Siting of panels for solar water heating

Andy Hall wrote:

I can remember when I was a kid and you could get money back on various glass bottles by returning them to the store. It could be quite lucrative on the kids economy scale of things.

There still is 20p deposit on Barr's Irn-Bru bottles. I have about �4's worth under the sink as Emergency Savings.
Owain

In message , Phil Bradshaw writes

John Beardmore wrote: In message , Phil Bradshaw philbradshaw@deltasierralima.pipex.charlieoscarmike> writes John Beardmore wrote: In message , raden <raden@kateda.org writes
Sorry, but laudable as you claim your actions to be, You are looking at having an insignificant effect
'What you do will be insignificant but it is very (most) important that you do it.' [Gandhi]
Being laudable is for others to judge.
Or for yourself only is sufficient?
I suppose so, but we are social animals and there is no shortage of support.
and criticism!

:) Quite so...

I guess what I'm saying is that we make our own choices, but we can't impose our perceptions of them, or our values. on other people. We can offer our services to others, voluntarily or commercially. We can't make them like what we do, but they can 'buy in' if they choose, by participation or purchase of services.
Do as you will without impinging on others and if what you're doing has any merit then others will follow. I think...

Yes.

Suits me to be doing my own place at my own pace and at least cost even though it seems to be taking forever just reducing consumption so that renewable energy is viable (i.e. holistic as far as I can make it) rather than an adding to the many inefficiencies I inherited with my place.
Yes. Makes sense.
It should eventually, when the to-do list stops growing!

Yes - mine seems to have things added more quickly than I can get them off !

Of course my effect is insignificant, but it is insignificant in a relatively good direction as opposed to a relatively bad one; moving towards a solution, at least in some areas, as opposed to moving towards bigger more urgent problems in those areas.
Of course - I needn't do this. I could still be working as a software engineer, earning far more money, and contributing to more problems in more ways. I would still be just as insignificant.
Heh. 'My little bit (of excess consumption) won't matter because I can afford it.'? I cringe at what I used to pay out on fuel bills in a past life...
No matter Phil - You are insignificant !
Yep. Like every one of >6billion of us...

Yes.
Cheers, J/. -- John Beardmore

On 2006-11-24 22:01:13 +0000, John Beardmore said:

In message , Andy Hall writes The trouble is that only partial views are taken and the true economic and environmental impacts not taken into account.
Actually, local authorities do quite a bit of life cycle analysis to try and get this stuff right.
While they don't / can't because it's hard to get the data and interpret the results, they may be better informed than you think.

One would hope so too, considering the number of people I am paying them to employ to do so.
However, the outcome, which is what I am interested in, is weak indeed.

This is always assuming that items genuinely are recycled as claimed and not just thrown in with the rest of the landfill. I still see instances of refuse collectors throwing what naive people have separated into their recycling bins in the back of the truck with the rest of the rubbish.
Or even landfilling green waste because they don't have the facility to process it. Bu bad examples don't mean that there is never a benefit, or that it's not beneficial in the general case.

They should begin with things where there is a demonstrable and clear cut case for an economic saving and the means exists to do it. When I am convinced of that, I will stop putting everything into the standard bins and liners.

Nobody has asked for a reduction in service, but the service they are required to give is no longer the same.
That's pure marketing nonsense.
Well no - it's umpteen changes in the law.

I am quite sure that there is nothing in the law that requires them to reduce collection frequencies. I am almost as sure that there is nothing that requires the householder as opposed to the collection outfit sorting out what needs to be recycled and what doesn't.
I don't have the time, motivation or interest to sort through a whole pile of different types of assorted plastic crap to determine what is what and what should go where. These people are paid a great deal of money. Moreover, they know, or should know what facilities they have for dealing with different types of material. Quite reasonably I want and expect them to deal with it.

Convince people that they no longer need something that you don't want to provide or to achieve some PC positioning. You may be impressed with that - I'm not. It should be exposed for what it is.
As I see it, UK local authorities were happily filling up old holes in the ground with all our crap, when along came the EU, who in a bold attempt to solve a problem we didn't have, (but the likes of Greece did !), and imposed a range of waste directives which have subsequently found their way into UK law. To blame the LAs as though they we proactive agents if change is slightly missing who and what is driving this change.

I'm sorry but there is the equivalent of blood on the hands of both central and local government. EU Directives are not generally prescriptive in terms of the detail of implementation and neither is their transposition into UK statute. There is a lot more flexibility, I am sure than they would have people believe.

I know it's huge fun to rant and demean them, but your view of what they are paid to do still seems to be about 10 years out of date.
It's not fun at all. Actually it's rather serious because large amounts of money are being wasted by these people and there are not too many mechanisms to redress it other than exposure and bringing suitable pressure to bear when needed. When one has to resort to taking issues to the chief executive of the LA because of incompetence in his departments covered by people hiding behind statutes (e.g. "I can't do this because the law doesn't empower me to do it"), and middle management want to sit out a quiet life until their retirement; one becomes of the opinion that the organisation is long overdue for some wholesale sackings.
Well you may be right that there a lot of incompetents in LAs, but that law has changed, and that does have consequences.

