They want us to recycle but...

HelterSkelter

...they keep putting up the charges...

from http://www.rte.ie/news/2006/0120/recycling.html

Charges increase at Dublin recycling park

20 January 2006 11:29

A Dublin county council says it has had to almost double charges at its recycling park this year to cover costs.

A spokesman for Dún Laoghaire/Rathdown Council said charges had to be raised because the Ballyogan Recycling Park lost money last year.

Car owners wishing to dispose of items like construction waste and furniture will now have to pay €20 compared to €12 last year while middle sized vans will incur charges of €100 up from €50.

Most items including white electrical goods and items for recycling will still be accepted for free.

Meanwhile, South Dublin County council's charges will remain much lower at €10 for cars and €16 for vans.

joejoem

Grrrrrrrr

Why is the state run by such involides. In New York, recycleing is run for free and makes enourmous profit. Millions! Of course we are charged for it. €100 for a car load? Balls to that! It will be cheaper to hire a skip and leave it in your garden till its full. A sham, a ****ing sham

Big Nelly

Well Fingal prices on black bin have gone up to 7.50. Robbing bast**ds are putting it up every year. Green bin is only collected every month so after about 2 weeks its full. Rang oxigen and gave out to them it was a joke, they offered me a second green bin with no extra charge. Happy Days

Going to recycle everything now. Monitors and everything into green bin:D

MorningStar

Ok I get people complaining about costs but who should pay for your waste?

What stuff are you actually being charged for?

They do want you to recycle more but they really want people to take responsibility for their own waste. You make a mess you clean it up and you pay for the waste removal.

Before people go on about how it is free else where around the world think about reality of where you live it's population and how old the services are. My understand is by EU law we are simply not allowed subsidise waste collection and charges

Each area is now responsible for its own waste. So if ity costs more in one area it could be lack of use, bad management, over use, local rent etc...

THe charege is for how much it costs there isn't some crazy profit scheme involved.

I get complaining about price rises but consider what services are free and that somebody has to pay explain a system that would work in our country. TO compare anther country you must consideer length of time that it has been in service, any subsides and population size. To compare without that information is unreasonable and all you really are stating is opinion but no facts.

Big Nelly

MorningStar wrote:

THe charege is for how much it costs there isn't some crazy profit scheme involved.

Ok, 7.50 per bin per week. Thats 52 X 7.50= 390 euro per week
Thats just my house. Now how many houses are in fingal. There is a couple of thousand in the Roselawn area so lets say 3000 for number: thats 390X3000=1170000

Now do you think it costs over a million euro to collect rubbish in the Roselawn area? don't think so.

RuggieBear

Big Nelly wrote:

Ok, 7.50 per bin per week. Thats 52 X 7.50= 390 euro per week
Thats just my house. Now how many houses are in fingal. There is a couple of thousand in the Roselawn area so lets say 3000 for number: thats 390X3000=1170000

Now do you think it costs over a million euro to collect rubbish in the Roselawn area? don't think so.

But how much does it cost to collect all that rubbish, and then process it....land fill cost an arm and a leg these days....have to make sure no leachate gets out and pollutes the groundwater and then there is the cost of the land in the first place.

Waste costs!

BTW: each black bag i put out costs 2.50. That's in the city centre. That must be the cheapest around...but how many balck bags can you fit in a wheelie bin?

Big Nelly

RuggieBear wrote:

But how much does it cost to collect all that rubbish, and then process it....land fill cost an arm and a leg these days....have to make sure no leachate gets out and pollutes the groundwater and then there is the cost of the land in the first place.

Yeah but thats just the Roselawn area, there will be more houses then in Delwood, Clonsilla etc so in the end God knows how much in the whole Fingal area they pull in. When the bins charges came in it was promised to stay at 5 euro, it gone up twice in the last 2 years to 7.50 now. This time next year they will have it around a tenner if it keeps going

RuggieBear wrote:

BTW: each black bag i put out costs 2.50. That's in the city centre. That must be the cheapest around...but how many balck bags can you fit in a wheelie bin?

