Leave out the book, I've got one of those

[venta]

Today's rant will be on the subject of my least favourite deadly sin:

Sloth.

Now I can see a few puzzled looks at the back, there, eyeing the sofa and the DVD player. What's wrong with a good dose of sloth every now and again, you ask ? If you mean a bit of time spent lying on the sofa, doing nowt, or being similarly lazy then there's absolutely nothing wrong with that (says the Gospel according to Venta).

The BBC carried an article today about the decision of Newport council to limit households to one wheelie-bin's worth of rubbish per fortnight. Recycling is collected every week.

The article quotes the following Newport resident:

Mother-of-five Mandy Price, who fills over 20 bin bags aweek and does not recycle any rubbish, said she could not cope with the restriction. She told [the BBC]: "It's a pain really... I don't see why they just don't come once a week," adding: "You just put it in the bins, and you don't really think where it goes at all."

That's the kind of sloth I hate. Lazy, self-centered thinking which cannot even bother itself to consider wider implications. Ms Price is the reason restrictions like this have to be introduced, because people are too damned idle to actually stir themselves to care what is happening in the world around them.

Laziness can strike anyone, and I'm sure I'm guilty as much as anyone. But to be so blinkered as to be able to say something like the above, without even realising that it's such a shameful statement, makes me want to shout at Ms Price until she understands.

Which would be completely futile. It'd slide off, and she'd be left wondering who that rude girl was who was so opinionated. This new restriction is inconvenient to her - might even cause her to alter her routine a little or make some effort - and as such is unworkable. That it might be necessary simply isn't relevant. Why should she change her ways simply because the landfill sites in Wales are full ? No, no, you don't think where it all goes. It just goes.

More power to Newport council, I reckon, and I hope they fine Ms Price for every week she fails to make the brave and terrible step of putting the empty tins in the recycling box.

Incidentally: 20 bin-bags worth of rubbish per week ?

Frances and I manage to fill one bin bag a week, maximum. Admittedly, there are only two of us. If we assume the existence of a Mr Price, then this is a seven-person household. Maybe two or three of the children are still in nappies, and wear disposables (can anyone such as bateleur give me a ball-park volume-of-rubbish for that ?) I guess small children might generate other sources of rubbish unknown to me, too.

I could believe that one wheelie bin of unrecyclable rubbish might be overly restrictive for a family of seven, over the course of two weeks. Having never had a wheelie bin, I'm rather vague as to their capacity. I gather Reading has a scheme for allowing larger families an extra bin, which seems perfectly sensible.

But really... twenty bin bags ? Am I being unreasonable in assuming that the family must live entirely off packaged foods, and not even do the simplest things, like squashing the packaging ?

Comments

[uitlander]

My house of 1 generates between one third and half a bin bag per week. Glass, tins, plastic and cardboard are extracted and recycled. Before I was extracting plastic and card it was between half and three quarters of a bag full. You could probably get 3 or 4 full bin bags in my wheelie bin.

My neighbours with two small children do not seem to use their recycling tubs, and routinely are observed sneaking out after I have put my bin out to fill it full of their excess rubbish. Their own wheelie bin is usually overflowing, and they have this less-than-charming habit of leaving any excess bags after that on the kerbside (the bin men will not take these).

I have never spoken to them, as I reckon its likely to be a tirade about recycling, how much crap they generate and the cheek of helping themselves to any free space in any nearby bin they can find.

[smorgasbord.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I miss the bin men for a week or two and find myself with more rubbish than will fit in my wheelie bin. When this happens I do not see a problem with putting the rubbish in another persons bin that has space and has already been left out. It's better than the obvious alternatives of keeping it in the house for another week or leaving it on the kerb in the hope that the binmen will take it any way.

[uitlander]

My objection to the bahviour of my neighbours is split into three:

Part is based on the impression that they make no effort to recycle anything (which strikes me as stunningly selfish, and makes me rather annoyed given the amount that can be recycled with minimal effort by just putting glass and scrap paper in the collection cartons the council provide for each house).

Part is that this is not an occassional 'opps I forgot to put it out last week' - this happens every week without fail. It would be a basic courtesy to ask their neighbours if they could use the spare space, but this is beyond them. Instead they prefer to dump it when they think no-one is watching (a number of us have observed what can only be described as rather guilty behaviour as they check to see whether anyone is apparently about before dumping their extra rubbish).

Part is also that our local council has suggested they might introduce an additional charge for excessive rubbish producers, and a council tax discount for under-users to encourage recycling. As someone who would qualify for a discount I don't particularly want them wrecking that - although how the wretched thing would actually work in practice is anyone's guess.