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Before we had Wheelie Bins...

Kermit.de.frog

The thread on waste fines got me thinking...

There was a time I am told when we had no wheelie bins in Ireland. I'm too young to know/ remember.

So all the rubbish was just dumped in bags on the street to be collected??

Can only imagine what that must have been like in weather like this.

How did you keep the birds away from pecking at the bags?

The 80's must have been a dark, dark place in Ireland. Be interested to hear how people lived then compared to now and your refecltions :cool:

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BorneTobyWilde

Wheelie bins are just a dump for anything. Even to this day you won't find a wheelie bin in Japan. It's all collected in bags that all all tied up and clean. No messy smelly bins. If your bag is not correct, you get a red sticker. That is a real source of shame to a Japanese person, of course to an Irish person they'd not give a fcck. That is the difference in the culture.

loyatemu

the old bins (and the lids in particular) were invariably destroyed by the bin lorries driving into/over them, or being blown around in the wind. Also it seemed to be a matter of pride among the binmen that they treated the bins as roughly as possible.

Grandeeod

In the 80s, Bins were celebrities.

Doctors room ghost

loyatemu wrote: »

the old bins (and the lids in particular) were invariably destroyed by the bin lorries driving into/over them, or being blown around in the wind. Also it seemed to be a matter of pride among the binmen that they treated the bins as roughly as possible.

You would burn the arse out of the bin dragging it out to the road full and she would leak out the bin juice then on a hot day. The lid used to be stolen by kids for playing drums on and you would have to paint something on your bins to identify them.
The bin man used to hop it off the truck too to loosen the contents out.good old times.
Interesting thing too was a fox could work the old bins for food but he can’t work the wheelie bin now on account of height and a fitted lid

Speedsie

mariaalice wrote: »

A lot of people burned rubbish in a rural area, there is an Irish name for a piece of land on a farm where rubbish was burned cant think of the name off hand.

Edit: The haggard

The haggard is the yard where hay, potatoes & other items are stored, close to the farmyard/farmhouse. Never heard of it being used to burn things. Now, plenty was burnt in the ash pit, but not the haggard!

BattleCorp

smurfjed wrote: »

And we werent told that because the Chinese didn't want our rubbish we needed to start paying for it to be recycled, I find it strange that we are actually shipping garbage to China in the first place, surely the environmental damage done by the fossil fuels outweigh the damage of the garbage!

Where I am now, we have one wheelie bin, everything goes into it and its collected DAILY for free

Metal shipping containers of goods are shipped to us from China. These metal containers have to go back to China once they are emptied. No point sending them back empty. Bales of plastic for recycling used to be sent back to China in these containers.

Edit: Sorry, someone else also posted this point earlier.

Graces7

Speedsie wrote: »

The haggard is the yard where hay, potatoes & other items are stored, close to the farmyard/farmhouse. Never heard of it being used to burn things. Now, plenty was burnt in the ash pit, but not the haggard!

... and then there was the midden...

Graces7

And need to remember please that in my childhood and youth there were no plastic bags, or plastic anything. Radios were made of bakelite, washing up bowls were enamel, and we used cloth and paper for everything else. No plastic...

Hotblack Desiato

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

The bin trucks were hardier machines back then I once saw one devour a set of interior house doors

A couple of loyalists trying to escape from the Maze found that out the hard way.

Oh and bakelite is a plastic.

Rows Grower

Anyone here saying they remember the binmen were begging or knocking on the door for tips at Christmas should be ashamed of themselves.

As long as I can remember the binman was the one person that every household, no matter how hard up, tipped at Christmas.

They were hardworking people of the highest integrity doing a job that nobody aspired to but (nearly) everyone respected and appreciated.

Franz Von Peppercorn

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

The thread on waste fines got me thinking...

There was a time I am told when we had no wheelie bins in Ireland. I'm too young to know/ remember.

So all the rubbish was just dumped in bags on the street to be collected??

