The waste and recycling ‘bin police’ are here to check through your recycling
A book was published in 1949 written by George Orwell, an excerpt reads “”It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen yet he is uncertain of the true date, given the regime’s continual rewriting and manipulation of history”. The novel was named “Nineteen Eighty-Four” and one of the often repeated quotations, taken from posters of the party leader, Big Brother, which bears the caption “Big Brother is watching you” which dominate cities in “Airstrip One” otherwise known as Britain.
Well if you live in Stoke-on-Trent, “Big Brother” is out and about looking to see if you are putting the correct things in your bins which the council collect. Anyone caught going against the council’s wishes will get a yellow card on their bin. It appears that the council have taken on special employees, which are referred to as “waste minimisation” staff to go through residents’ blue wheelie bins to make sure they’re throwing away the right kind of rubbish. As you can imagine, the project has been met with derision from many ratepayers, but as the council point out says the project will actually save money as contamination of recyclable waste costs in the region of £500,000 a year from items such as soiled nappies being thrown into the recycling bin. Not everyone is against the scheme of course, for example Barbara Andrew suggested that any green initiative should be welcomed, why dump items into waste fill sites when they could be recycled and save money.
we explain what happens to your stuff after you toss them into the little green bin.
However, there is a problem and a BBC Freedom of Information request found councils were unable to recycle 338,000 tonnes of waste in 2014-15, up from about 184,000 tonnes in 2011-12. The main problem facing householders is the confusion about what can and what cannot be recycled. Some council’s will take glass, other will not. Another problem is, for example, should just one non-recyclable item is found to be included with recyclable items the whole bin is effectively contaminated. Councils then have to re-sort it, which is time consuming and very expensive. As one commentator succinctly pointed out: I understand that the idiots that put dirty nappies etcetera in recycle bins should be told off for it, but refusing to take rubbish is really taking matters too far”! Well if this happens in Stoke-on Trent, “Big Brother will be watching” and it is not the crowd that appear on UK television channel 5, no these will slap a yellow card on your bin if you do not behave and it could result in repeat offenders who will find their bins not being collected.tune in for more!!!!!!...
©Gerrishon Sirere
