WANTED --Wheelbarrow ?

It's only waste when it's been put in the tipbin - until then it belongs to the owner who can do with it what they wish surely?

Doesn't make any sense to me cos surely those things would have gone to land fill? If not, what use is anything that's been chucked into a bin as it will most likely be broken or damaged by the time you've thrown it in and a load of other stuff has been chucked on top.

Davy stephenson wrote:Oh and always check upstream for dead sheep .

Sage advice, that.

Although our local dump has signs up forbidding salvage, it goes on pretty openly. Not least by the dump employees, who are paid preety poorly.

But we don't have CCTV on every corner in France. We hardly have it at all. For the time being.

I just wanted to add me 2p's worth of frustration, when I asked at the tip if I could buy some of the old baths for my ducks, and was basically told , that the council would rather crush them and bury them somewhere in the countryside than sell them to me.
The guy running the tip was just as frustrated about the situation as I was, but pointed out to me that he was constantly on CCTV to make sure he complied with the rules.

Have the laws on this changed recently, or is it just local jobsworths spoiling the party?

I met a woman a few years ago who used to make wonderful things from the glass out of washing machine doors - they even appeared on the TV and in a few magazines.

She got them for a couple of quid apiece from the local tip, where the workers would take them out and keep them to one side until she could go and pick them up.

Looks like she wouldn't be able to do that now!

Green Aura wrote:Have the laws on this changed recently, or is it just local jobsworths spoiling the party?

I met a woman a few years ago who used to make wonderful things from the glass out of washing machine doors - they even appeared on the TV and in a few magazines.

She got them for a couple of quid apiece from the local tip, where the workers would take them out and keep them to one side until she could go and pick them up.

Looks like she wouldn't be able to do that now!

It seems that there has been a general change in the regulations over the last 10 months or so....... i s'pose that some jobsworth decided that us plebs can't possibly have anything for free ( it's probably breaking some elf n' safety guideline). At our local tip, there used to be allsorts of wheeling & dealing, but that has all had to stop. There are cctv cameras there also....... god forbid that anyone should steal some rubbish!!

I kin well give up - beam me up scotty there's no life down here