Recycling of rubbish v Biffa

[john.k]

Strange fact is reporters have discovered huge warehouses full of recyclables ,and recently a Melbourne recycler has gone broke leaving millions of tons of stored plastic  waste that was claimed recycled .........the usual cure is a fire.............the only recyclable was taxpayer money recycled into Porsches and Maseratis. and $30m penthouses.

[Barneyp]

2 hours ago, john.k said:

Strange fact is reporters have discovered huge warehouses full of recyclables ,and recently a Melbourne recycler has gone broke leaving millions of tons of stored plastic  waste that was claimed recycled .........the usual cure is a fire.............the only recyclable was taxpayer money recycled into Porsches and Maseratis. and $30m penthouses.

Yes, but thats in Australia where you are. We are talking about the UK.

[TheBiscuits]

2 minutes ago, Barneyp said:

Yes, but thats in Australia where you are. We are talking about the UK.

 

Same happens over here too.  Rent a big industrial unit, fill it up with waste then shut the company and do a runner, leaving all the waste for the landlord to get rid of.

[Tony Brooks]

Just now, Barneyp said:

Yes, but thats in Australia where you are. We are talking about the UK.

 

Been found here as well. A "company" hires a warehouse, fills it full of mixed waste and partially sorted recycling, and disappears. When the owners find rent is owing, everything, document wise, is a fake.

 

Also, well documented instances of such stuff being dumped by 40 tonners down rural roads. blocking them.

[davem399]

30 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

Been found here as well. A "company" hires a warehouse, fills it full of mixed waste and partially sorted recycling, and disappears. When the owners find rent is owing, everything, document wise, is a fake.

 

Also, well documented instances of such stuff being dumped by 40 tonners down rural roads. blocking them.

This happened just a mile or so from us.  Unit full of plastic, went up in smoke and took sometime for the fire service to put out.  Renters of the unit who filled it were long gone.

[john.k]

The same people are also getting hundreds of  millions in government subsidies for the recycling they arent doing........A local Mayor has got 8 years jail  for taking millions in kickbacks from a waste contractor,the contractor ratted him out,and has immunity from prosecution.

Edited July 1, 2023 by john.k

[Jess--]

Common around here a couple of years back to have large barns rented out only to have the filled (and I really do mean filled completely) with tyres.

 

Of course once it's discovered the people renting the barn have vanished and the owner has to pay to dispose of the tyres (at around £130 per ton / £1 per tyre)

[Barneyp]

2 hours ago, john.k said:

The same people are also getting hundreds of  millions in government subsidies for the recycling they arent doing........A local Mayor has got 8 years jail  for taking millions in kickbacks from a waste contractor,the contractor ratted him out,and has immunity from prosecution.

Again an example from Australia.

I don't dispute that it does happen in the UK, but normally on a smaller scale and certainly not involving Biffa or similar size companies.

UK law puts the responsibility on the organisation where the waste originates to take reasonable steps to ensure it is disposed of properly. And there is at least some funding to check that this is happening.

[MtB]

9 hours ago, TheBiscuits said:

 

Same happens over here too.  Rent a big industrial unit, fill it up with waste then shut the company and do a runner, leaving all the waste for the landlord to get rid of.

 

I've had that happen on a smaller scale!

 

One of my flats has a lockup garage with it. I used to keep it empty as tenants tended to fill it with junk when I included it in the let. A few years ago I had occasion to visit the garage and some fekker had filled it up with junk anyway, not mine, not my tenant's. So I've left it as it is, full to the brim with clutter. Mainly to stop it happening again!  

[sigsegv]

at Bugsworth Basin there are normal red biffa bins, and some green ones that are labelled 'originally' labelled for dry recyclables, but plastered over them is the CRT 'general waste' (or whatever it says, maybe 'household rubbish?') stickers. So while we've been dutifully putting our recycling in the green ones, I've got a sneaking suspicion it's all gonna end up in the same place

[LadyG]

4 minutes ago, sigsegv said:

at Bugsworth Basin there are normal red biffa bins, and some green ones that are labelled 'originally' labelled for dry recyclables, but plastered over them is the CRT 'general waste' (or whatever it says, maybe 'household rubbish?') stickers. So while we've been dutifully putting our recycling in the green ones, I've got a sneaking suspicion it's all gonna end up in the same place

 I'm not convinced C RT have stickers.