Then the law needs to change again, if indeed it does actually prescribe what they are supposed to do to the level of detail that they claim. Therein lies the doubt. I am sure that if I look, I will find that there is a great deal more flexibility than they suggest.

That isn't ranting about something - it's a statement of reality.
They are paid to provide a service. That's it. The measure is whether or not they are doing it.
I'll give you an example. My local authority used to collect bins etc. from anywhere at the front of the property. I in common with many of my neighbours have quite a long drive - mine longer than most. A couple of years ago, the LA wrote saying that they were changing the policy such that bins had to be placed at the edge of the property at the road. I didn't have a particular problem with that, other than the fact that they lied about the reason. The story was that it was for "health and safety" reasons - one of the great things to hide behind when you don't want to do something. Nobody really believed it, but several contacted the head of the department who assured us that this was the reason. We went one level up and spoke to an empty suit who wasn't interested; so following that it was letters to the chief exec. cc. to the MP and the local press. In the end, there was an admission that it was for cost reasons. When they had accepted contractor bids for the collection contract, they found that they could save money by the bin men not having to walk up drives to people's houses. That was the truth of the situation.
I would have had no problem with this apart from two things:
1) They lied about the reasons. In writing. Several times
2) They didn't ask their customers before implementing this whether they wanted collections conducted in this way.
:)
OK - now we're getting somewhere - but this is still nothing to do with your original claims about recycling.

It is an illustration that this is all part and parcel of the disease in local and central government and how there needs to be a massive cull of headcount.

One day, and probably not in public, get me to tell you about Brightstar in Derby.
With nonsense like this going on, I have a very hard time trusting anything they say about recycling arrangements.
You don't have to trust them. The EU directives and UK legislation are all on the web.

I know that very well. It will be interesting to read what the requirements actually are. I expect them to be a long way from what is being implemented.

There may be *some* value in doing *some* recycling, but when the package and reasons are tainted with this and the PC arguments of "being seen to do the right thing", people become disillusioned with the whole thing.
Elected members have an incentive to be seen to do the right thing, but statutory compliance is perhaps the bigger driver once you get past the political speech writers.

If one is a jobsworth, I am sure it is. The mindset is to use as much of the regulation as possible, especially if it results in the need to employ more bureaucrats and to build bigger empires. It's not at all impressive.

If they want to reduce that for cost reasons, then fine, but then take that element out of the council tax, and I'll make my own arrangements with a private contractor. I think there's more to it than saving money. Such as an excuse to hire more jobsworths for the gravy train. Such as a desire, and externally imposed requirement, to deliver better environmental performance, yet all your criticism of those to whom council tax is paid suggests that you are criticising LAs. Yet the framework in which they operate, and the targets imposed on them largely come from central government and indeed the EU.
They do have the ability to implement things in different ways, but choose to lie and cheat. I wasn't singling out LAs for special treatment. The disease goes all the way to the top.
Well, you did refer to council tax and say
"Nobody has asked for a reduction in service, so there is no reason for the supplier (i.e. the LA) to reduce it".
You'll have to forgive me for assuming that you were thinking about what you were writing about.

Absolutely. There is no inconsistency in what I said.

Basically, they are not adding any value, only cost. There is no reason or excuse for them to be in the supply chain. ...that you perceive...
It's hard to find evidence to support any other view given the way that they execute what they are supposed to do.
Well - you may have reason to assume this based on your experience.
My experience is different to yours, though the politicisation of the issue is unfortunate in that it stops LA officers speaking freely, and gives them a party line to follow.

This really isn't a matter of politicisation, but of demonstrable incompetence.

It would be far more effective for there to be a free market in collection and disposal in the same way as there is in the energy sector. People who want to pay the lowest price can buy from a supplier who offers that. Those who want to go for more of a tree hugging operator and pay more because it gives them a warm fuzzy can do that, and people who want to buy a value add service where the supplier comes, sorts and disposes of the rubbish in groups or whatever can have that. I guess the point here is that LAs are obliged to implement recycling, and the minimum specification is not something they can alter. They will almost certainly then go through some sort of tendering process to get that service delivered at the lowest price. If you want to change the way this is done, it's a matter for central government.
Absolutely. I'm directing some efforts there as well. This does need to be exposed for the scam it is.
Well - I'm not sure that its a scam in that there is no obvious beneficiary of a fraud, but where the wrong thing is being done this should be fixed, and where the right thing is done badly, that should be fixed.

Where public money is involved, as it is here, this does need to be fully and openly investigated. There are plenty of opportunities for the hangers on to be making money. The employment of each extra person in the LA to run the charade is a fraud in itself.