Well with big bags prob about 3-4 max, sometime if you have the bag in and the lid is open they will not collect, but they will take the bin tag off. Had a number of words with them over this and so did my cousin and they seemed to have stopped it.

MorningStar

Big Nelly wrote:

Ok, 7.50 per bin per week. Thats 52 X 7.50= 390 euro per week
Thats just my house. Now how many houses are in fingal. There is a couple of thousand in the Roselawn area so lets say 3000 for number: thats 390X3000=1170000

Now do you think it costs over a million euro to collect rubbish in the Roselawn area? don't think so.

AS pointed out it is not just for collection. THe waste is then disposed of and that costs a lot of money. THe charge is also for all the waste services. The green bin collection and sorting along with the bottle bins.

The accounts are on public show so all you have to do is look them up.

Bare in mind people refusing to pay means that the costs go up as the administration increases and the legal costs increase.

The only way you can have a logical argument that they are making money is if you get the public accounts from the council and see how much money came in and how much money it costs to run. You might not think it costs much but it does. If you can prove they make a profit then show it as the information is avilable. If you just think it can't cost that much and complain without any proof what value does that have.

for example how much does it cost to collect the money you quoted?
How much does it cost to run a truck(include deprciation)?
How much does the landfill site cost?
How long will it last?
Insurance costs?
How much money are they actually getting in?

When you can put that into your simple formula then you can get close to seeing how much it costs.

You can reduce cost by reducing your waste.

Take for one moment that the cost is worked out right who should pay it?

RuggieBear

We went from 2 bags a week at my house when bin collection was "free" to 1 bag every second week when a charge of 5.75 per bag was introduced....we recycle everything we can now!

BOHS

I have to agree with Morning Star on this,the price of collecting and processing is extremely high and most County Councils actually run there waste collections at a loss.Personally i find it pretty funny how most people (and im not saying that its people here) can complain about waste charges but they won't bother bringing any of there items to bottle banks etc cause its to much effort

Mothman

The OP wasn't going on about waste charges, but the charges being levied on bringing a resource to a recycling centre. There is talk on introducing similar charges in Wicklow area. If this were to happen, roadside disposal will get even worse. What gets me is that much of this dipsosal are cans and other similar items that could just go into recycling bank :rolleyes:

Dr_MalPractice

In Tralee, €8 for 240L wheelie bin, €4 for 2 recycling bags for paper, plastic, and cans. it's expected that at this stage you're already recycling your glass, as there are several recycling banks in the town, some of which have facilities for plastic bottles, as well as glass and cans.
Kitchen waste gets composted, we use about 2 bags a month(mainly washed food packaging and cardboard), and the wheelie bin goes out every 6 weeks or so. total cost, about €28 per quarter.

air

Fair play Dr_Mal, thats about all anyone with a back garden should be putting out nowadays. I've ordered a green cone which should handle ALL food waste (as against the limited stuff you can compost).
Along with recycling the glass & cans through the banks I'm hoping to just have the odd opti-bag with paper, cardboard and tetra paks.
Need to find out how much Mr Binman charges for these opti-bags in Limerick.
IMHO, waste collection / disposal charges for unsorted waste should be gradually increased over time with a move towards rarer collections of more specific wastes. I.E. if we had 3 seperate bags for cardboard, plastic and paper it would make seperation / processing much cheaper and efficient.
Its been like this for years elsewhere, I remember being in San Francisco about 15 years ago and they had these different coloured crates that you put different items into.

Slightly OT, we have a long way to go in this respect, a lot of people have yet to realise that the different coloured glass bins are for different colours of glass (based on the contents !)

Enii

Big Nelly wrote:

Ok, 7.50 per bin per week. Thats 52 X 7.50= 390 euro per week
.

I don't put my bin out once a week, more like once every 5 or 6 weeks. I think the charge is a great incentive to recycle, compost and generally reduce waste.

air

Here here, up them bin charges! I'm in total agreement!

Gegerty

Ballyogan has been doing monster business recently. I used to recycle before the charges and there was barely a soul there. Now the place has a massive queue to even get into the place. The story about them making a lose is BS, its ching ching lets get rich and get that holiday home in France we always dreamed of time for the management. It's sickening.