Edited July 2, 2023 by LadyG

[Ronaldo47]

A couple of years ago, Private Eye mentioned a council that did at one time have an excellent record for recycling. Unfortunately they had also signed a contract with a power generation company to take the residual waste to use as fuel. Unfortunately the residual waste turned out to have a lower calorific value than required by the contract, and so had to be supplemented by a significant quantity of recyclable plastics to avoid having to pay the contract's substantial penalty charges for non-compliance.

[Tony Brooks]

9 hours ago, Ronaldo47 said:

A couple of years ago, Private Eye mentioned a council that did at one time have an excellent record for recycling. Unfortunately they had also signed a contract with a power generation company to take the residual waste to use as fuel. Unfortunately the residual waste turned out to have a lower calorific value than required by the contract, and so had to be supplemented by a significant quantity of recyclable plastics to avoid having to pay the contract's substantial penalty charges for non-compliance.

 

Swindon.

[Mike Todd]

5 hours ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

Swindon.

I believe it also happened in Cornwall, or was at least a risk.

[sigsegv]

20 hours ago, LadyG said:

 I'm not convinced C RT have stickers.

Idk what you wanna call them, posters? Bills?

[enigmatic]

20 hours ago, Ronaldo47 said:

A couple of years ago, Private Eye mentioned a council that did at one time have an excellent record for recycling. Unfortunately they had also signed a contract with a power generation company to take the residual waste to use as fuel. Unfortunately the residual waste turned out to have a lower calorific value than required by the contract, and so had to be supplemented by a significant quantity of recyclable plastics to avoid having to pay the contract's substantial penalty charges for non-compliance.

yeah, guy I used to work with campaigned against getting a local waste to energy incinerator on that basis. Apparently the contract provision is a pretty standard one and the area he lived in isn't nearly big enough to support it...

 

 

On 01/07/2023 at 13:27, Barneyp said:

Again an example from Australia.

I don't dispute that it does happen in the UK, but normally on a smaller scale and certainly not involving Biffa or similar size companies.

UK law puts the responsibility on the organisation where the waste originates to take reasonable steps to ensure it is disposed of properly. And there is at least some funding to check that this is happening.

I'm sure it won't involve Biffa, but there are some pretty big and professional operations in waste fraud, including the stuff that gets landfilled (there's tax payable on the waste companies lawfully dispose of, enough to make it profitable to charge companies to take the waste away, bury all of it but only declare some of it)

 

You're right there's funding to tackle it (even applied for some of it), but like most regulatory budgets there's not enough. Same guy I used to work with had a chat with his local MP about the unofficial waste dumping site local builders were using. Local MP said 'yeah, guy that runs the operation has a few sites like that and he's a much dodgier chap than his PR would suggest... but also he has legitimate disposal contracts with a lot of the councils locally...'. There are other incentives not to pursue some of the sectarian violence linked groups doing it in NI too.

Could be worse though. Italian councils gave a lot of their waste concessions to the local Family business and wondered why cancer rates in certain parts of the country whose water supply filtered through underground caves were rising in the decades afterwards...

[john.k]

On the subject of burning waste ..........many years ago ,there was a fuss about the dumping of toxic ash produced by municipal incinerators ........I dont understand how burning waste 2023 isnt going to produce toxic ash.

[Ronaldo47]

This reminds me that, after the Beckton gas works in East London closed, its substantial slag heaps, built up from over a century of gas production and known locally as the "Beckton Alps",  were grassed over and turned into a dry ski slope. After a few years, for some reason, an analysis of the underlying material was carried out.  It proved t,o be somewhat toxic, resulting in the ski slope's permanent closure. 

Edited July 4, 2023 by Ronaldo47
typos

[ditchcrawler]

10 hours ago, john.k said:

On the subject of burning waste ..........many years ago ,there was a fuss about the dumping of toxic ash produced by municipal incinerators ........I dont understand how burning waste 2023 isnt going to produce toxic ash.

What happens to Waste to Energy Incineration Ash? - Landscaping Products: Soil, Mulch, Compost, Bark, Turf - Eco Sustainable Solutions (thisiseco.co.uk)