Of course, what *should* happen is that instead of spinning greenwashed rubbish and expecting people to be gullible enough to fall for it, there should be massive reductions in LA employees. Well again, that's your view. It seems to be a fairly widely held one from what I read in the local press It may be "widely held", but that doesn't make it 'well informed'.
That depends on the source of the information. When the source is people in LAs who simply don't tell the truth, one has to be on one's guard to separate the truth from the lies.
Absolutely, and if it would help if more than a handful of members of the public per LA took a serious interest in this stuff.
Does your LA have an 'environmental scrutiny group' ? They might find your experience very interesting.

They might well, if there is one. I prefer to deal with these things at a higher level. Things are more likely happen as a result of pressure from above.

and from talking to councillors. Councillors can speak with forked tongues. They can join in the chorus of every rant in the hope of re-election, and still vote to carry out the most deranged of statutory duties and local policies in council chamber.
I am fully aware of that and watch voting records on important issues very carefully.
Good !
People seem to be getting heartily sick of being talked down to, snowed with PC nonsense, attempts to pull the wool over their eyes and running their lives for them. Well yes, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a benefit to recycling, or that fortnightly bin collections are not the least worst way to do it given the resources available, and the statutory framework in which LAs operate.
There *may* be *some* benefit to *some* recycling. At the point that I see honestly presented data with impartial and not greenwashed figures to support it, the matter can be taken seriously.
You should probably try looking at something like the Open University T860 course then.

I wonder if the cost is tax deductible.

Until that time, it is seriously discredited.
Oh dear ! This is so crap. You may regard it as discredited for whatever reasons you have, but to state
"it is seriously discredited"
as though there was some consensus is just bollocks.

I repeat the comment. It is seriously discredited. I am looking at the complete picture.
The problem is that it takes only a small number or even one obviously bogus aspect, whether it be wasting peoples' time with figuring out which product is which and prosecuting them if they get it wrong; material that is supposed to be recycled going in with the general trash, ridiculous shipping of materials to remote locations and the employment of extra bureaucrats to run it all. Then on top of that, we are told that it's all wonderful
That is what I mean by seriously discredited. A dose of honesty would go a very long way.

It's a shame really because the few worthwhile environmental activities are then tarred with the brush of the easily discredited. Well possibly, and I'm not saying the situation is great or adequate, but so far you've given us hot air and opinion which amount to a counter proposal that I doubt would even be legal.
That depends. So often I have heard the excuse (phrase above) that "the law doesn't empower them to do something". If one asks the supplementary question of does it prevent them; then the answer is typically silence because either they don't know or they no full well that it doesn't prescribe particular methods of delivery of services.
Yes - this is a particularly poor aspect of LA culture.
Certainly there seems to be a culture of delivering no more than the LA has to on the off chance that if they ever do, people may want it again !

Which is precisely why they should be taken out of the chain. They add no value.

As such, you can't blame LAs for implementing a legal solution, and just how many "jobsworths for the gravy train" do you think this involves, and in which specific jobs ?
I can always criticise LAs. Finding people who are competent, efficient and willing to take responsibility for their actions is becoming as rare as rocking horse shit in these organisations.
Yes.
I'll give you another example which is in the process of being exposed. The highways department of my LA has been undertaking a task to look at modifications to improve traffic flows in the district. This is a well staffed department which should, on paper, be well able and qualified to carry out the exercise. Instead of this, they have hired a firm of consultants to do some of the exercise. When questioned about it, nobody was able to give an answer as to why this could not have been achieved in house - they weren't short of staff. Again, the chief exec. wasn't even aware of this and the expenditure is substantial. He is now.
:)
It is for these types of reason that there needs to be a massive cut back in the public sector at all levels and people put into gainful employment.
I'm not convinced. I think a culture more permissive to innovation is required, but there will always be a trade off between allowing innovation and learning from it even in failure, and scrutinising / penalising anything that might cause embarrassment to the council.
It seems to me that in the present culture, LA staff are in an environment where indolence isn't necessarily penalised, but innovation is regarded as somewhere between boat rocking and disciplinary offence.

Whichever. Either way, it is not an environment which attracts the innovators and entrepreneurs anyway.
Somebody once said to me in connection with university culture that the politics are so great because the stakes are so small.
In a way, this is the same thing, except that the stakes are not quite so small.

I suspect this culture is handed down from the elected members who want a quiet risk free life, in which they can worry about inter party bickering, where they can manage voters expectations, rather than dealing with the details of managing change in their locale.

I haven't seen evidence of elected members handing down this kind of culture; in terms of the risk free aspect. I am in contact with a few of the better ones in my district and gradually the excess bureaucracy is being exposed. The challenge becomes how to do the sackings. I hope that that will come but will probably not be before a change of central government.

On 2006-11-24 22:47:09 +0000, Owain said:

Andy Hall wrote: I can remember when I was a kid and you could get money back on various glass bottles by returning them to the store. It could be quite lucrative on the kids economy scale of things.
There still is 20p deposit on Barr's Irn-Bru bottles. I have about �4's worth under the sink as Emergency Savings.
Owain

I don't seem to see them here - only plastic bottles. Perhaps only the sugary version is in glass, or do they do the non sugary one in glass as well?

