DunLaoghaire Rathdown Co.Co. - shysters.

I see Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council are about to introduce a €100 charge for the collection of green bins to those who don't use their black bin.

It would appear that there has been a big fall off in the number of people using their black bins. They are talking about making some of their binmen redundant.

So if this is the case what does "the polluter pays" statement mean.

I understood that we were to be encouraged to recycle and now that we have we are to be penalised.

This is more about revenue than recycling of waste.

They are probably putting this in place before the next benchmarking pay increase comes in.
I am all in favour of the polluter pays idea but don't anyone kid themselves that the introduction of bin charges had anything to do with anything other than paying benchmarking. Because if this the local councils will have to find ways of getting a few bob out of us for bin collection.

A friend of mine has a apartment and the management company where going to get them bin company to get green bins. And this well known company in the meath area wanted to charge the tenants extra for this service. So much for encouraging people to recycle, in the end the management company changed to another company that did not charge extra for green bins. This management company do try and keep their fees reasonable ( by reducing amount of bins)

IsleOfMan said:

I understood that we were to be encouraged to recycle and now that we have we are to be penalised.

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This is a common misunderstanding. Recycling is not a good thing. It is a less bad thing than normal landfilling, but it's still bad. Indeed, it may well be that some of our 'recycled' items are simply being landfilled in China and polluting their environment instead of ours.

Remember that 'recycle' comes last in the list of 'Reduce, Reuse, Recycle'.

That reminds me of a few years back when I went to visit a land fill over in England. I noticed a large pile of glass over at the side. I asked what it was, and the boss said that it was from the bottle banks.

It seems that at the time it was cheaper to create a new bottle from scratch than it was to make one from recycled glass. What cost the money was the heat involved in manufacturing, like aluminium. (Isn't glass just fancy sand?)

I asked why did they bother with the bottle banks, and he said it was for a couple of reasons. To give the public the impression they were being 'green' and also to reduce the weight of the bins. Back then bins had to be manually emptied into the back of the lorry.

I wonder what happens to glass bottles these days.

Yet I have a letter from Dun Laoghaire Rathdown that specifically states that there will be no charge for the green bin. It was recently dated when they were advising us of the new fixed charge, the lifting charge and the collection charge for the black bin. It appears they are paying a private company, Oxigen €5m per year to collect the green bins. Instead of making their own binmen redundant due to a lesser number of black bins being used why not use their own binmen to collect the green bins?

IsleOfMan said:

Yet I have a letter from Dun Laoghaire Rathdown that specifically states that there will be no charge for the green bin.

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Was the letter referring to the scenerio you outline - where there is no grey bin collection for that household?

According to their letter, there is a charge for black bins. There is no charge for green bins. Fairly straight forward I would have thought?

If the letter you are referring to was based on the scenario/assumption of a householder paying for the black bin & using this service, that I don't think it's reasonable to quote this letter as evidence in a debate about a different scenario, i.e. where the householder is not paying for/using the black bin service.

So why didn't they state that in their correspondence. They simply said that green bins would be collected free of charge. It would have been easy to insert a clause and to have prepared for this contingency in advance.

IsleOfMan said:

So why didn't they state that in their correspondence. They simply said that green bins would be collected free of charge. It would have been easy to insert a clause and to have prepared for this contingency in advance.

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I guess we'd have to see the full text of the letter to form a judgement on this.

Get rid of both bins, forget about recycling, dump all your rubbish in black bags and take a spin up to the land fill near Enniskerry every month or two. You'll save a fortune every year so it must be what your government wants you to do.

Of course it helps to have a garden shed if you want to adopt this policy, keeping black sacks of rubbish in the bath isn't advisable even if it is the only storge space available in recently built accomodation in Dublin.

Joking aside, the land fill was genuinely one of the most useful local ameneties when I lived in that part of the world. Which doesn't say a whole lot for local ameneties.
I'd now consider a nearby (but not too nearby) land fill and definite plus if buying a house in Dublin. Any service you can avoid paying the Irish government for and can provide for yourself is a good days work.

-Rd

I have been very good about recycling. However if I am going to be charged for my green bin then I am not going to bother anymore. I will do as daltonr suggests. I am tired of being Mr.Nice Guy. Here comes EvilIsleOfMan.

I recycle stuff because of the damage we are doing to the environment, not because of what some civil servants suggest.

However, after Rainyday's comments (stuff being sent to China), it would be interesting to find out exactly what does happen to our 'recycled' rubbish.

I have stopped keeping the tap running when brushing my teeth. A drop in the ocean.

Yes, I agree. I am just having a rant. It should be about the environment. It seems you can't win nowadays. See my posting abouy my son's car insurance of today on another thread. I feel I am being worn down and being screwed at every turn no matter what I do.
My elderly father had a burst radiator in his home. After 60 years of paying insurance he was told that they wouldn't pay for the butst pipe nor would they pay for his replacement carpet. They said they would give him €300 toward the cost of a rug. He is 85 years of age and unable to stand up to these guys anymore . I think in all that time he might have made one other claim.

Yes, I agree. I am just having a rant
I suspected that that was the case.

You do raise an interesting point. Many people will stop recycling because of this.

As for being screwed, well at least you have company!

