Captain Colonial Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 I work in the waste industry, so I'm constantly dealing with councils and private contractors regarding waste and recycling. The card below was hung on the handle of my wheelie bin, correctly extolling the virtues of recycling food waste. There are, however, two problems here. The first one can only be spotted if you try to use the website - the address shown is useless if you don't also hang a "www." in front of it. But in this message promoting recycling, see if you can spot the moment of irony (click to enlarge). Your tax money at work... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KugaWestie Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 Printed on non-recyclable material Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XTR2Turbo Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 Isn't it the case anyway that a lot of the recycling just gets mixed back up and dumped presently because councils don't have the means to process once collected anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain Colonial Posted March 4, 2015 Author Share Posted March 4, 2015 Isn't it the case anyway that a lot of the recycling just gets mixed back up and dumped presently because councils don't have the means to process once collected anyway. It certainly used to be the case, but with the Landfill Tax being what it is now, this is thankfully and rightly pretty much a thing of the past (keeps a roof over my head as well). Landfills are closing all over the country now, and there's a big rise in recycling and incinerators generating electricity from waste. If you drive on the M25 near Heathrow, on the opposite (west) side you'll see a huge incinerator that does just this, but had to have its building and chimney design changed so it didn't interfere with the airport's radar return signal. It's always an interesting cause and effect scenario as well. The reason we suffer from so many gulls flying about in this country and crapping everywhere is the Clean Air Act, which stopped all the dirty smoke stacks from polluting the skies. So rubbish ceased being burned and was taken to landfills, gulls were given as much free food as they could eat and they thrived. Hopefully the closure of landfills and increased recycling will help reduce their population. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 We had a great one locally in Congleton some years back; the local council introduced what amounted to a five bin (of varying size) system plus an optional bag for old fabric items, clothes, bedding etc that would be left for you if you called their help line. All excellent and worthy, if a bit of a pain when it came to sorting everything out to put in the bins. Trouble is, "we" as in the local population, turned out to be too damn good at sorting stuff out! So even though the overal quantity of waste didn't change, the quantities of sorted items were far higher than the private contractor responsible for collection/disposal had allowed for. Far, far higher. They just about hung on for the first few months, having to bring in extra trucks, but just couldn't cope and went bump when the values of the waste dipped. Now we just have three bins and a manageable system! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dombanks Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 haha great advert that. your having a good victor day today mr chairman they tried to get rid of the massive gulls that lived on the royal hospital in liverpool and harassed the inmates by erecting these loud speakers. they would blast out screeching gull sounds that were supposed to be a distress call to scare away the rest. they worked well as perches and i bet the sick people really appreciated the wonderful sounds Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeff oakley Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 And you know someone in the council will have approved that and spent a fortune on it. Recycling is big business but there is nothing new really about doing it. Years ago there was a huge incinerator at Avonmouth which heated water which was pumped into the local council housing stock for cheap heat. The tree huggers moaned so they closed it and installed gas central heating in every home. Bristol now transports it's waste to Buckinghamshire to be buried in a pit that has the methane pumped off to use as a heating source. There are lot's of holes which could be filled and lots of waste that can generate energy if there is the will to do it properly. Green waste is recycled at composting sites around the area and I am sure they are using a digester for food waste as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SootySport Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 Ha Ha Irony, yes. I can remember when Decimalisation was in it's infant stages. Everything must be sold in Metric measurement, except wood, you go to a timber yard and ask for 10metres off 50mm squared batten and the salesman says " Sorry sir we don't do 50mm. sq. batten it's still 2" Sq. but length wise it's measured in metres" Think it still done the same way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 Still a lot of nonsense talked about recycling but the development of specialised equipment to separate co-mingled waste has moved very rapidly in the last 10 years or so. Now use separators that involve induction sensors for non-magnetic metals, color sensors, infra-red sensors, X-ray sensors, ultra-violet sensors. Basically if a commodity has a unique and distinct spectrum for any of these sensing techniques, it can be identified on a conveyor belt then ejected from the stream by a jet of air as it leaves the end of the belt. Add this to the old techniques of friction, magnets and eddy currents and you can do a lot of quite finite separation if you have the right setup and equipment. I used to design such plants for the metal and waste electronics recycling industries and it's fascinating stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pistonbroke Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 Most household and industrial waist around here seems to be dumped on the east lancs road in the hedgerow . Go for a walk along any country lane and look in the drainage ditches they are teaming with rubbish that has been dumped , presumably at night by people who are to lazy or cant be arsed using the council tip because its too much trouble Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle Posted March 5, 2015 Share Posted March 5, 2015 I would never fly tip, I've never even littered. However, when you leave something outside that is just an inch too big for the tiny recycling boxes and they take the boxes but not the item (in this case a long shovel head) it makes you think about dumping it in Birkenhead where nobody will notice. What am I even paying all that council tax for anyway? To sort my own waste out so a private company can get paid to come and burn it to sell energy back to us? Fantastic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dombanks Posted March 5, 2015 Share Posted March 5, 2015 the point about the sorting is interesting the blue recycle bins in runcorn were great. halton was a tiny little council but had superb recycling. you could chuck almost anything in. move to liverpool and its totally backwards. ive almost given up bothering with it (as bad as it sounds) the list of what you can NOT put in is longer than that of what you can. We dont generate a huge amount of waste anyway and i found that if i did it strictly according to the rules 80% of the stuff isnt done. mostly i put in glass bottles and cat food tins. i think the food producers need to take some responsibility in this regard too. you cant recycle several of the food trays (well not in Liverpool anyway) and there is an excessive use of packaging. i guess its difficult as the tech involved in packaging is immense. just look at the composition of the films used to seal meat trays. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Algar - Competition Secretary Posted March 5, 2015 Share Posted March 5, 2015 Well had an interesting one the other day, there I was doing my bit going down to the local re-cycling centre where they have 30 different types of waste, hardly anyone there and chatting to the guy that worked there and he said " I used to be careful with my own waste, but now unless it's metal or plastic I just chuck it in the general one as that goes off to be burnt and is the most efficient ! " So there you go. I will of course be following his advice Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cleggy the Spyder Man Posted March 5, 2015 Share Posted March 5, 2015 I think it is getting more common practice these days not to use the www in front of the web address well as for the non recyclable flyer - jeesh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Welly Jen Posted March 5, 2015 Share Posted March 5, 2015 If you aren't sure what irony is, here is Baldrick to explain. Complete with Slovenian subtitles. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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