Friday 6 March 2009

Gary Hopkins' Bin Tax Plan


So, the owner of Bristol's daftest moustache, Gary Hopkins, has "pledged to improve the city's recycling rate.".

Councillor Gary Hopkins is aiming to push the rate of all recycled household waste up to 50 per cent after it dropped from 37 per cent to 35 per cent over the last two years.

It's worth remembering at this point that Bristol City Council hasn't, doesn't, and won't ever understand the concept of sticks and carrots, only sticks. So this can only mean one thing - we'll be "pushed" to recycle more by making traditional waste disposal either more inconvenient or more expensive, but probably (knowing them) both.

He plans to encourage more people to recycle organic waste such as food scraps and vegetable peelings by offering free corn starch bags to line brown recycling bins.

Here's a bit of help for you Gary - people don't like using the brown food bin because it's fucking disgusting. It's nothing to do with needing a bag to line it. Plus the fact that the concept of it is just completely pointless. What is there to gain from recycling vegetable peelings? Is that going to save the planet? I rather think not.

"We'll knock on people's doors, give them the free bags and show them how to use the system. Experience elsewhere shows that actually works

Go on Gary. I fucking dare you to knock on my door and patronise me about how I'm killing the planet by not recycling potato peel.

"We also want to expand the range of plastics that can be recycled and we are exploring the idea of rewarding people with a council tax rebate if they throw out less waste. This would be a voluntary scheme and would involve measuring the weight of the waste put out by those taking part."


Voluntary to start with. We're not stupid. As Terry Cook puts it;

Make no mistake what Cllr Hopkins would like to do, but wasn’t got the nerve, is to put spys in the bin and fine those who do not recycle.


Just you fucking try it, Gary.

For future information, the "bugs" sit in the round hole in the moulding underneath the lip of the bin. There are many photos on the web showing this.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

"What is there to gain from recycling vegetable peelings? "

I would imagine this has something to do with local authority recycling figures being gauged by weight not volume, meaning the heavy shit - the glass, the metal, the kitchen waste - is the priority for councils with an eye on boosting their recycling stats, rather than the huge volumes of plastic packaging.

But I may well be wrong.

PS

Dave, stop with your anti-facial hair fascism :mad:

Bristol Dave said...

I've got nothing against facial hair. I have quite a bit of stubble this morning.

I only mention Gary's moustache, because it just looks daft.

banned said...

bristle "recycling figures being gauged by weight not volume" and at the point of collection ( ie when the rear-end tipper goes up ) not whatever actually gets recycled or even nominally goes to China for such ( though actually landfill ).

It's the lies that annoy me, all those jangley radio adds thanking me for recycling and lying about where all the stuff goes when I know that it does not.

I once asked the green facililitators whether I could deposit the paper waste of the factory that I worked at in the recycle facility. They said " NO ", there's no target for commercial waste recycling so you'll just have to pay £1 per bag like all other business waste.

EXPLETIVES DELETED from above. TWATS.

May return soon..fuckety fuck. said...

sounds like the kind of wank we have come to expect from bristol city council..and if they think that giving out a few fucking corn bags will make people use those evil fucking pigbins, they are more deluded than fucking usual. and if they tried using the bug in my pigbin to try and locate it, they will find it in a fucking landfill!.but maybe im being cynical..how nice of BCC to think they can mend the hole in the ozone layer buy collecting a few potato peelings...yes, that was a cat laughing.

AngryDave said...

What about all the times that they just throw the contents of the reyling bin into the refuse truck, because it's too full. My Dad has watched them do this several times.
People in Hartcliffe, and i can imagine elsewhwere too, just burn it in their gardens if the council wont take it away. I have even seen people fill a dumped car with rubbish before it gets towed away. Or they just fill the car with rubbish, then set it on fire. Then they just throw more on once it's going.