On 2006-11-24 22:31:39 +0000, John Beardmore said:

In message , meow2222@care2.com writes John Beardmore wrote: In message , Andy Hall writes On 2006-11-23 12:05:29 +0000, David Hansen SENDdavidNOhSPAM@spidacom.co.uk> said: On Thu, 23 Nov 2006 07:58:01 +0000 someone who may be John Beardmore wookie@wookie.demon.co.uk> wrote this:-
Unless you plan to set up the 'Alternative Bin Emptying Company'. A few people have talked about this in various places, to replace the "missing" council collections. I haven't heard of these enterprises taking off. Given the amount of (local) mass media coverage they got when they were talked about I would expect to have heard if they were a success. I suspect that those who talked loudly discovered that they are not as representative of the public's view as they thought they were.
It would simply take removal of the council monopoly to address that issue.
Do the council have a monopoly ?
Lets give you another example then, should make it easier to see. Lets say you were forced to pay for breakfast at a certain eatery on the way to work, you had to pay whether you used the service or not, and once you'd paid you cold eat as much and often as you wanted, or not at all. But you paid the same. Now, having paid, you're likely to eat there. This is a monopoly in practice. Sure someone else could sell you food, but since you've already been forced to pay for this place, its monopolistic. This is how council garbage collection works.
Agreed. But while its an anti competitive practice, it's not strictly a monopoly I guess.

In effect it is because the customer is, in effect, in a situation where has to take what is non-optionally provided or has to pay twice. To all intents and purposes, and for most people, it is a monopoly.
The same is true of education and of healthcare. The difference with those is that people view those rather more seriously and are willing to pay twice to get a proper service.

On 2006-11-24 22:32:26 +0000, John Beardmore said:

Do the council have a monopoly ? I'm aware that The Waste (Household Waste Duty of Care) (England and Wales) Regulations 2005 - came into force 21/11/2005, amending the Environmental Protection Act "(2A) It shall be the duty of the occupier of any domestic property in England to take all such measures available to him as are reasonable in the circumstances to secure that any transfer by him of household waste produced on the property is only to an authorised person or to a person for authorised transport purposes." I don't know if the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005, or the Waste Management Licensing Regulations 1994 would be consistent with you assertion of monopoly ?
So if that's the case, how does one apply to the local authority to opt out of their waste collection arrangement?
You don't use their bins, and you don't put them out to be collected.

What is the method by which I deduct the amount going towards that from my council tax?

In message , Andy Hall writes

On 2006-11-24 22:31:39 +0000, John Beardmore said: In message , meow2222@care2.com writes John Beardmore wrote: In message , Andy Hall writes On 2006-11-23 12:05:29 +0000, David Hansen SENDdavidNOhSPAM@spidacom.co.uk> said: On Thu, 23 Nov 2006 07:58:01 +0000 someone who may be John Beardmore wookie@wookie.demon.co.uk> wrote this:-
Unless you plan to set up the 'Alternative Bin Emptying Company'. A few people have talked about this in various places, to replace the "missing" council collections. I haven't heard of these enterprises taking off. Given the amount of (local) mass media coverage they got when they were talked about I would expect to have heard if they were a success. I suspect that those who talked loudly discovered that they are not as representative of the public's view as they thought they were.
It would simply take removal of the council monopoly to address that issue. Do the council have a monopoly ? Lets give you another example then, should make it easier to see. Lets say you were forced to pay for breakfast at a certain eatery on the way to work, you had to pay whether you used the service or not, and once you'd paid you cold eat as much and often as you wanted, or not at all. But you paid the same. Now, having paid, you're likely to eat there. This is a monopoly in practice. Sure someone else could sell you food, but since you've already been forced to pay for this place, its monopolistic. This is how council garbage collection works. Agreed. But while its an anti competitive practice, it's not strictly a monopoly I guess.
In effect it is because the customer is, in effect, in a situation where has to take what is non-optionally provided or has to pay twice. To all intents and purposes, and for most people, it is a monopoly.

OK - so the situation is analogous to private education.
You can send your children to private school, but if you do, you don't get a tax rebate.
You can have no children at all, and still get no tax rebate.
There is plenty of history of this kind of thing, but people don't generally think of state education as a monopoly.

The same is true of education and of healthcare. The difference with those is that people view those rather more seriously and are willing to pay twice to get a proper service.

Quite so - demonstrating that it's not a monopoly.
Cheers J/. -- John Beardmore

In message , Andy Hall writes

On 2006-11-24 22:32:26 +0000, John Beardmore said:
Do the council have a monopoly ? I'm aware that The Waste (Household Waste Duty of Care) (England and Wales) Regulations 2005 - came into force 21/11/2005, amending the Environmental Protection Act "(2A) It shall be the duty of the occupier of any domestic property in England to take all such measures available to him as are reasonable in the circumstances to secure that any transfer by him of household waste produced on the property is only to an authorised person or to a person for authorised transport purposes." I don't know if the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005, or the Waste Management Licensing Regulations 1994 would be consistent with you assertion of monopoly ? So if that's the case, how does one apply to the local authority to opt out of their waste collection arrangement? You don't use their bins, and you don't put them out to be collected.
What is the method by which I deduct the amount going towards that from my council tax?

