No Dustbins
A site I visit has removed all bins from service points and established a central (actually not central) waste collection point.
One sign states this is so as not to use the 2.5 million bags used annually and thus save the planet.
Another sign states that it is to save the club the £636000 it currently spends on the bags.
Which excuse is true/correct? My rudimentary mathematical ability tells me that if correct the club has been paying just under £4.00 for a bin bag. If this is so then I can quite understand why fees and charges are so high.
Please someone tell me my sums are wrong!!!
Comments
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Well I guess there are other costs not just the bags. However whatever the maths of it all the club is moving to a single big point on all sites, like many other sites including the ccc. It has been discussed elsewhere on the forum. Can’t say it bothers me much.
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As Hja mentions this has been discussed a lot on the forum and mentioned in even more reviews! Unfortunately the Club is not very good at communicating the reasons for doing things in detail, rather depending on some eye grabbing response like the number of plastic bags saved. Whilst that is important there are many other things that need to be explained. Site staff going round a site several times a day emptying and replenishing the bags is costly in time and also not so good for the environment if using a conventionally fueled tractor.
David
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Sadly you have done the maths the wrong way round. You've found how many bags can you buy for £1.
If 2,500,000 bags cost £636,000 then one bag will cost 636000/2500000 = £0.2544.
I'm not sure if that is a good price or not but I assume they were heavy duty bin bags?
But even if about 25p is expensive 2,500,000 bins bags is a lot that would go into landfill and whatever it took to make them in the first place.
Post edit, a quick search on Tesco is that heavy duty bin bags sell for 22p each.
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We came across this situation at the NYM site, last month - and neither of us like it - for the same reasons that have been mentioned by others. What I don't understand is why bin bags are needed in the first place. indeed the waste will have to be taken out of them anyway, before it can be recycled.
The East Riding of Yorkshire Council has one of the highest re-cycling rates in the country. All recyclable material at home goes in our blue bin - and if it is put in there in any sort of plastic bag - it won't be collected! Landfill material in the green bin and food and garden waste in the brown bin. Food waste goes in what appears to be little plastic bags - which are actually made from corn starch and therefore compostable - and given away free at LA service centres.
So why can't the club adopt the same principle and rather than collect bin bags full of recyclable waste - take the whole bin (without liners) to the 'industrial' skip and tip it in? An instant saving in the unnecessary use of plastic bags.
What we saw at Whitby was a large percentage of people who either physically couldn't or couldn't be bothered to use the skip, were putting anything and everything in the small bins left around the skips, intended for use by the less able.
A complete farce!
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The reality seems to be that unless recycling is very easy and convenient a number of people won’t do it. We all know that it’s not rocket science to sort the recycling items from the other items, however if someone tips their general rubbish into a recycling bin the whole lot is apparently “contaminated”.
The theory of everyone taking their rubbish to a central point and depositing it into the appropriate bin is very sensible, however, as has been highlighted by other contributors, a number of campers will just get rid of anything at the closest point. There is also a genuine issue with some people who find it difficult to lift the lid open on a big commercial bin (I include myself here as I am not very tall)
Would it be possible to keep the small bins around a site, but use compostable liners?
Even before this new initiative some people dumped any discarded items in any bin. There are now signs on a number of sites telling people to take large items home for disposal.
A sign of times? Get rid of something you don’t want so that it becomes someone’s else’s problem?
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Richard
I think if bins were used without liners they would soon stink to high heaven which in turn would mean they would have to be cleaned on a regular basis and before we know it as much time is spent cleaning as emptying bins with liners at service points? I think centralised bin services are here to stay and people will gradually get used to them and if they have individual difficulties they they will adapt.
David
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David - from practical experience - I disagree. Our recycling bin at home contains paper, cardboard, recyclable plastic, washed cans and yoghurt pots etc. It's all dry(ish) and nothing smells. The food waste - which I do agree has the potential for being smelly - is all contained in those corn-starch bags. It all goes for composting and each year the LA gives away free bags of said compost to residents.
I think the biggest hurdle is that different LAs have different standards of recycling and it's high time that was standardised. If a few can do it more efficiently - why can't the others?
If it's made easy and simple to understand, then I believe most people are keen to recycle. As soon as hurdles are put in place, then it's too easy to say "I can't be bothered".
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Richardand ros wrote: I think the biggest hurdle is that different LAs have different standards of recycling and it's high time that was standardised. If a few can do it more efficiently - why can't the others?
I think that's probably also part of the problem - people from dfferent LAs are used to different "rules" on recycling at home. I know when I've been in different parts of the country, at times it's taken a bit of working out what goes where, if it's not clearly marked. Different coloured bins to what we have at home, and if there is a bin of the same colour, sometimes those take different waste to what ours does! Then there are the sites where you are told to put everything in the same bin - that always feels wrong somehow, after decades of separating waste.
We don't have food waste recycling at home at all, yet a neighbouring LA does. As you say, it's time it was standardised.
