Green dilemma

I HAVE just been told off in no uncertain terms by the bin men for the ungodly sin of asking them to take away an extra two binfuls of green garden waste (in addition to my two allotted green wheelies).

“We’ll be sacked,” was one of the many reasons. When I asked what else I could do with them, the politest of their many suggestions was to take it to the tip.

We have, by normal standards, a pretty small garden, and this stuff is all genuine garden waste from the past two weeks: nothing commercial or naughty – just grass and cuttings.

It now seems that I have two options. Wait until next week, disguise it in black bin bags and have it go to landfill.

Alternatively, I could load up the car and chauffeur these two bins to the James Street depot.

Maybe someone with a better head for figures than I have could calculate which option is more disastrous for the environment.

I could always buy a goat, but I don’t think that would go down too well in Acomb .

Peter Marcus Hamilton Drive West, Acomb, York.

Comments(10)

Sillybillies says...
2:54pm Sat 8 Sep 12

The answer is to compost, you can get cheap compost bins via the council. They take all my grass cuttings and soft clippings, as well as kitchen vegetable waste.

However if the bin mean are being stroppy, when we don't have green bins collected in December and January, are they laid off, and if not why not?

Magicman! says...
2:45am Sun 9 Sep 12

But composting essentially takes waste management away from council owness and onto the householder, in addition to attracting rats.
If the garden waste is in a bin which can be emptied straight into the lorry without any black bags to go into the mechanism, then there is no reasonable explanation for it being a sacking offense - it's not like the management will come to the truck, identify a pile of grass clippings that look exactly identical to all the other grass clippings, and say "that's surplus and more than one householder was allocated" before firing the people!

Isn't it also ironic that, after following an absolutely terrible and very wet summer, leading to much more growth of grass and weeds, that suddenly the council want to charge for green bin emptying...?

Friedrich Hayek says...
9:43am Sun 9 Sep 12

A good movie about bin men is Men at Work.

It stars the Illusive Man's sons. The conspiracy nut who hangs out with pornographic actresses, hookers, and smokes crack like it ain't no thang, and the other one who's faded in relative obscurity.

It introduced the Golf Clap as a put down and won a place in our hearts with its hilarity.

Sillybillies says...
1:09pm Sun 9 Sep 12

But composting essentially takes waste management away from council owness and onto the householder, in addition to attracting rats.
Composting makes sense, and goes back on the garden. I've no evidence of rats in my garden, and have been doing it for 30 years.

PeterMarcus says...
1:00pm Mon 10 Sep 12

Thanks for the comments to my letter. I agree with composting and do it as far as I can.

But 2 binsworth of green stuff was just too much for my little worm bin/compost heap.

meme says...
4:55pm Mon 10 Sep 12

WAIT TILL YOU TRY TO GET A NEW GREEN BIN WHEN YOURS IS KNICKED IF YOU WANT TO SEE JOBSWORTHS IN ACTION
ITS AMAZING HOW DIFFICULT IT IS TO GET ONE AND THE EXCUSES THEY COME UP WITH FOR NOT SUPPLYING THEM IS AMAZING AND THEN 6 MONTHS LATER 2 SETS TURN UP AT ONCE!!

sensationalism says...
12:30am Tue 11 Sep 12

I would have expected Silly Billies to have endorsed the idea of getting a goat!

Magicman! says...
2:28am Wed 12 Sep 12

meme wrote:
WAIT TILL YOU TRY TO GET A NEW GREEN BIN WHEN YOURS IS KNICKED IF YOU WANT TO SEE JOBSWORTHS IN ACTION
ITS AMAZING HOW DIFFICULT IT IS TO GET ONE AND THE EXCUSES THEY COME UP WITH FOR NOT SUPPLYING THEM IS AMAZING AND THEN 6 MONTHS LATER 2 SETS TURN UP AT ONCE!!
Try it with a black bin... when you do get a new one you'll find it's essentially a "mini me" of the old bin. We had that happen as the poorly maintained mechanism of the lorry in addition to likely mishandling of the bin caused it to break off from the truck and almost took out one of the guys, who then chucked the bin onto the lorry without a word of what was going on to us... we only knew because I was peeping out the window because I was bored!

yorkshirelad says...
1:39pm Wed 12 Sep 12

I'm not sure what people expect the council to do here. If they don't restrict it to a certain amount per house...then it's potentially unlimited.

In general I think one green bin per collection is reasonable. If you have more...then it could be held until the next green collection, composted, or indeed taken to the tip yourself. In a sense it's your problem, not the council's (i.e. ..ours).

It's worth remembering who pays for council services...we all do. So it's completely reasonable for them to be limited to a certain amount.

In general, I think the amounts for all the waste and recycling are about OK and if you're regularly overusing then you need to have a look at why.

If we go on expecting unlimited services and bashing the council (who, basically provide an excellent refuse and recycling service!)...then it's simple, our bills will go up and up even more.

another grump says...
2:13pm Wed 12 Sep 12

""" I'm not sure what people expect the council to do here. If they don't restrict it to a certain amount per house...then it's potentially unlimited.

"""
My God how big a garden do you have that fills a green bin that is emptied every two weeks.

And as for composting. If you only compost garden waste and not vegetable matter etc from the kitchen then rats do not become a problem as they dont eat grass.

click2find

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