Appearing on BBC news, a councillor (elderly, not very good at speaking english, you know the sort), asserted that "we can't keep on putting rubbish in the ground, those days are over."
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| Only three weeks to go before bin day... |
Well, he has a point, of course. But let's think about this for a while. Putting things into the ground has been a legal aim for councils for very, very many years. Legislation originating in Europe was complied with quite quickly across the member states, apart from one laggard - the UK. Being a former imperial colonist, the UK knew better than everyone else, so just kept putting it off.
Now, the solution to not putting things into the ground is rather more complex. But what's blatantly obvious is that you can't do it just by not collecting bins quite so often. You don't generate less rubbish simply because the bin men aren't coming. You just delay its entry into landfill, not avoid it.
The main reason Gwynedd won't end-up with less landfill with a three week collection period is that the people who generate all that packaging - the manufacturers - have never meaningfully been targeted by government. No, they are a bit too difficult to tackle, and we have a free market, and so on. So, here, have more cellophane around an individual biscuit, wrapped in three further layers of plastic, just in case.
As usual, it's a mild case of 'when there's a problem, hit the poor public'. It is bad government, with very little thinking other than 'must save money' behind it. Maybe, if councils stopped signing-up to expensive contracts with private companies who must make a profit, they could save money that way. But, oh no, that would mean someone in the council would have to get up off their arses, instead of being made to feel important by private companies for doing very little other than holding sway over where the contracts go.
So, the challenge is to see (a) how much money Gwynedd really do save with three week collections and (b) by how much landfill volumes fall as a sole result of three week collections. Oh, and (c), how much more fly tipping and toxic burning will take place, and how CCTV shut-downs will allow perpetrators to do so with impunity.
And all that's without even touching on the health effects of a bin, sweltering away for three weeks in the summer sun.
Nice one Gwynedd! Another example of why local government is such a joke.
