Teen beauty spot drinkers are ramblers, not rebels
- Dave Burrows
Green group’s Shrewsbury cardboard recycling bid to raise funds
Friday 2nd December 2011, 5:00PM GMT.
A community group has launched its own cardboard recycling scheme after kerbside collections across the county were axed nationally amid concerns of contaminating compost.
The Cardboard Christmas Group has been set up by Alison Thomas and Katy Anderson, members of environmental group Transition Town Shrewsbury.
They plan to donate all proceeds to charity.
Volunteers will be out on the streets of Shrewsbury in the run up to Christmas to collect cardboard.
The group will sell the cardboard to recycling business Oswestry Waste Paper and split the proceeds from each tonne delivered between Hope House Children’s Hospice and Severn Hospice.
So far 20 groups have given the scheme their backing including 13 churches, Shrewsbury Friends of the Earth as well as residents living in Belle Vue, The Mount and Porthill. The volunteers have also been loaned a transit van from Salopian Brewery.
Ms Thomas said: “It is ridiculous to compost cardboard or throw it on landfill, it doesn’t make economic or environmental sense. Following Shropshire Council’s decision to stop collections we will collect it and take it to the recycling centre in Oswestry.
The new regulations mean Veolia Environmental Services, Shropshire Council’s waste contractor, will no longer be able to collect green bins that contain cardboard.
For more details visit www.transitiontownshrewsbury.org.uk
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how embarresssing for the county council they looked bad enough but now they are being shown up by a bunch of amateur enthusiasts who are showing how simple it really is to collect cardboard
if they can do it, and if telford can do it and wrexham can do it they WHY CANT VEOLIA?
proof if needed that veolia should be sacked
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Good on them! I would rather give my recycling to a good cause not a profit making foreign firm. It just shows there is LOADS of money to be made in recycling all your waste and yet the council on behalf of veolia have the cheek to charge us for the service. They must be laughing all the way to the bank of Paris.
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Well done! This attitude of self help is to be applauded. I hope the Star can report on their sucess in due course.
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Brilliant and good on them.
Two enterprising individuals triumph where our local authority and Veolia (who call themselves “The UK’s leader in recycling & waste management) have failed and are raising money for charity into the bargain.
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Did shrewsbury council pay VEOLIA to collect
our carboard with our money? if so do we get any back or is it another waste like that thing on SMITH FIELD ROAD
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Its a lovely idea in theory but i doubt they really have the skills and experience to pull it off let alone make a profit for the charity – if it was really that easy and profitable entrepreneurial private companies would already be knocking on your door asking for your waste cardboard (as they already do for scrap metal and rag and bone) sadly the recycling business is still a social service provided with a massive taxpayer subsidy because despite the landfill tax it still really doesnt pay to recycle (unfortunately)
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According to the site below the price paid by UK paper mills for a tonne of cardboard in January to November 2011 averaged around £100.
http://www.letsrecycle.com/prices/waste%20paper
Considering the price and the massive amounts of cardboard that people will be wanting to get rid of around the Christmas period, surely you would agree that the Cardboard Christmas Group can convert this waste into money for charity, Jim?
And surely if a couple of publicly-spirited volunteers can make money from waste over Christmas, it should not be beyond the ken of our council to start separate cardboard collections after Christmas.
Council tax payers don’t want to bury cardboard and pay more landfill tax. I suspect only a tiny minority want to pay Veolia to incinerate it.
Well done Alison and Katy!!
It’s time our councillors had the same forward-looking aspirations as people like you.
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I also say, well done Alison and Katy.
But Huw, just because volunteers (unpaid) using a vehicle lent to them and without any premises costs or business rates can make money doesn’t mean that the council or Veolia can.
As an example, current costs including depreciation for a transit size van are around 66p per mile. The distance to Oswestry is 35 miles return = £23.
Cardboard takes up 15 to 20 cubic yards per tone.
A transit van holds approx 7 cubic metres.
So, 3 trips to Oswestry per ton = £69.
Time taken, say 3.5 hours including unloading = say £30 wages.
So, total costs so far = £99.
Now on top, you have wage and vehicle costs for collection, accounts, telephone, premises costs etc etc.
Still think a business can make a profit, even using bigger vehicles?
Of course, as you say, there are other good reasons to collect – saving on landfill, avoiding incineration, avoiding the prospect of hundreds of car journeys by people taking the cardboard to recycling themselves, and so our council should be prepared to collect on a non commercial basis if necessary for those reasons alone and we should be happy to pay for it, but let’s not use a commercial argument that doesn’t stack up.