You can't, but you can opt out of collections trivially.
Cheers, J/. -- John Beardmore

On 2006-11-25 00:51:47 +0000, John Beardmore said:

In message , Andy Hall writes On 2006-11-24 22:31:39 +0000, John Beardmore said: In message , meow2222@care2.com writes
Lets give you another example then, should make it easier to see. Lets say you were forced to pay for breakfast at a certain eatery on the way to work, you had to pay whether you used the service or not, and once you'd paid you cold eat as much and often as you wanted, or not at all. But you paid the same. Now, having paid, you're likely to eat there. This is a monopoly in practice. Sure someone else could sell you food, but since you've already been forced to pay for this place, its monopolistic. This is how council garbage collection works. Agreed. But while its an anti competitive practice, it's not strictly a monopoly I guess.
In effect it is because the customer is, in effect, in a situation where has to take what is non-optionally provided or has to pay twice. To all intents and purposes, and for most people, it is a monopoly.
OK - so the situation is analogous to private education.
You can send your children to private school, but if you do, you don't get a tax rebate.

You should.

You can have no children at all, and still get no tax rebate.

Again, you should.

There is plenty of history of this kind of thing, but people don't generally think of state education as a monopoly.

In practical terms, to those who could otherwise afford private education if they didn't have to pay that proportion of council tax, it is.

The same is true of education and of healthcare. The difference with those is that people view those rather more seriously and are willing to pay twice to get a proper service.
Quite so - demonstrating that it's not a monopoly.

The local authority collects money from every household. Part of this goes towards refuse collection.
- It does not offer a choice of level of service.
- It does not offer a choice of refuse collection company
- It does not allow its customers a part in the selection of the single chosen company
- It does not provide a discount on council tax if the customer wants to shop elsewhere.
It's a monopoly in terms of profile and effect, and a poorly run one at that.

On 2006-11-25 00:52:39 +0000, John Beardmore said:

In message , Andy Hall writes On 2006-11-24 22:32:26 +0000, John Beardmore said:
Do the council have a monopoly ? I'm aware that The Waste (Household Waste Duty of Care) (England and Wales) Regulations 2005 - came into force 21/11/2005, amending the Environmental Protection Act "(2A) It shall be the duty of the occupier of any domestic property in England to take all such measures available to him as are reasonable in the circumstances to secure that any transfer by him of household waste produced on the property is only to an authorised person or to a person for authorised transport purposes." I don't know if the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005, or the Waste Management Licensing Regulations 1994 would be consistent with you assertion of monopoly ? So if that's the case, how does one apply to the local authority to opt out of their waste collection arrangement? You don't use their bins, and you don't put them out to be collected.
What is the method by which I deduct the amount going towards that from my council tax?
You can't, but you can opt out of collections trivially.

Why can't I opt out of the payments if I don't want to buy the service, but choose my own while still complying with the EPA (above)?
Perhaps there is another clause saying that the local authority or its representative is the only "authorised person" If so, it's a monopoly.
Perhaps the authority chooses not to use multiple contractors and to offer the customer a choice. Again a monopoly.

In message , Andy Hall writes

On 2006-11-24 22:01:13 +0000, John Beardmore said: In message , Andy Hall writes
The trouble is that only partial views are taken and the true economic and environmental impacts not taken into account. Actually, local authorities do quite a bit of life cycle analysis to try and get this stuff right. While they don't / can't because it's hard to get the data and interpret the results, they may be better informed than you think.
One would hope so too, considering the number of people I am paying them to employ to do so.
However, the outcome, which is what I am interested in, is weak indeed.

In some respects. Not sure that's all down to LAs though.

This is always assuming that items genuinely are recycled as claimed and not just thrown in with the rest of the landfill. I still see instances of refuse collectors throwing what naive people have separated into their recycling bins in the back of the truck with the rest of the rubbish. Or even landfilling green waste because they don't have the facility to process it. Bu bad examples don't mean that there is never a benefit, or that it's not beneficial in the general case.
They should begin with things where there is a demonstrable and clear cut case for an economic saving and the means exists to do it.

Well - you might think that. As an environmentalist I think there is more to this than picking a bit of low hanging fruit...

When I am convinced of that, I will stop putting everything into the standard bins and liners.

Well - you can do what you like, though I suspect that LA recycling is very much driven by the processing of those materials for which they can find markets.

Nobody has asked for a reduction in service, but the service they are required to give is no longer the same. That's pure marketing nonsense. Well no - it's umpteen changes in the law.
I am quite sure that there is nothing in the law that requires them to reduce collection frequencies.

If there is a requirement to collect a greater range of stuff without doubling up road miles and staff, it may amount to that.