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The CAMC were about the only sites not to have central collection points. I agree the club did not communicate the change very well, beyond that I simply don’t have a problem with it. Unfortunately for the idealists, out there in the real world people are lazy. despite what children are taught in schools and parts of the media would have us believe, recycling is not foremost in people’s minds, especially when on holiday. I know these comments will be unpopular and probably have some choking over their recycled meusli pots. I am a realist and observations tell me with my own eyes. I do agree if it becomes difficult people won’t do it but having even more waste separation and using special bin bags etc is completely the opposite. Has anyone ever seen photos of the aftermath of music festivals? And that is from those who are supposedly taught to love the planet?
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I think recycling is in many folks mindset these days but it is true, some are plain lazy. What should be happening is that the ability to carry this out should be made as easy as possible. Yes, there are economic constraints for the likes of the club and society in general in doing this but we should be doing our best to make it effective, easy and affordable.
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Folks need to act on behalf of their children and grandchildren. It’s shocking the amount of landfill in uk, and the fact that so many are living on reclaimed land, some of it with ongoing problems. Every bit of recycling done, be it of a tiny use in the household, down to industrial scale, means there’s less poisoning our land.
https://www.lovejunk.com/blog/trash-talk/uk-landfill-site-map/
All that’s required is a mental shift, a bit of exercise, or if that’s not possible, then the ask for help. Anyone who is still out there touring is perfectly capable of doing their bit in some way. It just needs a mindset change and a bit more effort in some cases.
I notice a good number of Club Sites have now been awarded Gold standard for such efforts (can’t remember what award it is), so this central recycling and less use of plastic bags has probably contributed. At least the Club as an organisation is taking its responsibilities seriously. Members need to embrace this change, work around any personal issues they have and get on board for the sake of their future young ones.
I’ve been to some big events this past few years, outdoor rock concerts, stadium events, cycling races. Each one has had a really good litter management policy built in. The big day long concert in our local park, had hundreds of bins, reusable drinks containers, staff litter picking throughout and after the event. Organisations are trying, it just needs the mindset of a few to get more onboard now.
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The real problem is the amount of stuff that needs to be recycled. Most of it packaging of food for hygine and long distance transport reasons. Our efforts are at the wrong part of the cycle.
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I agree Nav. By far our fullest bin is always our hard plastics and metals bin (they go in together). I save plastic mushroom containers instead of buying seed trays, If I have a coffee out, and we haven’t got our reusable cups, them I save the cups and use them for plantpots. Nice tins we use for storing bits and bobs in the garage. We use paper and cardboard as kindling for our stove (yep, a stove, controversial but we all have our vices, ours is keeping warm). I was brought up to re use and recycle, it a life skill for me. I do wonder how we have gone from a small bin, collected once a week in my childhood, to having four big bins and in some places waste food pick up.🤔
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In the 1960s someone had the idea of using household rubbish as the foundations for a coastal road bypassing the roads and housing from Crossens village to the Marine Lake, in Southport (about 4 miles). Around 1968/9 it was finally finished. For a number of years the surface was a bit like a roller coaster as the rubbish flattened out but it is now a very smooth road and a straight run towards the town or bypassing the town completely and meeting up with another coastal road leading to Ainsdale. I have alwys considered that it was an excellent way to recycle rubbish but I don't know if any other towns have ever tried it as well.
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Our town specialises in rocking horse roads, at a waste of millions of pounds. It’s like being on a roller coaster, going up and down. Eventually they are dug up, relaid, and slightly improved. Don’t think it’s recycled waste though, just incompetence 🤣
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I manage two large sites in Wales..........
We have to separate out the food waste by law......
https://www.gov.wales/separated-waste-collections-workplaces
Not at all easy. We regard it as a success if anybody puts anything in any bin, saves us picking it up off the floor.....
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Our food waste goes into our little kitchen caddy lined with a compostable bag (both provided by the Council). When full the bag is then dropped into our large green wheelie bin. Our Council green bin is exactly that - a bin for collecting garden waste.
If you have ever been on a landfill site, the heat generated by the decaying garden waste is high and easily sufficient to sterilise the waste food. The heaps of decaying waste have to be routinely turned over so as to reduce the chance of the heap catching fire.
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Moving from a city council in Essex to Huntingdonshire DC 2.5 years ago was a complete revolution of re cycling.
In our previous house we had 7, yes 7 recycling recipitcles. A sack for cardboard and brown paper, a sack for paper - shredded paper bagged separately but included in the sack, a bag for plastic bottles etc and tetra type containers, a food bin, bags supplied by the council, a box for glass and can - small electrical could be included here,a black bin and a brown brown (for garden waste to be composted). The sacks were emptied into a bin by the dustcart staff and reused, the bag for plastics and food waste supplied once a year free if charge,more could be purchased from the library.
We were told this method achieved the highest revenue stream and it never changed from being introduced.
