Posted on 04/21/2008 3:05:11 PM PDT by BGHater
LOCAL council bin police wearing head lamps are prowling neighbourhoods in the middle of the night to check whether residents are recycling. At least one contractor hired by the City of Monash in Melbourne has been threatened with the sack after peering into rubbish bins by torchlight and spooking elderly homeowners at 1am.
It is understood several other councils pay bin cops to hunt down rogue recyclers.
City of Monash spokeswoman Jodie Harrison confirmed a "rubbish auditor" had been warned to switch to more reasonable hours after "freaking out" residents.
Disturbed householders have discovered bin police kitted out with miners' hats and and inspecting garbage bins that are left by footpaths for collection.
Dozens of recycling and green waste bins are checked three times a week.
Residents flouting the rules have warning stickers placed on their bins and risk being slapped with a garbage collection ban.
(Excerpt) Read more at theaustralian.news.com.au ...
S. S. S.
Good thing they picked up most (about 99.99%) of the guns in Oz - if those bin cops peering into the garbage bins here at 1am, oh well ...
They're going after the wrong end of the problem. If they honestly want to cut down on trash - start at the manufacturing end and cut down on the packaging!
And cut down on the plastic...P.E.I. allows no plastic soda bottles, for example. It's in glass bottles that go to be rewashed. Worked for decades.
There is a Canadian soda - JONES - sold in the US that is not only in glass, but made with sugar, instead of the poisonous, ultra weight gaining High Fructose Corn Syrup...
Ditto, an American bottler - Polar Classic - in great old flavors like Orange Cream, Vanilla Cream and Root Beer.
We consumers DO drive the market. Case in point, the super markets now have whole organic sections...
So, if we want something changed - we can do it And we need to head off the garbage can police - tell 'em to start at the other end - or get their ends kicked, maybe with rock salt.
So that way the resident would toss their garbage out in someone elses pail. Now there's a great idea from the bureaucrats, if there ever was such a thing.
King County (comprising the greater Seattle Metro area) does the same thing. They supposedly will fine anyone who doesn’t separate their recyclables.
No recent word on whether they’ve actually issued any of the $100 fines yet or not.
I’m intentionally not putting out a recycle bin in order to hopefully get one of these tickets.
Ah yes, the "bugs included" section.
And studies show that washing out glass bottles actually consumes more energy and resources than making a plastic bottle each time.
If they start that nonsense where I live, I’ll rig my garbage can to surprise ‘em. I’ll start with a “warning shot” in the form of a spring-loaded “snake” that pops out when they open the lid - then move up from there. Bear repellent, anyone?
Cap a few as home invaders and they’ll change their hours.
Glass also weighs more which means more fuel burned during transport. Glass also has a habit of breaking. Plastic is much better and can be recycled just like glass.
I've heard that one - wonder if that also includes the other end - from collecting on - and
Americans use four million plastic bottles every hour, but only one quarter of them will be recycled. ..and
A plastic bottle will take 700 years before it will even start to decompose....
AND, there's the not very surprising news now that dangerous chemicals in the plastic bottles leach into the liquids...
SO
I will continue to buy glass
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