Can only imagine what that must have been like in weather like this.

How did you keep the birds away from pecking at the bags?

The 80's must have been a dark, dark place in Ireland. Be interested to hear how people lived then compared to now and your refecltions :cool:

There’s really bog all difference between the 80’s and now. Except smart phones.

2018 is hella dissapointing.

Rows Grower

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

There’s really bog all difference between the 80’s and now. Except smart phones.

2018 is hella dissapointing.

Eh, you can fly half way around the world now for an hours wages whereas it was nearly a months wages to fly to the UK in the eighties.

There's more.

Franz Von Peppercorn

Rows Grower wrote: »

Eh, you can fly half way around the world now for an hours wages whereas it was nearly a months wages to fly to the UK in the eighties.

There's more.

But that’s not technological progress. You could fly to New York in 3 hours in the 80’s.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Rows Grower wrote: »

Anyone here saying they remember the binmen were begging or knocking on the door for tips at Christmas should be ashamed of themselves.

As long as I can remember the binman was the one person that every household, no matter how hard up, tipped at Christmas.

They were hardworking people of the highest integrity doing a job that nobody aspired to but (nearly) everyone respected and appreciated.

That's not my recollection of the period from c1960 to 1975. Many complained that the binmen were often better paid than those they called to asking for tips at Christmas. They had pensionable council jobs and a guaranteed weekly wage, which many of the householders did not have. There were many people who worked extremely hard in difficult jobs. The practice here was stopped by direction of the council because of the complaints about it.

Billy86

I miss the black plastic box looking one we used to us for roller hockey in the early/mid 90s. Wheelie bins cam in just the nick of time though because something kept breaking the old ones. Fecked if I know what, though.

wexie

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

But that’s not technological progress. You could fly to New York in 3 hours in the 80’s.

.....but the reason you can't anymore has nothing to do with the technology not being there.

It's just not deemed economically viable.

(although there are a number of plans in the pipeline for supersonic business jets)

Rows Grower

Axton Beautiful Sortie wrote: »

That's not my recollection of the period from c1960 to 1975. Many complained that the binmen were often better paid than those they called to asking for tips at Christmas. They had pensionable council jobs and a guaranteed weekly wage, which many of the householders did not have. There were many people who worked extremely hard in difficult jobs. The practice here was stopped by direction of the council because of the complaints about it.

My memory of being aware of money would only go back to roughly about 1975 when I was about 7/8.

I never to this day knew that the lads collecting the bins back then had a pensionable job but I don't doubt your knowledge and I don't envy them.

I knew they were in a union and worked for the council and I remember everyone lucky enough to have a job worked extremely hard back then.

Where I grew up, their job was always the one job that was most important to tip at Christmas.

Rows Grower

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

But that’s not technological progress. You could fly to New York in 3 hours in the 80’s.

No, I couldn't.

Graces7

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

A couple of loyalists trying to escape from the Maze found that out the hard way.

Oh and bakelite is a plastic.

The mother and father of plastics in fact, but nothing like its muitifarious and dangerous offspring ..not plastic as we know it. Would not have made food bags..

Franz Von Peppercorn

Rows Grower wrote: »

No, I couldn't.

You could in the 80’s. Not now though. Good point.

Rows Grower

I remember one year, it must have been the seventies when what was known as "The Corporation" went on strike for a few weeks, could have been months actually.

The rubbish was piling up along the footpaths and it was becoming a serious health hazard.

All I remember is one evening being told "finish up yer game of football there now, and bring every bag of rubbish you can see up to the top of the main road above the bus stop and block the road."

We didn't need to be asked twice, we built a barricade and blocked the road. Some of the first few bus drivers got out and tried to make a gap to drive through but the adults supervising this particular protest were adamant none would pass. That softened their cough.

After a couple of days they had to send up soldiers in trucks to take away all the rubbish, some craic in fairness.