I am almost as sure that there is nothing that requires the householder as opposed to the collection outfit sorting out what needs to be recycled and what doesn't.

Indeed, but most people recognise that separation at source is easier than separation after mixing and covering in slime.

I don't have the time, motivation or interest to sort through a whole pile of different types of assorted plastic crap to determine what is what and what should go where.

Yet you have the time, motivation or interest to consume the contents. It seems unfortunate that expect to gain the benefit of modern materials, but are utterly reluctant do deal with the consequences of their use.

These people are paid a great deal of money.

By whose standards ?

Moreover, they know, or should know what facilities they have for dealing with different types of material.

The LA may have very few facilities - they sub out the process usually, remember ?
I'm not sure that the subcontractors are paid enough to hand sort or invest in the necessary machinery, especially if contracts only last 5 years or so.

Quite reasonably I want and expect them to deal with it.

What you regard as reasonable is up to you, but I don't hear the sound of you scurrying off to tender for this sort of processing, well paid though you maintain it to be !

Convince people that they no longer need something that you don't want to provide or to achieve some PC positioning. You may be impressed with that - I'm not. It should be exposed for what it is. As I see it, UK local authorities were happily filling up old holes in the ground with all our crap, when along came the EU, who in a bold attempt to solve a problem we didn't have, (but the likes of Greece did !), and imposed a range of waste directives which have subsequently found their way into UK law. To blame the LAs as though they we proactive agents if change is slightly missing who and what is driving this change.
I'm sorry but there is the equivalent of blood on the hands of both central and local government. EU Directives are not generally prescriptive in terms of the detail of implementation and neither is their transposition into UK statute. There is a lot more flexibility, I am sure than they would have people believe.

There may be flexibility in method, but perhaps less in targets, politics and culture.

I know it's huge fun to rant and demean them, but your view of what they are paid to do still seems to be about 10 years out of date. It's not fun at all. Actually it's rather serious because large amounts of money are being wasted by these people and there are not too many mechanisms to redress it other than exposure and bringing suitable pressure to bear when needed. When one has to resort to taking issues to the chief executive of the LA because of incompetence in his departments covered by people hiding behind statutes (e.g. "I can't do this because the law doesn't empower me to do it"), and middle management want to sit out a quiet life until their retirement; one becomes of the opinion that the organisation is long overdue for some wholesale sackings. Well you may be right that there a lot of incompetents in LAs, but that law has changed, and that does have consequences.
Then the law needs to change again, if indeed it does actually prescribe what they are supposed to do to the level of detail that they claim. Therein lies the doubt. I am sure that if I look, I will find that there is a great deal more flexibility than they suggest.

Possibly, but look for example at Landfill Directive (1999/31/EC) which bans the landfill of some hazardous wastes, liquid wastes and tyres, sets targets to reduce the amount of biodegradable municipal waste sent to landfill to 75% of 1995 baseline levels by 2006, to 50% by 2009 and to 35% by 2016 to reduce methane greenhouse gas emissions which partly originate from the anaerobic breakdown of biodegradable waste in landfill.
It additionally aims to reduce the amount and toxicity of landfilled waste, defines standards for the design and operation of existing and new landfills, promotes the pre-treatment of waste before it is landfilling, and prevents potentially harmful wastes mixing by requiring certain types of waste to be disposed of in particular sites.
If you go to http://www.opsi.gov.uk/ and search for "Landfill Directive (1999/31/EC)", you can see the bulk of material that even this recent change throws up.

That isn't ranting about something - it's a statement of reality. They are paid to provide a service. That's it. The measure is whether or not they are doing it. I'll give you an example. My local authority used to collect bins etc. from anywhere at the front of the property. I in common with many of my neighbours have quite a long drive - mine longer than most. A couple of years ago, the LA wrote saying that they were changing the policy such that bins had to be placed at the edge of the property at the road. I didn't have a particular problem with that, other than the fact that they lied about the reason. The story was that it was for "health and safety" reasons - one of the great things to hide behind when you don't want to do something. Nobody really believed it, but several contacted the head of the department who assured us that this was the reason. We went one level up and spoke to an empty suit who wasn't interested; so following that it was letters to the chief exec. cc. to the MP and the local press. In the end, there was an admission that it was for cost reasons. When they had accepted contractor bids for the collection contract, they found that they could save money by the bin men not having to walk up drives to people's houses. That was the truth of the situation.
I would have had no problem with this apart from two things: 1) They lied about the reasons. In writing. Several times 2) They didn't ask their customers before implementing this whether they wanted collections conducted in this way.
:) OK - now we're getting somewhere - but this is still nothing to do with your original claims about recycling.
It is an illustration that this is all part and parcel of the disease in local and central government and how there needs to be a massive cull of headcount.

I'm not sure that sacking a bung of people makes the remainder more honest. Probably more like more paranoid and devious.

