Pikey Express!

[Andrew Gabriel]

Reminds me of the saga with car batteries. For years, those who sold them would take the old ones and pass them back up the chain to the manufacturers. They used to get something like 70% of the old batteries back which they recycled. There was no payment through the chain for this AFAIK. Then came regulation on disposal (of lead, I think). Government decided that it had to have a paper trail for each returned battery to ensure they weren't being dumped. At the stroke of a pen, the recycling rate plumitted, as there were now forms to obtain, fill in, and offences committed if you didn't. So the chain just stopped taking them back and they mostly went into landfill.

[Andy Burns]

Recently I've replaced a couple of UPS batteries, I took the old ones in to a local supplier to get the correct replacement, they were quite keen to take the old ones.

[Rod]

For rodinary household batteries we are asked to recycle them (by the council as well as urged by many 'green' organisations). But the only place is the local tip - several miles, uphill, from here.

Ok - so store them. But honestly, I do not want a pile of festering, possibly leaky, batteries anywhere. And I do not go to the dump often enough to avoid the festering pile of piles.

The ideal would be for things like these to be recyclable at any shop that sells batteries. Just drop them in when I go shopping or for a walk round the block.

[sm_jamieson]

Our council just charges 25 quid per month to have it on the road. It is always arranged by the skip companies. Simon.

[dennis]

There are two ways to run a council.. collect tax for services most people use and charge extra for the ones a few use or collect tax for everything.

From your words I assume you want to pay more tax and have free tip charges.

You could stand as a candidate with a manifesto for increasing the taxes and see if your view is supported by others.

[Hugo Nebula]

On Mon, 14 Jul 2008 19:45:06 +0100, a particular chimpanzee, Owain randomly hit the keyboard and produced:

From my limited reading of the workings of the CRB: There are three standards of checks; enhanced, standard & basic. Enhanced is for people working closely with children & vulnerable adults (teachers, care home staff, etc), and requires disclosure of not just any offences, but rumour & innuendo known to the police; Standard is for those whose job brings them into contact with children & vulnerable adults as part of their job as well as certain legal and financial professions, and requires all convictions to be disclosed, unspent as well as spent. Basic disclosure is unspent convictions only.

The CRB in England can just about cope with the numbers for Enhanced & Standard disclosures, but can't cope with any for Basic checks. It sounds like they're contracting it out to the Scottish CRB.

The sooner England declares itself independent of the UK and joins Scotland, the better.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Councils are legally obliged to stop batteries going into landfill in the near future (can't recall the date), and I think that's already the case for NiCds. Ours were talking about providing prepay envelopes to post them off somewhere, but I haven't heard what the current plans are.

[Rod]

Just had a look at a local skip hire place. Extracts below. Works out a lot of money for a pretty small amount of waste. With the additional hazarding of £100 for the lights/comes you could need to pay £265.75 up front. Against just £105.75 if on own property. Makes it a real incentive to do the 'right thing'. Not.

"2 Yard (Mini Skip) 1.9m x 1.3m x 0.9m £90 + VAT (£105.75)

4 Yard (Midi Skip) 2.59m x 1.67m x 1.14m £120 + VAT (£141.00)

If you must have your skip put on a public road then we are afraid there are some additional costs.

• £30 administration fee if you want us to arrange the permit * £???? Whatever your local highways charge us for the permit (usually between £0 & £30)

Arranging the permit can take upto 10 working days so please ensure you book in advance.

All skips on the roads need to have a light positioned on each corner and be surrounded by traffic cones. We can supply these free of charge however there will be a £100 returnable deposit with the order and a £35 charge per item for any that are missing on collection of the skip."

[Frank Erskine]

Our local council once started a scheme whereby you could hand in batteries to almost any council building - libraries for example.

The idea lasted approximately a week...

I think the libararians etc. got a bit pi$$ed off having to handle peoples' junk.

[<me9]

Our council recycles them.

We do, for up to a fortnight (or longer if not leaking, and the bag (fastened to the nitice board in the kitchen by two drawing pins) is not too heavy, in a small bag provided by the council.

We find the system here as good as any, they go out with the other recyclables in the fortnightly collection. We don't have to remember to take them back to the shop. If the small bag gets too heavy to stay put on the notice board it goes in the recycle box, and is substituted by a new one.

[Rod]

Sounds OK. I thought take them back to *any* shop that sells batteries might be workable. And, if needed, some sort of behind the scenes mechanism so the local shop that sells 100 but gets 10,000 doesn't subsidise B&Q selling 100,000 but only getting back 100.

And, while on the subject, bloomin' old/used white spirit. Really don't know where to take that.

[Man at B&Q]

So did taxes go down when they introduced the charges? No - so why should they go up if the charges (and all the associated pen pushers) are scrapped.

MBQ

[Man at B&Q]

The ideal would be to use rechargeables. Since investing in a good charger and NiMH cells, the only primary cells used in our household are for watches, cycle computers and BIOS backup in the PCs (but I've never had one of those fail before the PC was replaced).

MBQ

[<me9]

It helps to keep the weeds down.

[Tim S]

[e-mail] coughed up some electrons that declared:

Good use. With any highly volatile waste solvent (eg dirty white spirit or petrol used for cleaning machine parts, I just chuck it over some concrete and let it evaporate off. If it's really filthy, I do the same over a load of old newspaper and bin it when it's dry.

Got rid of a load of half dead gloss paint the same way (skip operators don't like lots of cans of liquid paint).

Fire risk notwithstanding...

Cheers

Tim

[Adrian C]

(smoking seems to be a normal trait by EVERYBODY in the pseudo

Gas fitters?

[Hugo Nebula]

On Tue, 15 Jul 2008 10:09:30 +0100, a particular chimpanzee, "dennis@home" randomly hit the keyboard and produced:

Or the Government's (of all hues) preferred strategy: Collect tax up to the capping limit (which is held artificially low to avoid headlines & pensioners protesting), and hike up charges and fines to almost everyone.

[The Medway Handyman]

It certainly is. I'm service orientated, customer friendly, so it is a shame. I don't do many jobs big enough to generate much waste, but when I do I make it clear that I can't take the waste away & suggest various options.

Hippo Bags have their place, clients like them, don't mind the poor £ per kilo ratio. Easy to keep in the front garden, easy for the lorry to lift over the garden wall.

[Andy Champ]

Get some paper. Stick "Hertz" over your name.

My local tip let me dump a dead fridge FOC from a rental van - even though I had to go down to the commercial bit to do it, as there's a height limit.

Andy

[The Medway Handyman]

Trust you to miss the point.

I'm already paying council tax for use of the tip. I can't take my domestic waste there simply because I drive a van. I'm not asking to tip trade waste free.

I couldn't use my people carrier either because the height barrier is too low.