I think I saw the future ("Garlic bread..") the other day when went to a petrol station in Limerick. You pay 6 Euros for a ticket and tap the code into the domestic waste disposal unit. You have a minute to put to your two black bags of rubbish in the machine before the door closes. I think its a great idea and it certainly saves people money not having to pay for their rubbish to be collected and pay by the wieght and a service charge.
Petrol stations seem to be mini supermarkets these days. There's a petrol station in West Cork that sells pasties. Just like those we use to eat when went on holiday to Cornwall. We often stop off at petrol station for a breakfast roll. But you don't attempt to buy food on a Sunday. All you get is:
"We don't sell food on a Sunday."
Is Little Chef still open in Blighty? I don't think there aren't enough service stations here in Ireland.
I wonder what happens to the rubbish? Will it go to land fill sites? We try to recycle what we can. Councils should have a lot more litter bins. Preferably one's that you get more than two fingers in. Don't the wasps like the bottle banks?
Six EUROS.!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteSix euros!!!!!
Bloody hell
How expensive is that?
Home much DOES it cost an average household for its rubbish to be collected a week?
Four pounds seventy eight pence is six Euros, John.
ReplyDeleteWe don't get our dustbins emptied by the council. Instead a private company collects your rubbish (you have to wheel it quarter of a mile to the nearest cross/ junction on the main road. They charge for collecting your rubbish and also for how much it weighs. You can take it to a private waste disposal contractor. They charge 30 cents a kilo. Do they still put your rubbish collection charge on your rates/council tax in the UK?
I get really dismayed when I see rubbish on beaches here in Ireland. Yet I look around the countryside and don't see any rubbish bins.
Dave, I take my refuse to the local recycling depot for €3 a car load about 10 bags and I go about four times a year. Oh forgot have to add on the price of a joss stick to de -smell the car when I return.
ReplyDeleteHi Heron. Three Euro a car load is very reasonable. Suppose you should add the cost of your car fuel to that?
ReplyDeleteI also think it would be good to know how much the packaging on our food and drink costs?
Thanks!
True, for got about the fuel :) So 15 km a round trip so for the year roughly €6
ReplyDeleteHi Heron. We spend money on fuel to go for our shopping. Then we spend money again to get rid of it. Rubbish is big business. Then it goes into landfill and we leave future generations environmental and financial problems. I suppose if everything was made of organic materials we wouldn't have the problem. Been reading a great book: Blueprint For A Green Planet: John Seymour - Herbert Girardet. White glass is absolutely harmless to the environment when it breaks down naturally. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteDave perhaps you have mis-read "I take my stuff to a recycling depot"
ReplyDeleteThe plastic gets turned into insulation products, the glass bottles some of them become an aggregate for concrete plus a variety other uses. Recycled milk and juice cartons becomes a board, Steel food cans are smelted down by the steel industry, similar with aluminium cans melted down and reused..
The old engine oil it too is refined, similarly with old paint.
Other non recyclable stuff does not go into landfill, it is being incinerated and the heat used to produce energy.
Your recycling depot sounds excellent, Heron. I wish there were recycling depots everywhere.
ReplyDeleteI think plastic (especially food packaging) is made from oil and takes thousands of years to decompose, if at all. If we went back to seeing food produce loose or in paper bags or even making all food plastics out of biodegradable plastic. The plastic breaks down by bacteria and bacteria in the soil, within twelve to eighteen months.
Here in Ireland there seem to be lots of litter. Mainly because there aren't enough litter bins, especially in the countryside or they are too narrow to put any rubbish in them.
I get really dismayed when I look at the beaches when there's been a storm and see all the rubbish washed up. If there aren't bins people will throw their litter away. Thanks!
I imagine if they started to do that with rubbish over here every gateway would be fly tipped! I think we pay enough tax to have it collected, they would never reduce the council tax and just spend the money elsewhere.
ReplyDeletethere are a few Little Thieves left open but I think they're just hanging on in there! so over priced, but then again the motorway serice stations are just as bad. Like the old joke:
A man walks into a service station and picks up a sausage roll and a cup of coffee, goes up to pay and realises he's only got a £50 note, he explains this to the girl behind the till.
"It's alright..." she replies "You can put the sausage roll back..."
We have our rubbish collected by dustmen who hang off the end of the dustcart who merrily wave to us as they pass on by. They also merrily come to our door around Christmas time to ask for a donation. We always donate. Would be foolish not to. Taking our rubbish to the local tip is not an option because the tip is jealously watched over by a team of keepers who berate you in a string of French expletives if you dare to put something into a rubbish container that it does not belong to!
ReplyDeleteAs for petrol stations selling food. No, they don't, not in our region. Anyway, they all close at 7pm as does everything apart from a few restaurants, Sundays as well. Our region of France is definitely a sleepy place most of the time!
Hi Kev. We pay a property tax here in Ireland. This doesn't cover rubbish collection. I like the Big Bin because you can use it when ever the petrol station is open. Unlike council and other waste stations that close at six and aren't open on certain days like Sundays.
ReplyDeleteThe service stations are expensive. We often find ourselves stopping at McDonalds because its cheap, clean and very fast. Can't say the food is brilliant and we hat those polystrene cups. Another pet hate of mine is the obsession of covering sandwiches with mayonaise. Everywhere seems to be mayonaise mad. You don't see many roadside cafes that serve good old fashioned meals like egg, chips and beans.
There are over 33 million cars in Britain now. In 1986 there were 15 million. No wonder these service stations do so well. Thanks!
Hi Vera.
ReplyDeleteSundays are the worst days for finding some breakfast or petrol here in Ireland. We have often been told:
"We don't serve food on a Sunday."
Is your rubbish collection expensive? We try to recycle what we can and burn paper to start the range. We still end up with full dustbins around the smallholding. Which costs 30 cents a Kg. But we try to recycle a lot of animal feed packaging.
Thanks!
Our rubbish is collected as part of our Council Tax, weekly for household rubbish, fortnightly for garden rubbish (separate wheelie bin), paper & cardboard (separate wheelie bin), tins & plastic (purple bag).
ReplyDeleteAs well as bottle banks, clothes banks, shoe banks, and a yard full of skips where you can dispose of household rubbish too big for the wheelie bin but too small to require a skip, this has different skips for different types of waste (scrap metal, timber, paper, garden, glass, rubble, oil, general).
As John Seymour says, on a self-sufficient holding, there should be no rubbish, the dustman should never need to call, everything generated on the holding should be re-used on the holding.
I can't think of much that won't burn and won't rot, even wood ash can go back to the garden and bones ground down. And metals can be taken to the scrap man for re-cycling.
When I had a garden and an open fire very little went in the wheelie bin.
Hi Cumbrian. Do they give you a break down for your rubbish collection on your Council Tax bill? We pay a property tax here in Ireland. This doesn't include rubbish collection in it, so you either pay a private refuse company, who charge for collection and by the weight. We don't get road lighting, our hedges cut, public transport and we have our own well and septic tank. So rural dwellers get very little for their property tax.
ReplyDeleteThere is a lot of plastic brought into farms today. Especially silage plastic and fertilizer plastic bags. The plastic levy on carrier bags in Ireland looks to have been very successful. Don't suppose they will ever cut down the number of cars in England and Ireland. John Seymour said that authorities should get rid of the car instead of building by-passes. Everywhere you go on a Friday seems to be chockablock with traffic these days. I am a great believer in public transport but there is so little of it here in rural Ireland. People say the car is a necessary evil. I think there are far too many and the pollution must be killing us all. Back to rubbish: over 49 percent goes into landfill in the UK. Thanks!