consequenes of the new bin charges

the_pen_turner

with the new pay by weight charges nearly here there is going to be a lot more problem created than solved.

I can see a few problem that are going to be created.


more fly tipping,

people putting rubbish in other peoples bins

more burning of rubbish in back gardens

more burning on cookers and stoves

can we really trust the scales on the trucks

the cost of getting in a trades man is going to go up a small bit because the waste is going to cost them money. I am now going to have to charge for those small amount you just through in your bin at home


I don't really want this thread to be about price, there are other thread on that

what consequences do you see with these new charges

OldMrBrennan83

This post has been deleted.

foggy_lad

Patww79 wrote: »

I'll be going with the steaming pile of grass down the back yard now after the brown bin hikes in my area. No more trimming the hedges either, and food waste will go in the ditch.

Can you get a dog for the food waste or it will attract rats.

I see more elderly people hoarding months and months of rubbish because they are afraid of the cost. The HSE will end up taking it away for them at even more cost to the state than the council going to collect it every week or two.

I already regularly see elderly people putting plastic carrier bags of rubbish into the street bins even here in Carlow.

Coveney, Kelly and their wealthy cronies have more money than real sense and are so far removed from the reality of most of their constituents they will never see the damage they are doing.

Delta2113

I've had no bin service so far for this year. I was intending to sign up in July but now with the Minister getting involved i might hold out and see what happens.

Xterminator

the_pen_turner wrote: »

can we really trust the scales on the trucks

you can trust them as far as you trust taxi meters and the like.

NSAI will be responsible for checking they are calibrated correctly.

"“Legal Metrology Inspectors will conduct regular nationwide inspections of all bin weighting equipment to ensure compliance with legal requirements and give consumers assured confidence that the weights used to form the basis of their waste bills are accurate,” said Paul Turner, Head of NSAI’s Legal Metrology.

“All waste weighing systems used for the collection of waste under this new legislation must comply with the requirements of the Metrology Act, 1996. Therefore, if a bin company tampers with their weighting equipment, that will be prosecuted,” he added."

r93kaey5p2izun

Xterminator wrote: »

you can trust them as far as you trust taxi meters and the like.

NSAI will be responsible for checking they are calibrated correctly.

"“Legal Metrology Inspectors will conduct regular nationwide inspections of all bin weighting equipment to ensure compliance with legal requirements and give consumers assured confidence that the weights used to form the basis of their waste bills are accurate,” said Paul Turner, Head of NSAI’s Legal Metrology.

“All waste weighing systems used for the collection of waste under this new legislation must comply with the requirements of the Metrology Act, 1996. Therefore, if a bin company tampers with their weighting equipment, that will be prosecuted,” he added."

Any idea what procedure is in place if a customer believes a reading to be false? I had a reading of over 950kg once this year. This is completely wrong but what would be involved in disputing it if such a thing happened again?

foggy_lad

Isabella Massive Postage wrote: »

Any idea what procedure is in place if a customer believes a reading to be false? I had a reading of over 950kg once this year. This is completely wrong but what would be involved in disputing it if such a thing happened again?

You make a complaint to the metrology service which employs only a few people to cover "Weights and Measures" across the whole country! They will send someone out to check the lorry within about 6 months and get back to you.

There are currently NO regular or scheduled checks on the machines on refuse lorrys by any regulator or state body.

Dr_Colossus

foggy_lad wrote: »

There are currently NO regular or scheduled checks on the machines on refuse lorrys by any regulator or state body.

So as a consequence people will have to weigh their own bins prior to putting them out and checking this off vs what the lorry lifted (discount the weight of the bin itself for the actual refuse weight).
This will also assist in identifying if others are disposing of their waste in your bin which are often left unattended overnight or during the day while at work. If you do find this to be a case you'll then have to install cctv to identify the culprit(s).

popsmar

Greenstar just started charging just ove 70 euro per quarter with an additional 17c per kg. Wtf.

Wanderer78

popsmar wrote:

Greenstar just started charging just ove 70 euro per quarter with an additional 17c per kg. Wtf.

You are 'the polluter', and you must pay!

Del.Monte

Wanderer78 wrote: »

You are 'the polluter', and you must pay!

Ah would you stop, people's houses have already been turned into mini recycling centres and now these vultures are being allowed to make hay.

Wanderer78

Del.Monte wrote:

Ah would you stop, people's houses have already been turned into mini recycling centres and now these vultures are being allowed to make hay.

