Bonfires

You do know that in the FAQ about Birminghams new "service" it's pointed out that it's a statutory nuisance to light a bonfire ?

Or even a plain :-)

Another link:

Planely an easy mistake to make, as I have just demonstrated. :-)

Unfortunately that link generates a 404 error.

THough it seems they can't do anything about the lighting of a single bonfire only "frequent" ones ...

That link doesn't work for me but BCC's view on bonfires seems to depend on which page you read. Elsewhere, they give advice on what to burn and not to burn and to point out that there are no specified times.

They do say it's an offence to cause a statutory nuisance by lighting a bonfire on one of their FAQs about green waste, but not that a bonfire is necessarily, in itself, a statutory nuisance. presumably, they phrase it that way to be accurate whilst appearing to warn people off as they are concerned about the consequences of their new approach.

Like everything on their site, a mess of inconsistency and broken links.

If only they hadn't bought a cheap and proven CMS system, and actually invested £2.8 million on writing their own. *Then* it would work OK.

Oh, hang on ....

Find out if you have a community compost scheme near you.

It is criminal to burn garden waste. I love grass clippings on my allotment. Either as a mulch or for composting as a layer in the heap. Supposed to make the best compost ever with newspaper.

No wonder they don't have any resources to pick up the green waste.......

You're very welcome to come and pick all mine up, any time!

So yesterday was green waste day and there were very few wheelie bins (apart from mine) out on our street. Quite a few green bags though, which were dutifully ignore by the collectors. Came home in the evening to a heavy scent of bonfire in the air. It might have been a coincidence but probably not...

The bin men round here are a contrary lot. Being away quite a bit I generate very little general waste (perhaps 1 or 2 carrier bags worth) and to prevent food waste going rancid usually put the bin out containing these one or 2 carrier bags. One day I was at home and observed the operatives lift the lid of my bin, extract the bags and throw them in the lorry. So next time having only 1 carrier bag of waste to save carting the whole bin out and back I put the one bag out at the roadside - that's clearly not good enough - it got left behind. Severely tempted now to not bother bagging it up and just throw it loose in the bin.

Ours were a day late this week. People have started cutting hedges and lawns so it took them a lot longer than the normal winter run.

One of our green binnies pulls a wheelie bin round and empties the food waste bins into it and moves on. That only works when it's almost all little bins - which is is outside of hedge cutting time.

Well, I made a big effort this weekend to get everything I could, from the winter's accumulation, into the two green wheelie bins we have paid for, by putting everything through the shredder, which made a huge difference for some types of waste. I still wound up with a few bags, so I thought I'd nip round to the tip with them. 45 minutes of queuing later, the only movement was due to cars pulling out of the queue and turning around. All the other cars I could see were stacked with green bags. I pulled out and turned around as I couldn't spend the whole day waiting just to dump a few bags.

I'm guessing quite a few people had the same problem, as there's a distinct tang of bonfire smell in the air tonight. The whole saga is starting to shape up as predicted. I can't really sympathise with people who are too tight to shell out 30 quid for a green bin (presumably there are concessions) but it's hard to see how clogging the roads with people queuing for the tip and filling the air with smoke is a big leap forward.

I've a feeling I'm going to become well versed in bonfire technology this summer!

I'm lucky enough to live near a tip with not much in the way of queues, eve n on a sunny Sunday. However, when I used to live back in the over-crowded southeast, it was often quicker to park in the free car park next to the ti p and carry the stuff in, past the lines of queuing cars.

Well, yesterday I could probably have walked to the tip with my waste and got back to the car without the traffic having moved.

I went there this evening instead and only queued for a bit. The blokey on the gate was handing out leaflets with explanations of the new green waste policy. Very informative, if you had just come out of hibernation.

Everyone there was dumping green waste...and complaining.

Stiil, the upside of all this is that it seems to have engendered a certain community spirit, at least from the look of the gaggle of people around the green waste skip waiting to empty their bags.

Yet again, a distinct smell of smoke in the air this evening - I suspect that will be the smell of the summer.

If it's just green waste then compost it or use it as mulch. No bonfire needed, no bins.

Well, that's OK if you like having huge piles of rotting greenery acting as nesting sites for rodents around the garden. Most of us are happier with bin or burn.