One day, and probably not in public, get me to tell you about Brightstar in Derby.
With nonsense like this going on, I have a very hard time trusting anything they say about recycling arrangements. You don't have to trust them. The EU directives and UK legislation are all on the web.
I know that very well. It will be interesting to read what the requirements actually are. I expect them to be a long way from what is being implemented.

Well, Landfill Directive (1999/31/EC) might be an interesting one to start with.

There may be *some* value in doing *some* recycling, but when the package and reasons are tainted with this and the PC arguments of "being seen to do the right thing", people become disillusioned with the whole thing. Elected members have an incentive to be seen to do the right thing, but statutory compliance is perhaps the bigger driver once you get past the political speech writers.
If one is a jobsworth, I am sure it is.

Yes - exactly that - if you want to keep your job...

The mindset is to use as much of the regulation as possible, especially if it results in the need to employ more bureaucrats and to build bigger empires. It's not at all impressive.

But it is the civil service way.

If they want to reduce that for cost reasons, then fine, but take that element out of the council tax, and I'll make my own arrangements with a private contractor. I think there's more to it than saving money. Such as an excuse to hire more jobsworths for the gravy train. Such as a desire, and externally imposed requirement, to deliver better environmental performance, yet all your criticism of those to whom council tax is paid suggests that you are criticising LAs. Yet the framework in which they operate, and the targets imposed on them largely come from central government and indeed the EU. They do have the ability to implement things in different ways, but choose to lie and cheat. I wasn't singling out LAs for special treatment. The disease goes all the way to the top. Well, you did refer to council tax and say "Nobody has asked for a reduction in service, so there is no reason for the supplier (i.e. the LA) to reduce it". You'll have to forgive me for assuming that you were thinking about what you were writing about.
Absolutely. There is no inconsistency in what I said.

Possibly not - it's just not very obvious to the reader.

Basically, they are not adding any value, only cost. There is no reason or excuse for them to be in the supply chain. ...that you perceive... It's hard to find evidence to support any other view given the way that they execute what they are supposed to do. Well - you may have reason to assume this based on your experience. My experience is different to yours, though the politicisation of the issue is unfortunate in that it stops LA officers speaking freely, and gives them a party line to follow.
This really isn't a matter of politicisation, but of demonstrable incompetence.

Well, you may regard it as demonstrated within your LA. In mine, some of the officers have been a bit useless, but from one mayor down, I've seen startling levels of confusion, politicisation and denial of the obvious. If it's like that at the top of the organisation, it's no wonder the lower echelons are stressed, reciting garbage by rote, and wishing you'd stop asking smart questions.

It would be far more effective for there to be a free market in collection and disposal in the same way as there is in the energy sector. People who want to pay the lowest price can buy from a supplier who offers that. Those who want to go for more of a tree hugging operator and pay more because it gives them a warm fuzzy can do that, and people who want to buy a value add service where the supplier comes, sorts and disposes of the rubbish in groups or whatever can have that. I guess the point here is that LAs are obliged to implement recycling, and the minimum specification is not something they can alter. They will almost certainly then go through some sort of tendering process to get that service delivered at the lowest price. If you want to change the way this is done, it's a matter for central government. Absolutely. I'm directing some efforts there as well. This does need to be exposed for the scam it is. Well - I'm not sure that its a scam in that there is no obvious beneficiary of a fraud, but where the wrong thing is being done this should be fixed, and where the right thing is done badly, that should be fixed.
Where public money is involved, as it is here, this does need to be fully and openly investigated.

If there is any basis to assume an offence has been committed. The offence you seem to identifying is 'not doing it your way'.

There are plenty of opportunities for the hangers on to be making money.

Which "hangers on" ?

The employment of each extra person in the LA to run the charade is a fraud in itself.

I'm not convinced.

Of course, what *should* happen is that instead of spinning greenwashed rubbish and expecting people to be gullible enough to fall for it, there should be massive reductions in LA employees. Well again, that's your view. It seems to be a fairly widely held one from what I read in the local press It may be "widely held", but that doesn't make it 'well informed'. That depends on the source of the information. When the source is people in LAs who simply don't tell the truth, one has to be on one's guard to separate the truth from the lies. Absolutely, and if it would help if more than a handful of members of the public per LA took a serious interest in this stuff. Does your LA have an 'environmental scrutiny group' ? They might find your experience very interesting.
They might well, if there is one. I prefer to deal with these things at a higher level. Things are more likely happen as a result of pressure from above.

Maybe, but scrutiny can be fairly effective if you get them on the case. It's their job, where as the CEO may opt to bury bad news or delegate investigation to the officers responsible for the problem. Been there, got the T-shirt.

People seem to be getting heartily sick of being talked down to, snowed with PC nonsense, attempts to pull the wool over their eyes and running their lives for them. Well yes, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a benefit to recycling, or that fortnightly bin collections are not the least worst way to do it given the resources available, and the statutory framework in which LAs operate. There *may* be *some* benefit to *some* recycling. At the point that I see honestly presented data with impartial and not greenwashed figures to support it, the matter can be taken seriously. You should probably try looking at something like the Open University T860 course then.
I wonder if the cost is tax deductible.