The whole reduce, reuse, recycle thing drives me nuts. It's another example of the government running the people instead of the people running the government in this country of ours and it makes me want to give my fellow citizens a good shake. Why are we, the plebs, forced to bear the brunt of the waste issue? Why is government not forcing business to use packaging etc. in the first instance? Why does Repak, a state body, protect businesses from having to take back the rubbish their goods generate and instead has us all running around crying about green bins, bottle banks etc. which really are beside the point? They say we have choice about packaging we buy, but that's a red herring. Often there is no choice (tetrapaks are a case in point - unrecyclable btw) and when there is, it's much more expensive to have one with less packaging. If the government really cared, you'd think there would be an incentives and penalties system to encourage less packaging and make environmentally sound packaging cheaper. But shure why would they do that, when they have us eejits sorting it out and paying for it for them. I'm sick and tired of the tail wagging the dog and feeling like I'm the only one who can see it.

Grrrr ... Just don't start me on the rape seed oil ....

Rebecca

I feel I am being worn down and being screwed at every turn no matter what I do.

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I'm sick and tired of the tail wagging the dog and feeling like I'm the only one who can see it.

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You're not the only one who can see it MissRibena, see IsleOfMan's quote above. I've given up, thrown in the towel. Handed back my membership card of an irish Political Party and accepted that it's not going to improve.

I deluded myself for a long time but I've gave up some time during the life of the last government.

There are so many very simple common sense ways in which this country could be really improved, money could be saved, peoples lives could be made better. I'm not talking about complete root and branch restructuring of the state, I'm talking about simple things. I've posted many of them here over the years. But it doesn't happen.

If they need to rush a bit of legislation through the dail to cover up or fix some blunder they've made, or introduce a tax, etc. then it can be done literally in a few days, see the recent example of IDA factories.

But if you need to do something important like make a decision on a second terminal, or put nurses in some of the hospital wards that were built and left empty, or buy a couple of pillows for the poor sods on trolly's then it takes years.

Report after report is written and shelved. Committee after Committee is formed. Agencies spring up to replace agencies that were doing ok in the first place. All at HUGE expense.

It's depressing, and it's getting worse and worse. And what will be really depressing will be when FG next get into government after years in the wilderness and continue with the same rubbish.

We are faced with a Government and Permanent civil service who faced with the decision of how to use 10 million to improve the health service, would spend the 10 million on PR to tell us the health service is better.

They lost sight of the difference between an economy and a society years ago. We're not citizens to them. We're consumers. Except for once every couple years when we become Shareholders for about a month before an election.

-Rd

Thanks daltonr. I know it's not just me but when I mention things like this to friends they just nod and their eyes glaze over. Maybe they have all given up too and they just accept it now. Maybe that's what will happen to me too.

I know there are loads of small things that could be done to improve the country and I too, can't understand why the government can't implement them. After all, they would get kudos for it, no matter how undeserved.

Another thing that really gets me is that the government seems to have RTE's backing in a constant smokescreen of focusing on relatively unimportant issues while the serious and fundamental issues only get spot-checked. At the moment it's the postcodes; every time I turn on the radio they are going on about the bloody post codes. Who cares if we have a postcode or not? Surely if we need one, somebody who is responsible can prove we need one and go off and sort it out. There shouldn't be a flippin referendum over it! And if it isn't postcodes, it's smoking bans or what have you. Meanwhile the government gets to sweep the serious issues under the carpet for another day.

Did you move to America yet? Do you have a guest room?

Rebecca

IsleOfMan said:

I have been very good about recycling. However if I am going to be charged for my green bin then I am not going to bother anymore. I will do as daltonr suggests. I am tired of being Mr.Nice Guy. Here comes EvilIsleOfMan.

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You do realise that the impact of your actions will affect your fellow citizen, your grand-children & my children, and not those nice people over at DLRCoCo, don't you? You don't inherit the earth from your parents, you borrow it from your children.

MissRibena said:

The whole reduce, reuse, recycle thing drives me nuts. It's another example of the government running the people instead of the people running the government in this country of ours and it makes me want to give my fellow citizens a good shake. Why are we, the plebs, forced to bear the brunt of the waste issue? Why is government not forcing business to use packaging etc. in the first instance? Why does Repak, a state body, protect businesses from having to take back the rubbish their goods generate and instead has us all running around crying about green bins, bottle banks etc. which really are beside the point? They say we have choice about packaging we buy, but that's a red herring. Often there is no choice (tetrapaks are a case in point - unrecyclable btw) and when there is, it's much more expensive to have one with less packaging. If the government really cared, you'd think there would be an incentives and penalties system to encourage less packaging and make environmentally sound packaging cheaper. But shure why would they do that, when they have us eejits sorting it out and paying for it for them. I'm sick and tired of the tail wagging the dog and feeling like I'm the only one who can see it.

Grrrr ... Just don't start me on the rape seed oil ....

Rebecca

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HI Rebecca - I think you've got the wrong end of the stick.
1) Tetrapaks are recyclable - See
2) Repak isn't a state body - It's a a not for profit members based organisation set up by Industry for Industry - see [broken link removed]
3) Consumers have to power to solve the landfill/recycling problem in our country today. You say 'you'd think there would be an incentives and penalties system to encourage less packaging and make environmentally sound packaging cheaper', but that's exactly what the whole 'pay-by-weight' system does. If consumers keep buying the items with loads of packaging, they pay the penalty every time they put out their bin. As soon as consumers start switching to low-packaging items, the manufactuers and distributors will follow very, very quickly.

So don't go booking your ticket to the US so soon. Faraway hills are greener, and faraway pubs are full of carcinogenic smoke (except for those smart countries that have followed the Irish lead, like Malta, Norway, New Zealand and (as of today), Sweden).