Illegal rubbish burning and some helicopter flying about the place a few years ago.

tosspot15

Does anybody remember about 8-10 years ago, when they made rubbish burning illegal. Am I imagining things or did they have some poxy helicopter flying about the country looking for people burning rubbish in their yards etc
If it saw somebody it would attempt to land and somebody inside would issue a fine if they caught a person in the act.

Was this actually a thing or have I lost the plot all together? If not, then doesnt this seem a bit bloody ridiculous and counter-productive?

FTA69

tosspot15 wrote: »

Does anybody remember about 8-10 years ago, when they made rubbish burning illegal. Am I imagining things or did they have some poxy helicopter flying about the country looking for people burning rubbish in their yards etc
If it saw somebody it would attempt to land and somebody inside would issue a fine if they caught a person in the act.

Was this actually a thing or have I lost the plot all together? If not, then doesnt this seem a bit bloody ridiculous and counter-productive?

They didn't land, they took a photo and sent it to you along with a fine I think.

jimgoose

Utterly preposterous. You can't enforce anything properly with a helicopter unless it is equipped with miniguns.

tosspot15

FTA69 wrote: »

They didn't land, they took a photo and sent it to you along with a fine I think.

That makes more sense. But still it seems utterly ridiculous to me, having a a helicopter (or several) flying about the place costing thousands to operate each day, while also emitting pollution from the fuel burned, just to fine a handfull of people burning rubbish.

CardBordWindow

Ha! I remember having to keep an ear out for helicopters when we were burning some rubbish.... *cough*....I mean watering the flowers .

washman3

The helicopter cost around €1,500 - €1,800 per hour to run.
To catch some dude burning a few plastic milk cartons and newspapers in his back garden. Makes no economic sense, think about it.!! especially when the real issues of illegal dumping are not being addressed.:mad:

Ash.J.Williams

the feckers just blast Wagners "ride of the valkries" from speakers and hover over your head. That combined with the doppler effect can frighten the bejaysus out of you when you're burning your sh1t!

flutered

the helicopter was causing more damage than the burning of rubbish.

gobnaitolunacy

About as plausible as a van that can detect if you have a telly...



http://www.autoblog.com/2008/06/09/a-visual-history-of-the-bbcs-tv-detector-vans/

Sam Kade

It was a load of baloney to frighten gullible people to stop burning rubbish.

gobnaitolunacy

The period in question coincides with when the so-called Celtic Tiger was in full belt.

Pretty much everyone had helicopters back then, to run to the shop for a carton of milk.