DUSTBIN DILEMMA IN UK

[FRANCIS HOWARD BOND]

With dustbin collections in UK currently only once each fortnight, with possibility of extending period to three or even four weeks, we will have a lot of humming dustbins - though not the tuneful kind!   So unlimited opportunities for keeping High Meat, Fish and Poultry that would otherwise go to waste in the rat infested dustbins.   Should encourage UK households to experiment with High Food?   Anyone got a recipe for the rats that will ensue this period of collection?

[eveheart]

How about black soldier fly larvae farming? Set up rat traps and throw the dead rats in with the larvae - they'll consume to carcasses. They like Thai food in the UK, do they not? (Thai food as in: insects).

[TylerDurden]

The OP is referring to a recent scandal highlighted by 2 DM articles. Here they are:-

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3233186/Now-EU-wants-bins-collected-monthly-New-edict-help-Britain-hit-recycling-target.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3666855/We-ll-bins-three-weeks-Fear-rats-fly-tipping-English-Welsh-councils-cut-collections.html


When I was still in the UK, there was an uproar when councils simply ignored their residents and forced us all to wait 2 weeks instead of just the 1. People complained, quite rightly, that the rats would get to the bin-bags as a result. And, OF COURSE    , the bin-men would often refuse to take any bags which had been opened by the rats.The horror of this is that councils are still forcing everyone to pay ever-higher council tax, regardless of their severely reducing essential  services. The real problem is that the UK Labour councils always wanted to spend vast amounts on idiotic Marxist projects in their areas but did not want to cut back on their spending when the Conservatives were in government.So they would deliberately cut back on vital services and then falsely lay the blame for that on the Conservatives and still continue to pay for their dreadful dud marxist  projects.

While the British populace will likely not go in for raw grainfed "high-meat", they will no doubt eventually have to go in for:-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumpster_diving

There was some marvellous american study, in which academics  had the testees choose in which government sectors to pay their taxes. The study was called off and viewed as being unworkable, as the testees nearly always chose to spend most of the money on things like Social-Welfare and almost nothing on Defence. I personally think it would be an amazing new and less authoritarian  approach(ie "no taxation without representation"). Imagine, virtually no tax-money for US Defence would prevent the US from constantly declaring foreign wars. In Austria, the Socialist and  Green Party voters would be bled dry paying for all the costs of the incoming migrants etc. Or take the UK:- The UK police are useless, so why pay high taxes to support an authoritarian police-force filled with Freemasons when you could instead opt to pay for your own guns and defend your own property far more effectively?

[eveheart]

The OP is referring to a recent scandal highlighted by 2 DM articles.

Exactly. This happens in other places, too. In my city, they downsized the residential garbage bins so that residents have to scramble to find empty space in the bins for a week's-worth of household garbage. If the lid does not close completely, you're liable to get skipped for the trash pick-up and get a letter of admonishment instead explaining that the bin must not be overfilled. A lot of people respond by taking their garbage to work and dumping it there; others solve the problem by joining the Tiny Trash movement.

BSFL farming lets you turn compostable garbage into edible insect larvae. Tasty and tidy.

[TylerDurden]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/apr/22/zero-waste-millennial-bloggers-trash-greenhouse-gas-emissions

http://www.blacksoldierflyfarming.com/faq#Aretheysafetohumans

http://www.scientificamerican.com/video/soldier-flies-the-new-food-for-farm-fish/

Most interesting. Thanks, eveheart.

[TylerDurden]

Well, the  once every 4 weeks bin collection phase is about to hit the whole of Britain.:-

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3706136/Now-wait-four-weeks-wheelie-bin-emptied-Angry-homeowners-attack-council-s-decision-saying-lead-rats-fly-tipping-rubbish-piling-streets.html

Incredible how spineless people are these days. 

[eveheart]

Set up compost bins! (You can learn how to prevent flies and rodents in any how-to-compost book.) Better still, set up red-wiggler worm farm compost bins. They do triple duty: composting plus worm breeding plus humus. You can use the humus in the lovely cottage gardens that surround every house in the UK, and use the worms for - um - fishing bait.

[TylerDurden]

Hmm, fair enough. Somehow, though, I doubt that worms eat plastic or metal and the like.....

[eveheart]

Hmm, fair enough. Somehow, though, I doubt that worms eat plastic or metal and the like.....

Those should be recycled, anyway, and don't attract flies and rodents.

[FRANCIS HOWARD BOND]

Thank you very much for information and advice.   It remains to be seen how much the British public will stand, and I am not surprised you all prefer where you live now!   Tyler is right, we should stand up and fight even if we are up to our knees in rubbish!

[eveheart]

Fear might work better than outrage. (Look at how far D. Trump has gotten by preying on people's fears!)

When I was a teen, we went though a 9-day garbage strike in New York City. The issue was different, but I can tell you that a city's garbage piles up quickly, so it won't be hard to make an issue out of the menace of rats, maggots, and stench.

OTOH, some government budget issues come from "other" priorities using the money; when that is the case, all the fear and outrage in the world will not change things. We have that here in the US, where all the tax revenue that could go to education, healthcare, and other noble public works goes instead to the military-industrial complex. If the money is grabbed up in your Parliament's greedy  budget-appropriations fist, then your best bet is to become experts in the composting category, or you could do what we do here and pay for your trash collection with your monthly utility bills. My base rate is $32/month, and I can buy stickers for $6.25 each to use with extra items. Money talks.

Is high meat the solution? Probably not: by the time something is in the garbage, it usually is too late to make high meat.

[TylerDurden]

Paying private companies might be  a solution for the trash removal  but only if  one can then opt out of  paying accordingly reducec council tax.

As regards your mention of "Parliament", this issue has nothing really to do with big government but to do with local councils/local government. Council leaders in the UK routinely have annual  salaries that can be 5 times or more than the annual salary the Prime Minister gets. Of course,  Prime Minister, MPs etc., after leaving office,  get vast amounts more money via gaining directorships etc. from companies they  corruptly favoured while in office, so this is not as corrupt as it sounds. It is merely that  council leaders/councillors etc.  by contrast make most of their corrupt money while still in office.

[eveheart]

As regards your mention of "Parliament", this issue has nothing really to do with big government but to do with local councils/local government. Council leaders in the UK routinely have annual  salaries that can be 5 times or more than the annual salary the Prime Minister gets. Of course,  Prime Minister, MPs etc., after leaving office,  get vast amounts more money via gaining directorships etc. from companies they  corruptly favoured while in office, so this is not as corrupt as it sounds. It is merely that  council leaders/councillors etc.  by contrast make most of their corrupt money while still in office.

Please accept my apology and interpret my comments as they best apply to your country. Heck, I can't even figure out the politics here in my own neighborhood, and my cynicism prevents me from understanding how these layers of government are nothing more than a convenient way to point the finger of responsibility at someone else.