How do I dispose of this bulb?

[terry]

Ah yes reminds me: We are not supposed to put ashes (from any wood stove etc.) into our garbage. So every now and then we throw ours onto the garden compost pile, complete with old nails out of the scrap wood we have burnt, or hide it in with the other trash.

Strikes me as amusing if not ridiculous, remembering, as a youth in north of England the 'Dustmen' going down the back alley picking up the ashes etc. from coal fired appliances and open hearths.

Can't remember what I did with the ashes from the hot water boiler when we later moved into a flat sometime after WWII that was one floor of a bigger older house that had been de-requisitioned after being used by the navy during the war. My task, then aged 12 to early teen years was to stoke and de-ash the hot water boiler for the whole house, which burned coke. Dusty task shovelling that coke after delivery down the old coal chute. Vaguely remember a big old metal ashcan that had to lugged up basement stairs.

Maybe we just dumped it in the garden somewhere.

Some 8 years ago that same post WWII flat has been swished up and at

300,000 quid, each, is one of a group of 'upper register' apartments.

Who'd have thought that our then rundown, Admiralty modified house would be turned into or worth that much. Guess they'd have horrors that my mother and I used to breed budgerigars in cages in the glassed in porch of the old mansion into the 1950s!

[Frank Erskine]

Exactly. Your local authority is paid dearly (by you) to arrange for disposal, as professionals in this matter. They all (?) seem to think that their 'customers' have to play a part by doing their work for them. Just take a look at how much of _your_ council tax goes towards refuse collection/disposal...

My LA started a supposed scheme to dispose of batteries at various civic places such as libraries, civic centre etc - by the time the scheme was mentioned in the local press it had been discontinued...

It isn't very often that I use my LA's 'recycling box', which is emptied once a fortnight, supposedly collecting glass bottles/jars, cans, newspapers - I do try to use facilities in the car park of supermarkets. However, the other day I tried the 'service' and was a bit bemused that the wagon which came around took the bottles and jars/cans, but left the newspapers. I queried them about this and they pointed to another council wagon waiting around the corner, just to collect papers. This was prior to the main bin collection wagon...

In fairness my LA isn't too bad in the scheme of things. They do free collections (via an email or a phone call) of bulky items such as fridges etc - even old cars... :-)

[John Rumm]

We can stick thick cardboard in ours, but only board with no sticky tape on it. Same as envelopes as long as you remove any windows, or gummed edges! (i.e. sod that for a game of soldiers, they can go in the purple rubbish bin)

at least we don't seem to have them...

[Rod]

The concept that every household that has a CFL to dispose of has to contact their council to ask is madness. (Though it might indeed be necessary in some places.) Unless the councils manage to tell their residents, they have fallen over on the starting blocks.

To be fair to ours, we get a leaflet with holiday arrangements and other details every so often - at least once a year.

[clumsy bastard]

I will check at mine

ohhhh dear, hadnt thought of that, how would you put it out?

[clumsy bastard]

you want to dispose of unsorted rubbish and the council sort it afterwards?

[clumsy bastard]

thats par for the course everywhere, or soon will be

[PeterC]

When NiCads get hot they can give of cadmium and that has a nasty effect on the bones. A Japanese chap did it with some button cells and coins in his pocket and there was a bad effect on his femur. Cadmium is very nasty.

[Reentrant]

We can put "white" telephone directories in the paper recycling bin, but not Yellow Pages.

[Man at B&Q]

killers for these sorts of lamps.

MBQ

[Rod]

Or maybe not!

The other day I noticed a large headline on one of the daily publications sometimes called newspapers. Said something like all domestic bins are going to be scrapped. We will have bigger bins serving several properties - every 20 houses or whatever.

Struck me that there could be some advantages:

o Someone else is responsible for keeping them clean and working; o Less of our garden occupied by bins; o Possibly emptied more frequently; o No rushing out with bins to catch the collection;

On the other hand:

o We don't want one next door to us; o Can't imagine that, except in a few places, people will respect them and use them all appropriately, quietly and tidily; o I don't fancy having to walk down the street every time a bin needs emptying. And partner can't.

[Tim S]

clumsy bastard coughed up some electrons that declared:

Harrow (London) manage with 3: Rubbish (brown IIRC), garden+food (green) and all other recyclables (blue).

If councils want people to participate in complicated schemes, they need to make it as simple as possible and I think Harrow have found that.

Now they've set the standard I see no excuse why it can;t become a national standard. From a householder's POV it's about as simple as it could possibly be - the council have to do some work with the blue bin, I assume, to sort it at the depot, but that's what we're paying council tax for.

Cheers

Tim

[clumsy bastard]

like in Spain where there are lots of flats

indeed, dont know where they would go here

the Spanish ones look a mess

you would need a bin to collect stuff together till it was worth going to the bigger bin....

[Rod]

Get stuffed! :-) - *You* can change to *our* local scheme. And you can pay for the change of bins that would be required.

(We have grey/black, green, paper and cardboard (green top on back box) and plastic/cans (black lid/black box but different design to paper box). No glass collection.

Mind, I agree a national agreement on colour schemes would have been sensible - up to the point at which they redefine allowable content in one area but not another. (E.g. allow/disallow cans or glass alongside plastic bottles in the same box.) That would again require change of bin colour with attendant costs. And of course, some councils seem to choose perversely different colours for their own reasons (maroon instead of grey in Reading?).

[clumsy bastard]

I dont know why we didnt come up with more standardisation, every council has its own scheme. We have landfill (green bin, shirley shum mistake) glass, metal and plastic, paper, compostable. The compostable has been a problem with maggots in the summer, we now use the permitted brown paper bags with non permitted biodegradable plastic bags hidden inside.

[Adrian C]

I live in Harrow.

It's brown for decompostables & garden waste, blue for recyclables and green for everything else. The brown bin is collected every week, and the other two alternate each week.

On a nice warm summers morning, the smell from uncollected festering brown bins is unfortunately enough to bring up ye breakfast... :-(

[clumsy bastard]

its not good, is it. I might be OK for chavs who live on ready meals but if you cook from scratch, fish guts and seafood waste are particularly bad. A lot of people just put stuff directly in the bin, we did that at first and just got a mass of maggots, so we now wrap everything.

[unopened]

Have you got a reference for that?

Cheers,

Sid

[Tim S]

Adrian C coughed up some electrons that declared:

Sorry - mixed up brown and green. Rother (East Sussex) use brown for garden.

I've never taken up Tunbridge Wells concept of sticking food in the brown - sound's like a recipe for stinkiness as you've indicated.

BTW - do they take glass in the blue?

[Tim S]

Tim S coughed up some electrons that declared:

^^^^^^ Green

T.Wells is green for general crap and brown for garden.

FFS - I only deal with 2 houses and I can't remember which colour scheme is which.