Hannibal_Smith

I remember when I was a kid there was a call to the door around Christmas time. My mum was on the phone, so I answered the door. It was the bin men to 'wish us a happy christmas'. I thought it was a lovely thing to do, and wished them a happy Christmas back and shut the door. My mum shouted in to me asking who was at the door and when I told her she went flying out after them. It was an important life lesson apparently, tip the bin men or your bins maybe forgotten!

Eire Go Brach

Don't recall any dumping when the council looked after the bins.
Dumping everywhere now. Hate it.

Hotblack Desiato

Rows Grower wrote: »

After a couple of days they had to send up soldiers in trucks to take away all the rubbish, some craic in fairness.

Doubt it was much craic for the soldiers who get paid f**k all, can't go on strike and have to pick up the pieces when the civilians f**k up

Gael23

The 80s really were a dark time when nothing was recycled and it all went down to nothing more than a hole in the ground.

Hotblack Desiato

Eire Go Brach wrote: »

Don't recall any dumping when the council looked after the bins.
Dumping everywhere now. Hate it.

The reason the whole thing got privatised was the "me me me gimme stuff for free" brigade wouldn't pay their council waste charges.

The reason we got council waste charges was because FF thought it would be a great wheeze in 1977 to abolish rates, and successive governments cut income taxes and the support grants the councils were supposed to get to make up for the loss of rates.

We can't have it both ways, either we feck income taxes right up to pay for water (done properly, not a leaky 100 year old system) and 'free' refuse, or else we have low income taxes and then pay the full cost of water and refuse in user charges. There is no other alternative, either A or B or some sort of a mix of A and B, but the cost has to be paid for one way or the other.

The other problem with 'free' is that people abuse the crap out of it. What's the incentive to pay money to fix my leaky tap or toilet when the thousands of litres of water it wastes a year cost me nothing? What's the incentive for me to segregate my recyclables, or reduce the amount of waste I produce, when I can feck whatever I want into the bin for 'free'?

_Dara_

Tabnabs wrote: »

WTF, there were bins, hence why Binmen aren't a new invention. The bins were smaller, you dragged it to the kerb and the council collected it.

Fcuking millennials...

I was born in 1983 and I remember us getting the wheelie bin service. I’d say around 1990. This was in a rural area. I have no idea what we did with our waste before that but it wasn’t collected.

harr

A bit off topic but anyone remember renting your telly ? The man would call every Saturday looking for the few pence rent.. big day in our house when he took the banjaxed black and white set and replaced it with a colour one...milk man collected on a Saturday morning as well...
Getting back to the bins definitely less waste back then and I never remember my mam doing a big shop...she would go to butchers every day for that evenings dinner and dad supplied veg from the garden..

Wanderer78

Hotblack Desiato wrote:

The reason the whole thing got privatised was the "me me me gimme stuff for free" brigade wouldn't pay their council waste charges.

I'd imagine it was more to do with the global push of the libertarian movement of neoliberalism that's been occurring over the last few decades, don't you think?

feargale

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

The thread on waste fines got me thinking...

There was a time I am told when we had no wheelie bins in Ireland. I'm too young to know/ remember.

So all the rubbish was just dumped in bags on the street to be collected??

Can only imagine what that must have been like in weather like this.

How did you keep the birds away from pecking at the bags?

We had a midden. Everything went into it, rusty bicycle clips, jam jars, the donkey's harness when it fell to pieces, a punctured bodhrán, old wellingtons, expired dog licences, letters from the uncle in America ( but not the enclosed dollars), tea leaves, fishbones, the dog when he expired, the remains of the poteen still after the guards smashed it, and old copies of the Messenger of the Sacred Heart.
The folks are very old now. The last time I went home there were two archaeologists at the midden examining and analysing turds.

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

The 80's must have been a dark, dark place in Ireland. Be interested to hear how people lived then compared to now and your refecltions :cool:

A dark place indeed. We bought a candle at Christmas.
Reflections? The mirror cracked and that ended up in the midden too.