On moving it was 3 bins black for non recyclable, blue for all recycling, geen for garden and food waste - no wrapping of any sort and shredded paper. This year there is a charge for green bins. As a result food waste is now in the black bin as they are not allowed to charge for its collection. We were told where possible it would be removed and disposed of separately. YUCK.
Our WI had a talk by someone from the waste department at Huntingdonshire, extremely interesting. Rubbish is collected by Huntingdonshire but sorted, treated, and dealt with by Cambridgeshire County Council. Very soon, we will be given food bins, so food waste will be collected and recycled. It got really interesting when we asked questions. If food waste has not been in your kitchen, such as vegetables or timings etc from your garden it was fine,but not if they came from your kitchen. Reason contamination in your kitchen!
So once again methane will be generated in landfill.... Caused by those responsible for recycling.....
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Our food waste goes into our little kitchen caddy lined with a compostable bag (both provided by the Council). When full the bag is then dropped into our large green wheelie bin. Our Council green bin is exactly that - a bin for collecting garden waste.
Exactly the same system we have in MK, except the Council don't provide compostable bags, although I am happy to buy them
However I am not sure how practical that is on a campsite? I imagine no one would want to take their food caddy with them on holiday so I fear that any food waste would just be lumped together with any other black waste. I am sure that ready made meals are used a lot when people stay on campsites, we certainly did, and I am not sure how practical it is to clean the containers they come in enough to put in the recycling in a clean enough condition. I am not quite sure what point I am trying to make but I suspect what I am saying what happens at home is unlikely to be completely replicated on a campsite?
David
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It would appear that sadly Sunderland council is a 'bit too traditional' as we don't have all these compostable bags. All our kitchen food waste and general waste goes into one general waste bin which is coloured green. We have a recycle bin which is coloured blue and a garden waste which is brown.
Back to the OP, I don't think the club is going to go back and central bins are here to stay. I like them as the ones I've used are near the entrance and far away from any outfits and I don't miss the tractor on its (sometimes twice) daily bin hunt.
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We have a spare food caddy which we keep in the caravan using food waste bags supplied by our Council. As a site manager has mentioned in a previous post, here in Wales it is law that all recycling requires separating into types and placed in the correct bin. This is second nature to us but visitors from other parts of the UK do seem to not quite get it. Despite clear labelling.
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It was the same when Wales introduced the charge for bags from supermarkets. Here in Wales we learnt to bring our bags with us every time we visited a shop. Supermarkets in Germany stopped supplying them full stop quite a number of years ago.Same in several other European countries.
I wonder how long it will be before we universally adopted those bins sited under ground like the ones in the Netherland cities. It would make life easier for those who cannot physically use the new all-in-one containers.
Having encountered just about every different combination of waste collection whilst touring around the UK the Clubs preference is just another one. No problem.
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We don’t have waste food collections. Ours is a wheelie bin for hard plastics and metal combined, a wheelie bin for paper and cardboard, a wheelie bin for general waste (non recycle), and an optional paid for garden waste wheelie bin.
Metal and plastic collected monthly, paper monthly, General fortnightly. We no longer pay for garden waste, but have kept our bin. I would prefer metal and plastic to be fortnightly, and general monthly, as we end up with far more in plastics than we do general. Don’t get much paper/cardboard in Winter, as we use as firestarter, but monthly is good over Summer.Food waste is dealt with by Labrador Services. 🤣 We don’t get that much in truth, I am careful not to buy excess and tend to have a good idea on meal planning to use things up, peelings go into compost bin, odd slice of bread might go out for birds if it isn’t crumbled into dogs bowl. Being pescatarian might help, we don’t have things like bones, meat cuttings, much to the disgust of our hound. Batteries are collected and either dropped off at Aldi, or at tip. Big metal stuff goes to “any old iron” man😁
Bananas shouldn’t need wrapping, other fruit should be in paper bags, eggs are in cardboard, milk cartons and drinks bottles tend to be most of our plastics. Supermarkets will take back soft plastic bags. We had a milkman for years, but they are like rocking horse poo around us, and last lazy blighter never cleared up glass if he dropped a bottle😡
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We bought an extra pavement food bin from the council. Mostly because we bbq most of the time and have loads of peelings, meat trimming etc. We used to collect it in a plastic bag to take to the site bins in France. Except the magpies started attracting our bag. Even through 4 layers. The bin works far better. However the only bag that fits it as is strong enough is a council supplied recycling bag. So we use those as we are swamped with then.
The bag we started because we didn't have anything to carry our food waste to the rubbish bins. I'm certainly not going to use my plastic bags!
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We do have four bins. One for paper and cardboard, one for food plastics, metals and other recyclables, one for garden waste and food, which requires caddy bags and a general waste. We do not get charged for garden waste as the council investigated the take up and dumping this produced and decided it was not economic.
As for sites I do think the wastage produced by plastic bags is not justifiable and the time spent by wardens emptying the bins could be better spent elsewhere. As someone who spent much their career investigating accidents I also now that the bins pose a significant risk to the staff emptying them.
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