h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

false bottom for a standard sized wheelie-bin. Can collect (UK only, will discuss P & P for overseas offers). COD.

My bin was only three quarters full this morning, the first collection day since before Christmas. Driving through the village, and later through Shrewsbury, _everyone_ else's bins were brimming over. Everyone's. Some had black bags piled on top as high again as the bin. Talk about rubbing it in. I'm a failure . I know I'm a failure, but not everyone else has to know . So, can anyone help?

Waz, you need to meet my circ supervisor. She can fill more trash cans than anyone I have ever met. She must pull trash out of the ether. My custodian is very close to strangling her.

Wait till they get round to implementing Pay As You Throw in your area. Then you'll be the one looking smug as they pay for their consumer excess the second time round...

In the meantime, have you considered not compacting any of your rubbish, but instead piling it up artfully inside your bin so as to maximise the available space?

Sprout

(waste + recycling obsessive)

Hi, my very dear friend, big

I sent you an email when I could not get on line over Christmas. I wonder if you received it.?

I thought of you so much last night because there was a wonderful programme on the wild animals of Spain by Michael Portillo.

As for your trash bain - I am inclined to agree with your friend who is an enthusiastic collector of recycliable things.

Your could put a box in the bottom of your wheelie bin
You could offer the free space to your sister or mother

YOU ARE NOT A FAILURE!!

One person cannot possibly have the wherewithall to fill a wheelie bin. I am sure that you make compost with all the goodies from the kitchen.
How about designing a special sign which says

This is a conservation and recyclable zzone
Come and join me and save the whorld from being buried in its rubbish!
with a happy face on it.

I hope to hear from you very very soon, and certainly before I disappear again. (nervously)

Woth much affection
Christiane
AR1

Pay As You Throw ... taxable worth measured by the volume of the packaging around our consumables ... it's got legs, that idea.

Single Persons Allowance: one cornflake packet, one loo roll middle, three crisp packets. (No, this could be used to improve the nations' health. Strike the crisp bag allowance.) One biscuit packet, one toothpaste box, several plastic bags and sticky labels off fruit, three polystyrene trays. Or equivalent. That should do it. And arguing the definitions of 'equivalent' will keep all the tax accountants in business too.

Sprout Brown, you deserve a Red Box for that.



Recycling on the other hand ... that's part of the problem. Can't bulk up the rubbish with the newspapers any more. They have to go in black box no.1. while the couple of tuna tins and an empty peanut butter jar look really forlorn in black box no.2. and a fortnight's worth of banana skins and peelings stick to the bottom of the green wheelie bin. And I can't get to the back door because of the collection of waste receptacles which also include the redundant old fashioned non-wheelie bin kept for the hot ash the too-posh wheelie bins can't handle. All because the council's turned green. Not. All because of recycling credits. It can't be green to send three men and a lorry to pick up a couple of tins, a jar, a dozen banana skins and eight newspapers.

At least we still have only one collection a week. The village will reek in high summer but our taxes will be less.

Hey, one week I forgot to empty the banana skins out of the tesco bag I'd been saving them in and just threw the whole thing into the green bin. Next week I opened the grey bin to put in the non-recycables and found the bag full of banana skins sitting in it .

I too am turning waste and re-cycling obsessive

AlsoRan, in case you come here before reading e-mail, it's so good to see you here again and I have now found and replied. You'd got, lost in all the junk.

The problem with your box idea, 'cos I thought of that, is that;

it gets thrown away every week

Problem solved!

I too shall soon have a gaping bin for the bin men.

Pete-over-the-road has just asked if he can put the recreation area rubbish in it .

Just hope, after what he said he sometimes finds up there on the play area, that no-one ever has cause to search it.

PS sprout, I was asked just last week if I had any ideas for new tax revenue bases. Forget to mention Pay As You Throw. I'll email him that.

All I thought of at the time was taxing the square inches of visible undies around the midriff. More as a deterrent than a revenue source though .

Waz, I think you deserve five for only throwing out half a bin. I only throw out one dustbin bag, yet my neighbour has at least eight huge ones. I recycle everything possible, and take other people's waste to recycle also.

Now, if they implement a charge, how do I secure my waste, so they can't add theirs to mine I can see such a system causing mayhem!!

I am amazed you have only just had a collections since Xmas. Our Council only missed Xmas Day and New Years Day and quickly caught up.

We don't have wheelie bins, just black bags. Our Council does prosecute anyone putting their rubbish roadside too early as it attracts vermin.



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