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I agree, well done to those women. I wish someone in Ludlow would do this too
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Hi Mickey.
Thanks for that. However, I don’t think your assumptions stack up, because they are missing a vital building block.
Would you not accept that you left -intentionally or not – one rather important factor out of your calculations?
After all, most professional recycling operations (Veolia included, I assume) use BALERS.
1) If bulky, loose cardboard is crushed into compact, heavy bales, you can fit much more into your vehicle, and make each sale to the recycling centre more financially rewarding.
Why didn’t you assume that cardboard would be crushed and baled first?
2) Economies of scale.
Would you also not accept that the sheer size of the council/Veolia’s recycling operation means that they will make much more money from cardboard recycling than Alison and Katy’s Christmas collections?
Isn’t that the point that Alison and Katy are trying to make with their action, which you say you support?
See article:
‘Ms Thomas said: “It is ridiculous to compost cardboard or throw it on landfill, it doesn’t make economic or environmental sense.”‘
3) Conflict of interest.
And finally would you not accept that Veolia has a conflict of interest here, which needs to be discussed openly in the local media?
Veolia wants Shrewsbury taxpayers to pay it to incinerate the cardboard, but a significant majority of Shrewsbury people want to make money from our waste by collecting it, crushing it and recycling it at £100 per tonne.
What do you think, Mickey?
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Huw,
This is a reply to your reply to me..
Your original post said, “And surely if a couple of publicly-spirited volunteers can make money from waste over Christmas, it should not be beyond the ken of our council to start separate cardboard collections after Christmas”.
If you don’t do and quote the sums, your statement is meaningless.
Yes to larger vehicles, yes to compressing and bailing, (both of which I’d thought of), all will lower the cost. However, to blandly state as you have that because 2 volunteers can do it, so can the council, is poor or even non existant reasoning. To show that, I have shown the likely costs they would incur if theirs were a commercial operation.
Surely Alison and Kate’s purpose is to highlight the need to recycle and to make some money for charity and I am pleased they are doing that. They have not however demonstrated the commercial economic benefit of such by their actions.
Your last paragraph states, “but a significant majority of Shrewsbury people want to make money from our waste by collecting it, crushing it and recycling it at £100 per tonne.”
Nowhere have you shown figures to detail how this money can be made. Show me the likely figures for collection using large vehicles and baling and I might agree your point.
Re-read my last paragraph in which I state that economic benefit should not be the key reason, the environmental benefit ought to be uppermost.
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Big society in action?
tory council will love that they cut services to the bone and leave volunteers to pick up the tab – what next volunteers teaching our kids and take your own bins to the tip?
guess the council saves money on landfilling without spending a penny on collections
But hang on they still take over a thousand pounds in tax from me – why?
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if they can manage this why cant the council which has hundreds of men and hundreds of trucks and supposedly expert people to organise it all gets its act together and help them to expand this?
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sounds like a good idea
good luck to them
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Fantastic – very well done the volunteers. Just one more example of how we can manage without our useless, expensive local authorities. Shropshire Council can’t do it, but some volunteers can! Hilarious!
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this makes an absolute mockery of veolias lame excuses that they are unable to collect cardboard.
Everyone else can do it but they cant
Bye bye veolia
as sir alan would say
YOU’RE FIRED
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Wow. You go girls!
Give them a 27 year contract for the whole of Shropshire now I say!
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LOL
only a complete muppet would hand over a 27 year contract!
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OMG
Shows what a bunch of clowns they employ at veolia or what put to shame by a couple of volunteers. Maybe we should go back to the old days you know when the boy scouts used to collect paper and card? I think they could do a better job than veolia.
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a lovely idea for a lovely cause
I think to make more funding though they should probably focus on collecting more valuable materials like cans and scrap metal though perhaps?
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Shame on the council for not doing this sooner
I accept the had problems with composting but to not put something in place by now when PAS100 was published almost a whole year ago now is frankly criminal
It reeks of incompetence and bumbling inefficiency
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i think its a good idea and its nice to see the church getting involved in the environment. Care for the earth is a duty of our faith and a sign of our concern for all people as well as all gods creations
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on another note has anyone else noticed that you can no longer get lids for your boxes? i think this is a really retrograde step to the service. we should be supplied with lids or the paper gets soggy and blows all over the place down the street
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Most people put the bottle box on top of the paper box to stop that happening. There is no need for a lid, is there?
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