How do I dispose of this bulb?

The banks have seen to that. All Hail the Banks!

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher
Loading thread data ...

fair enough, I should have said "current scientific theory" and "beliefs" sometimes coincide. Except in the USA it seems.

Reply to
clumsy bastard

well, the old pound note was green!

Reply to
clumsy bastard

Its not like that.

Belief of a sort necessarily precedes 'factual' knowldege.

The hierarchy of knowledge is

- Reality: always unknowable and vastly larger than anyone can handle.

- Perception: What SEEMS to be the case, organised however by making certain assumptions about experience..our perceptions organise the raw data of experience into recognisable objects and events. Arguably this implies a 'belief' that they CAN be so organised..and guidelines alng which they should be organised.

- Memory and thought. What we TELL ourselves and each other is actually real. A definite shorthand and compression of perception into ideas, objects concepts. We do not, for example, tell ourselves that what we did today consisted mainly in breathing in and out. However, arguably that is probably the most important thing we DID do..yet another 'belief' process is going on here, to say what is important and what is not...

- mathematical models of the above, which depend on yet another belief that not only have we translated experience into perceptible phenomena, but have selected the appropriate elements of those to model, and that they are in fact capable of modeling.

The difference between good science, and faith, is that science recognizes that the 'if we assume...then...' statements implicit in it, are ad hoc and subject to scrutiny.

Faith, on the other hand, or bad science, assumes that the 'if we assume' can be replaced by a flat statement of infallible belief.

Science therefore can develop by re-assessing implicit assumptions if any stage of the above proves to produce a result that contradicts the predictions.

Faith based thinking cannot. it merely reorders the results to conform with the predictions, even unto the point of being in total contradiction with its own predictions.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

I dont see anything in your answer which disagrees with my rather shorter statement (or have spotted anything I disagree with).

Reply to
clumsy bastard

Back to the OP's original question.

By coincience there was a local council meeting last night and I asked the very question: how does a householder dispose of fluorescent lamps?

The answer: Put them in the black bin (mixed waste). They are /not/ hazardous waste in the quantities that householders dispose of them, ignore all the scaremongering being peddled by misinformed idiots with their own agenda.

-- JGH - In Sheffield

Reply to
jgharston

In the same way that 99% of low level radioactive waste isn't dangerous, either.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

somebody suggested we spread all the nuclear waste around

*everybodies* property and it will not then pose a threat!
Reply to
clumsy bastard

exactly.

Or dump it in the sea, and let nature do it for you.

In reality, only stuff contaminated with high half life heavy elements is a real problem.

Stuff with half lives of a few years, just needs to be kept at low average concentrations for a few years.

The slight problem is if it gets into food chains, and gets concentrated by biochemical process. Like iodine (thyroid) and caesium (bones) does.

The problem is that to the average man on the Clapham bus, radioactive is nasty, no mater what it is. Unless its smoke alarms, when Its a Good Thing.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Indeed, when I used to work with such things, Iodine 125 was stored in the fridge until it decayed to background. Which avoided problems with disposal. During one inspection, I pointed out that given the permitted whole body dose of radiation, we could safely dispose of it by putting the fresh isotope into the technicians' tea. They would be most unlikely to accumulate enough of a dose to cause a health problem.

Reply to
Steve Firth

formatting link

Reply to
Clot

Sadly, I have to confess that we have more than this. 9x% of our putresibles go to the home composters along with all garden waste ( other than trees which I've had to knock down last year). I thankfully found a neighbour with a wood burning stove that was keen to collect the big bits!

For many years, we have always taken separated white/ green/ brown glass to separate collection facilities when going shopping. The local council collect all glass in one and thereby reduce the value. The local Tesco which we use most frequently has now gone on to common collection of all glass. Most annoying as clear glass has a value in the UK whilst the other two do not - not quite true but green and brown of lower value.

With the over-persecution of plastic bags now, I can see a wonderous new product being sold for kitchen bins - bin-liner bags!

Reply to
Clot

Whilst the process might work well, I doubt that this stacks up environmentally. More plastic and I assume that the bags are delivered.

Reply to
Clot

Quite. There is a real issue here that hasn't quite been appreciated yet. My father, fiercely independent in his mid 80s cannot move his wheelie bins to the kerb and we have to rely upon the kindness of a neighbour. My wife's mother of a similar age and situation has to rely upon the kindness of neighbours in their 70s to take her waste to the kerb.

Reply to
Clot

Ah, a plastic bag?

Reply to
Clot

I have to agree. I cannot understand how these differing colour codings have been allowed to arise with their differing conditions as to what goes into each. Landfills are rare these days and collections from various council areas go into them.

Reply to
Clot

Quite! T'is crazy.

Reply to
Clot

In......plastic to avoid the aroma?

Reply to
Clot

I recognise your point. However I don't think we should get too hung up on this at the moment. The value of all commodities has gone down (or is highly unstable) as a result of the kwedit kwunch. The value of the £ has gone down dramatically meaning that our recyclable waste is more attractive in international markets provided that some idiot jobsworth in the Environment Agency doesn't block things as they did with the decommissioning of US military ships a few years ago.

OK, stockpiling of waste waiting for the right price is a strange concept to us but this has been the case with raw materials/products for decades if not centuries.

I'm not advocating this for putrescibles, by the way! :)

Reply to
Clot

What's the technical issue here? I should probably be able to recognise, but don't.

Reply to
Clot

HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.