Gegerty

Enii wrote:

I don't put my bin out once a week, more like once every 5 or 6 weeks. I think the charge is a great incentive to recycle, compost and generally reduce waste.

And pay €20 every few weeks to recycle? How is that an incentive? That makes me just dump everything in the regular bin it works out alot cheaper than recycling for me.

air

I think the point was that the charges on regular waste were an incentive to recycle.

I was just onto Mr Binman there myself & it seems that they dont actually sell their opti bags, you have to get an account with them first and pay for a bin, you get the opti bags free then.
Bit of a pain to have to pay 400 euro a year for a bin I dont want just to get rid of my paper and cardboard.

Gegerty

air wrote:

I think the point was that the charges on regular waste were an incentive to recycle.

Yea we can recycle our bottles and cardboard. whoopie doo! I'm all for recycling, as I've said I didn't need charge by weight to do it.

But Take for example the adverts that say you can actually save money by recycling because of the charge by weight scheme. Not now you can't, it works out cheaper to feck everything in the regualr bin and just pay the weight charges than it does to pay €20 for a car and €100 :eek: for a small van. I even got charged the price of a small van (before the hike) because I had used the back seats as well as the boot. Guy told me that qualifies as a small van.

Enii

Gegerty wrote:

And pay €20 every few weeks to recycle? How is that an incentive? That makes me just dump everything in the regular bin it works out alot cheaper than recycling for me.

I live in Fingal, no charges to recycle. Just get charged when I put out the black bin. costs me about 7.50 every 5 or 6 weeks. I've no problem paying that at all. My green bin with all my recycleables is picked up once a month and then I bring my glass and plastic bottles to the bring centre about once every 3 months. All my veg. waste goes into the compost heap. At least I know I am doing my bit for future generations........ but am always looking to do more!

air

Thats the job Enii, tbh I cant see any need for a black bin other than for people with small children (nappies).
What else do people put in the black bin?
I'm guessing it would be things like old shoes & other mixed waste that doesnt easily fit into a given recyclable category.
Of course for most people, they just horse the lot in!
I think there should be a ban on the collection of mixed waste where it is obvious that it could have been seperated at source - ie 95% of domestic waste.

Gegerty

air wrote:

Thats the job Enii, tbh I cant see any need for a black bin other than for people with small children (nappies).
What else do people put in the black bin?
I'm guessing it would be things like old shoes & other mixed waste that doesnt easily fit into a given recyclable category.
Of course for most people, they just horse the lot in!
I think there should be a ban on the collection of mixed waste where it is obvious that it could have been seperated at source - ie 95% of domestic waste.

I think people recycle things that they aren't supposed to. My black bin gets filled every 5-6 weeks with plastic (Ballyogan take pastic with no.2 and no.5 only, I've yet to find any packaging suitable), meat packaging, leftover dinner. Now that I think about it its mostly plastic that the recycling centre won't take and meat packaging. I don't see how mixed waste can be spared at source. sometimes food goes off, sometimes you can't finish your dinner...we need bins. My green bin takes tin cans and light cardboard only (eg ceral boxes) and paper. Majority of my waste paper is sesitive information, bills and bank account info etc that goes in the black bin to avoid identity theft. I might as well not have one tbh.

To bring out a pay by weight charge without offering any credible means for people to recycle is ridiculous. To charge them €20 is criminal. I know Ballyogan seems to be the only one charging €20 but give it time.

I lived in New York in 1999 and we had 6 bins that covered all categories. It's not difficult, oh i might add it was all free.

air

A large proportion of the population lives in accomodation with a garden. Get a green cone and you can put all your gone off food and unfinished dinners into it - bones, meat the lot. www.greencone.ie

Putting the paper in the black bin wont guarantee security, shred it and recycle.

While there certainly isnt an option to recycle everything, most items can now be recycled. The main problem is that people are too lazy to do it / it hasnt been made easy enough / its not compulsory.

With regard to the meat trays, they are made from expanded polystyrene (CD Jewel cases amazingly are the same stuff in solid form). They are only about 5% plastic by volume (the rest is air) and I've read that it is thus not practical to recycle it - due to cost / environmental impact of transport and colection etc.