Apologies, but that was a bad attempt at humour. yup, people have taken very well to the more modern approach to waste management, but at some stage, we must actually try deal with the true polluters, i.e. the individual can't always foot the bill

Agent_47

Was in the Algarve a few weeks ago, how the hell are they allowed mix all waste as we tried in vain to recycle the plastic bottles. Glass recycling was by pure chance as we found a location

We are a bunch of mugs here with our recycling. I do agree the market for recyclables is gone as no one wants cardboard or plastic, with fuel costs going up I can see the price for waste collection here going up massively. The only way forward for consumers is buy less, eat less, waste less

cormie

What are these new charges? Is it country wide? I see the original post is from 2016, so are they in already? Does every company now have to charge by weight for black bin and compost? I assume the green bin lifts aren't charged by weight?

I live solo in a small, 10 apartment block and we used to each have our own bins, then management switched to those big communal bins. Each dwelling now has to pay €175 per year, regardless if it's a 1 bed, or a 4 bed and there's no individual consequence of just throwing everything into the black bin. Thankfully the green bin is filled a lot quicker than the black, so it seems people are mostly recycling ok, but I know other tenants in similar set ups with communal bins who make absolutely no effort to recycle and it's terrible to see. I think big apartment blocks like this need to put some kind of individual responsibility on their residents.

Before they switched, I was paying about €65 per year with Panda, but only had to pay for black bin lifts on top of this and green were free. I have a compost bin in the small grass patch of the block, so between this and pretty much all other waste I created being recyclable, it took me 2 years, 10 months and 16 days between black bin lifts for one of my last lifts, most of this was actually ashes from the fire too, and no, I wasn't burning any waste I've a stove now and only burn wood and use eco friendly firelighters, so there's nothing toxic in the ashes now that can't be composted either, so if I still had my own black bin, I'd probably easily make it to 5 or 6 years between black bin lifts for one person, but could probably make it to about 10 years realistically.

I think anything that forces a shift in people's habits is a good thing, it worked well with the plastic bag charging and eventually I think it will work with this, not only on a consumer level, but it is also changing the way supermarkets and manufacturers package their goods.

There's always going to be the same bad apples not willing to pay for anything, but for the rest, there's very simple changes that will save you a lot of money when it comes to waste.

Wanderer78

Agent_47 wrote: »

We are a bunch of mugs here with our recycling. I do agree the market for recyclables is gone as no one wants cardboard or plastic, with fuel costs going up I can see the price for waste collection here going up massively. The only way forward for consumers is buy less, eat less, waste less

ah id some what disagree with your first statement, there has been many positives to the modern approach to waste management, one being 'awareness', we re far more aware now of our waste issues than previously, which is good. i disagree with the idea of 'the market for recyclables is gone', id imagine its still going strong, and must continue, in fact must expand. but i would agree with your final statement, i.e. we must reduce consumption, unfortunately our complex economic systems require the opposite, driven by ideas such as 'continual growth'. it is interesting to watch individuals and groups pushing back on our complex supply chains though, by methods such as leaving packaging in super markets, i think its a great idea, it might just push back on these supply chains, and may just reduce materials entering into the system in the first place.

cormie wrote: »

I think anything that forces a shift in people's habits is a good thing, it worked well with the plastic bag charging and eventually I think it will work with this, not only on a consumer level, but it is also changing the way supermarkets and manufacturers package their goods.

There's always going to be the same bad apples not willing to pay for anything, but for the rest, there's very simple changes that will save you a lot of money when it comes to waste.

as explained earlier, the pressure of the reduction of waste is some what being unfairly placed on the shoulders of the end user, our waste issues are far more complex than just the end of life of materials, we actually also need to try reduce materials from being produced in the first place. i do fear, if we keep pushing this approach of effectively charging the end user to try deal with these issues, humans will simply behave like humans, and will simply 'opt out' by engaging in illegal methods to deal with their waste issues.

cormie

But if the consumer and end user is hit with the fees, or the hassle and risk of illegal dumping, this will inevitably dictate their buying behaviour. If industries believe they can get a market edge, by offering the same product, but with reduced packaging and end cost to the buyer, beyond the cost they pay at the register, it will be more appealing. Demand dictates the market and as awareness grows, the market will be forced to change and compete with those offering better solutions.

Wanderer78

cormie wrote:

But if the consumer and end user is hit with the fees, or the hassle and risk of illegal dumping, this will inevitably dictate their buying behaviour. If industries believe they can get a market edge, by offering the same product, but with reduced packaging and end cost to the buyer, beyond the cost they pay at the register, it will be more appealing. Demand dictates the market and as awareness grows, the market will be forced to change and compete with those offering better solutions.

