Problem of collecting rubbish is a disgrace
Monday 23rd March 2009, 10:50AM GMT.
LETTER - Whatever happened to the good old days? We had small galvanised bins with lids that were emptied on a weekly basis. The binman would come and fetch the bin from the back door, then leave it at the bottom gate for us to pick up. What we did not throw away we burned in the fire grate.
But rubbish of course is not the same nowadays. It’s mainly plastic. Years ago it was mainly glass, cardboard, wood, paper or tin. Shops used to take back empty bottles and the shopkeeper would give 3d back off each empty one that we returned.
Nice bit of pocket money for us children. We could buy a bar of chocolate those days for 6d, which was half a shilling. (A shilling was 12d in the old money and became 5p in new decimal currency).
However, today the manufacturer continues to make plastic packaging, so they and the supermarkets that they supply can make maximum profits, while tenants and local councils battle it out to decide what to do with all the rubbish.
For example, councils are suggesting using smaller bins that can be collected fortnightly, and tenants on the other hand are saying the big bins are not big enough to hold all their waste, unless emptied on weekly basis, even though they recycle it.
I remember our rubbish mainly consisted of ashes from the fire, because anything that would burn, we burned to keep warm.
As for our binmen, we were as happy to see them as they were to see us. They used to play football in their break time out on the road. They were a friendly lot and well respected by everyone.
Steve Phillips, Oswestry
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Steve Phillips should remember ‘the good old days’ resulted in thousands of industrial accidents at work for bin men and millions of tonnes of UK waste being buried in landfills where it rots to give of liquid and gas pollution. In recent years the government has lead local councils to bring waste collection into the 21st century, thank god for that, improvements to recycling in this country are amazing from almost nothing, to almost half our all waste kept out of landfill in just 10 years, i think that will be up with northern ireland, restoration of canals, minimum wage and sure start as some of this governments most lasting postive legacies
Go back to the dark ages mate, we like of modern safe clean green recycling orientated service
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so what’s your point exactly?
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only conservatives are promising to bring back weekly bin day
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whatever …
there is no money for that
besides fortnightly is plenty
my bin is only ever half full anyway as i recycle 90% of my stuff at sainsbury
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In my house we have 2 adults and a child. We could go 3 weeks without the bin emptying. The majority of rubbish is recycled and whats left goes in the bin. The people who want weekly collections must be producing alot of rubbish.
Obviously larger families should have bigger bins.
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what a load of rubbish!
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its hardly a ‘disgrace’ is it, that things have moved on? its good to have wheels on the bins now so we can move them about easily
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i just wish they would collect plastic for recycling – how can jp say its a modern or green service when they dont do plastic?
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So everyone used to burn their rubbish to keep warm?
I wonder how much that equates to across the county compared to how much will be burnt at the new incinerator? Probably ALOT more.
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People should pay to have bins collected – I would suggest councils charging 50 pounds for each bin collection however recycling rubbish would be free ie cardboard, glass, tin etc this would encourage people to recycle and not to waste food etc
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they should recycle more plastics
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a silly story but raises a serious point about the lifestyle of most people being more wasteful now than in the war, we need a good recession to get everyone being frugal again, waste not want not i was taught as a lad!
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Those old metal bins were heavy and dangerous for the public and especially the dustmen! the wheelie bin is such an improvement.
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Tory Boy at it again. The Tories promised return of weekly waste in Telford, what happened, they never did it, then introduced charges for bulk waste collection. I can’t help but feel that introducing ewtra charges for waste collections would see an increase in fly tipping and people burning waste in their gardens.
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when we get back in we will make it weekly all over the country, you mark my words, you read the manifesto, eric pickles and david cameron have promised, we will have weekly rubbish emptying in shropshire after the election
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