Leave out the book, I've got one of those
Mar. 7th, 2006 07:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ventaToday'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![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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 ?
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 ?
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no subject
Date: 2006-03-12 02:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-12 02:50 pm (UTC)If lathany stopped recycling, Mandy Price would almost certainly not consequently have to start. So lathany isn't "doing it so that Mandy Price doesn't have to". If your local authority is close to quota and determined to meet it, I'll allow that lathany is doing it so that (in the short term, until the quota rises again) the businesses in your area don't have to.
If some people do none then everyone else does more.
Even ignoring the practicalities I describe, I'm not sure that's quite right, since people generally either do recycle or don't. With doorstep recycling, once you're filtering rubbish at all, it's isn't much extra effort to recycle whatever the council will take. So it's more like "if some people do none then everyone else is more likely to do some".
no subject
Date: 2006-03-12 03:00 pm (UTC)Yes, indeed - I imagine it's a binary thing for any given household.
You may be right about the corporate side of things, but that's really a separate issue. Similarly if landfill actually isn't a problem then the entire business of domestic recycling and debate surrounding it is mostly pointless.
"Suppose domestic recycling is necessary..." is - for me - the premise of the debate. If this turns out not to be the case, I'm quite happy for Mandy to do as she pleases.