In my opinion, this is where neoclassical theory falls on its arse, i.e. there's actually no conclusive evidence to support that if continual pressure is placed on humans to change their habits and behaviour by means of fees and effectively, punishment, that it will ultimately reduce materials from being produced, some of course will change, but some simply, will not, and I suspect, the more pressure is placed on the end user, the more people will engage in illegal means to deal with that waste.

cormie

I don't know, again if we take the plastic bag levy as an example, it seems to have worked pretty well. Businesses provide alternatives, manufacturers shift production, also when it's environmental problems and it's effectively for the end users benefit and all the generations to come in the long run, then people begin to wake up, examples of this are plastic packaging being left behind in supermarkets, and now you see compostable bags being provided for loose fruit and veg instead of plastic bags. You also see a lot less plastic bags floating around the streets in the wind these days :pac:

There's always going to be those who won't change and don't give a ****. Fly tipping isn't a new problem.

I don't think there's really much to object to. If you're responsible for buying waste, then you're responsible for getting rid of it. How much of the waste you bought was a want and not a need, probably most of it. This along with the decline in consumption of animal products and other evolutionary advances will be positive in the long run I'd say

Wanderer78

cormie wrote:

I don't think there's really much to object to. If you're responsible for buying waste, then you're responsible for getting rid of it. How much of the waste you bought was a want and not a need, probably most of it. This along with the decline in consumption of animal products and other evolutionary advances will be positive in the long run I'd say

Your example of the plastic bags is indeed a good one, and has worked extremely well, so much so, that other countries have introduced it as well, but again, there is an extremely complicated and potentially dangerous problem in the way our political institutions are thinking economically regarding consumption. British Economist kate raworth explains this very well in her work, and offers a potential solution with her concept of 'doughnut economics'.

Ideas such as 'continual growth' are unsustainable and potentially very dangerous for us all, our planet simply cannot sustain this type of thinking. Our complex economic systems respond to these ideas of growth by simply producing more and more, we respond by simply purchasing more and more, we rely on questionable metrics and metric systems such as GDP etc, which reflect positively with this continual growth, but they fail to reflect and respond to growing environmental degradation caused by these actions.

There's complex interactions going on between all of this thinking, for example, we landfill roughly 30% of our food, therefore we over produce and over consume, there's little incentive to change this, and I do think this is largely due to our thinking, as explained above. I'm not convinced neoclassical theory of economics is truly capable of rectifying these issues, as concepts of continual growth are critical to it's existence

daheff

cormie wrote: »

But if the consumer and end user is hit with the fees, or the hassle and risk of illegal dumping, this will inevitably dictate their buying behaviour. If industries believe they can get a market edge, by offering the same product, but with reduced packaging and end cost to the buyer, beyond the cost they pay at the register, it will be more appealing. Demand dictates the market and as awareness grows, the market will be forced to change and compete with those offering better solutions.

The flip side of this is that companies could be incentivised to have really light & flimsy packging.....so we end up seeing more litter flying around because its so light.


In my view a per bin size charge is a better alternative. The plan should be to reduce the volumw of waste not the weight of it. A bin of paper weighs leas than a bin of stones....but the volume is the same. We are just incentivising to change to lighter packaging.

cormie

Yeah, I think education and a change in thinking is definitely needed too, but that of course is not easy to achieve. There's steady growing interest in the likes of animal free lifestyle and striving for zero waste too, this is largely thanks to growing awareness of consequence and effect of such industries. So the more people that become aware, the more people will align their actions.

Haven't thought about the volume vs weight in bin charges, would it be fair to charge the same for a bin full of natural, eco friendly, old bedding, than a bin full of chemical laden and leeching hard and heavy stuff?

guil

daheff wrote: »

The flip side of this is that companies could be incentivised to have really light & flimsy packging.....so we end up seeing more litter flying around because its so light.


In my view a per bin size charge is a better alternative. The plan should be to reduce the volumw of waste not the weight of it. A bin of paper weighs leas than a bin of stones....but the volume is the same. We are just incentivising to change to lighter packaging.

That's already an option with some companies and in my experience all it leads to is people ordering a smaller bin and leaving out extra with every collection.

OldMrBrennan83

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daheff

guil wrote: »

That's already an option with some companies and in my experience all it leads to is people ordering a smaller bin and leaving out extra with every collection.

Bin companies could then refuse to collect extra...just whats in the bin. If the bin is overfull, either dont collect, or have a system to charge extra if the lid cant close (etc).

guil

Doesn't work, leave the extra there and then get a call from the office to go back to the customer and take extra. Companies won't refuse to send a truck back because it very may well lead to the customer cancelling.