Wasters To The Left, Wasters To The Right

I've come across a couple of news stories of late that pretty much confirm what I had suspected for quite some time: the UK is a wasteful shit hole.

 

Story number one comes from The Telegraph and I read it yesterday, it regards recycling in the UK. Compulsory recycling is now almost ubiquitous in the UK - although this development took a damned long time in coming and many councils are still not recycling all materials that are recyclable. The issue this story raises regards landfills - the UK makes too much use of them and as a result faces fines from the EU.

 

The answer? More recycling of course! The onus here is on food waste - apparently we're producing 100 million tonnes of the stuff yearly - that is literally TONNES of waste. The idea is to have what the article charmingly refers to as a "slop bucket" in every home - in reality this would just be an additional bin for putting food and organic waste in. That would march us up to 4 bins where I live - recyclables, glass, domestic and finally food/organic wastes. That's a lot of bins, and no doubt increasingly complex collection schedules. There is all ready a bit of a furor over current collection schedules which is basically alternating weeks between the recycling and domestic collections - some people are concerned about the smell of 2 week old rotting matter attracting pests and vermin, these self same people are undoubtedly going to be concerned about the new proposals, particularly with news outlets using the unsavory term "slop bucket" in relation to the notion.

 

Four bins, stinking rubbish in your back garden, confusing uplift schedule - fuck that shit. I think the notion of personal bins has to die at this point. This stuff is getting way too confusing, take ALL the bins away and replace them with communal refuse areas. This isn't a new idea, it's used in loads of areas already - particularly those areas with a high  concentration of flats where each property having its own bin is vastly impractical. The idea is simple, have smaller bins in your house for your crap, and then when they're full go empty them at the communal refuse point - ta-da, no stinking rubbish in or (relatively) near your house, and you don't have to worry about the schedule really either in this scenario. Sure you're going to have to put slightly more effort into disposing of your trash - you may even have to walk over 100 feet in the process!!! But if it's necessary then it's necessary - councils have a limited budget and they're facing a shit-tonne of financial pressure on this - either they keep dumping in landfills and pay the fines knowing that landfills have a finite capacity and they're going to have to find an alternative sooner or later anyway - ORRRR, they invest in recycling facilities now and we endure a tiny bit of inconvenience. I vote tiny bit of inconvenience.

 

Some folks worry about the cost of any new recycling reforms to the tax payer, well yes, it will cost us, but probably a damned sight less than continuing to pay fines for overuse of land-filling until the landfills are full of shit we could have re-used and we realise we need to bump up the recycling toot-sweet before we're all neck deep in empty bean tins and shitty nappy's. And hey, recycling is good for the environment too, so suck it up whingers.

 

The next story is very much related to the first, and I've just realised that one is also a Telegraph article. We're again talking about food waste, but this time not the sort you scrape into the bin after a meal - this is the stuff we're flinging away before its even been eaten! Apparently we, as a nation are throwing away £10 billion worth of edible food every year, and it's all to do with one confusing little phrase: "best before". The suggestion is that people and businesses are hoofing out food based on the "best before" date displayed on the packaging despite the fact that this food is still very much edible for a few days after that point. Quite sickening really that there are people in this country itself that struggle to feed themselves and their children and there are people throwing out edible food because of misunderstanding. Ten billion pounds too, just shy of 10% the NHS yearly budget - out for the rats.

 

Perhaps the people concerned about the stench of their bins are the self same people hoofing out edible food - in which case: eat it before you throw it out and most of the stink will end up down the toilet.

 

In other news, somewhat related in that it concerns a massive waste - Gordon Brown, but otherwise not. Good ole Gordon is apparently considering reforming the electoral system - you're only how many decades late G-money? I saw a bit of the PMs Questions earlier and David "smarmy arse" Cameron insinuated this move was somewhat related to Labours dismal performance in the Euro elections and basically a move to ensure the damage is limited when it comes down to future British General Elections. If I was a betting man you can bet your arse (and mine) I'd put everything on Cameron in this instance (although precious few others I might add). As I've said before the UK really needs to get rid of this undemocratic FPTP shit and move on to PR like most of the rest of the democratic nations in the world. Of course Brown isn't actually suggesting we adopt any form of PR, because that would be too fucking fair, right? Both Labour and the Conservatives are pretty keen to keep PR at bay because they both think they've got a decent shot at getting in power in any given election under FPTP and PR might shit on their chances of putting this nation through 5 years of roughshod mismanagement 70% of us didn't vote for. They are instead plumping for the "Alternative Vote". This is a preference based system where voters rank candidates in order of preference. The seat would then be decided by who the majority found most preferable, it is initially based on 1st preference votes, if no one receives 50% of the votes then the 2nd, 3rd, 4th preference votes etc are added to each candidates score until someone has >50%. This sort of system may benefit an unpopular Labour party who may fall out of the 1st preference category for many voters, but still acquire a significant number of 2nd and 3rd preference votes to steal a few seats back in marginal constituencies and minimise their losses.

So no PR then, David Cameron has already played the BNP card in his argument against PR, which essentially goes like this: PR may allow parties like the BNP who hold unpleasant views and policies to gain seats in Parliament, therefore PR is bad. Sorry David, but this is a democracy, and the fact that you, me or anyone else dislike the BNP and their policies shouldn't exclude the people who do support them from being properly represented in Parliament. It's the FPTP all over - repressing the views and opinions of everyone who doesn't hold yours. Perhaps if the BNP had to fight their policies in a professional political forum then they'd be exposed for the weak fascist insane fantasies that they are - this repression is giving the BNP some sort of fringe validation among the misguided fools who think they're right in some way. Well done Davy, shot yourself in the foot there, and I'd be quite happy for you to shoot yourself in the foot if mine wasn't right under yours with the foot of every other man woman and child in the UK.

freedoms_stain, despairing at the UK, out.