Depends on what you do I guess - I deducted it.

Until that time, it is seriously discredited. Oh dear ! This is so crap. You may regard it as discredited for whatever reasons you have, but to state "it is seriously discredited" as though there was some consensus is just bollocks.
I repeat the comment. It is seriously discredited. I am looking at the complete picture.

I'm not at all sure that you are. You have some conjecture about the [lack of] benefit, and some allegations about the people who implement the process, but no evidence that you have seen the big picture or looked beyond your own LA to speak of.

The problem is that it takes only a small number or even one obviously bogus aspect, whether it be wasting peoples' time with figuring out which product is which and prosecuting them if they get it wrong;

How often does this happen ?

material that is supposed to be recycled going in with the general trash, ridiculous shipping of materials to remote locations

Not necessarily an issue. It depends what it is.

and the employment of extra bureaucrats to run it all.

Well - how many ? It won't run itself.

Then on top of that, we are told that it's all wonderful

And indeed - it may well be better environmentally that what we had before.

That is what I mean by seriously discredited. A dose of honesty would go a very long way.

Honesty is always good, but some lack of it in some quarters doesn't mean that the net effect isn't a benefit, or that all Las are as bad as the one you have dealt with.

It's a shame really because the few worthwhile environmental activities are then tarred with the brush of the easily discredited. Well possibly, and I'm not saying the situation is great or adequate, but so far you've given us hot air and opinion which amount to a counter proposal that I doubt would even be legal. That depends. So often I have heard the excuse (phrase above) that "the law doesn't empower them to do something". If one asks the supplementary question of does it prevent them; then the answer is typically silence because either they don't know or they no full well that it doesn't prescribe particular methods of delivery of services. Yes - this is a particularly poor aspect of LA culture. Certainly there seems to be a culture of delivering no more than the LA has to on the off chance that if they ever do, people may want it again !
Which is precisely why they should be taken out of the chain. They add no value.

Well - somebody has to organise at a local level.

It is for these types of reason that there needs to be a massive cut back in the public sector at all levels and people put into gainful employment. I'm not convinced. I think a culture more permissive to innovation is required, but there will always be a trade off between allowing innovation and learning from it even in failure, and scrutinising / penalising anything that might cause embarrassment to the council. It seems to me that in the present culture, LA staff are in an environment where indolence isn't necessarily penalised, but innovation is regarded as somewhere between boat rocking and disciplinary offence.
Whichever. Either way, it is not an environment which attracts the innovators and entrepreneurs anyway.

Not many anyway. I can think of a couple.

Somebody once said to me in connection with university culture that the politics are so great because the stakes are so small.
In a way, this is the same thing, except that the stakes are not quite so small.

Maybe. Local politicians only have a small tank to swim in.

I suspect this culture is handed down from the elected members who want a quiet risk free life, in which they can worry about inter party bickering, where they can manage voters expectations, rather than dealing with the details of managing change in their locale.
I haven't seen evidence of elected members handing down this kind of culture; in terms of the risk free aspect.

Well it's their lives they want free form risk, not the officers...
Having seen one mayor bang the table about the definition of an incinerator and be really quite wrong at a technical level, and having seen short termism when choosing the build quality for major projects, I can well see why some officers are reluctant to speak out of turn.

I am in contact with a few of the better ones in my district and gradually the excess bureaucracy is being exposed.

OK, good !

The challenge becomes how to do the sackings.

....Oh so vindictive...

I hope that that will come but will probably not be before a change of central government.

What has central government got to do with it ?
Cheers, J/. -- John Beardmore

In message , Andy Hall writes

On 2006-11-25 00:51:47 +0000, John Beardmore said:
OK - so the situation is analogous to private education. You can send your children to private school, but if you do, you don't get a tax rebate.
You should.
You can have no children at all, and still get no tax rebate.
Again, you should.

Well - maybe.

There is plenty of history of this kind of thing, but people don't generally think of state education as a monopoly.
In practical terms, to those who could otherwise afford private education if they didn't have to pay that proportion of council tax, it is.

Yes - but in that sense, not having a Rolls Royce is a monopoly thing.

The same is true of education and of healthcare. The difference with those is that people view those rather more seriously and are willing to pay twice to get a proper service. Quite so - demonstrating that it's not a monopoly.
The local authority collects money from every household. Part of this goes towards refuse collection.
- It does not offer a choice of level of service.
- It does not offer a choice of refuse collection company
- It does not allow its customers a part in the selection of the single chosen company
- It does not provide a discount on council tax if the customer wants to shop elsewhere.
It's a monopoly in terms of profile

?

and effect,

Except you do have the option to have any licensed agent take your waste if you want them to.

and a poorly run one at that.

In some respects.
I guess to some extent this situation has perhaps arisen to address a need from an era when the private sector did not offer waste collection services, but imperfect though the present situation is, I'm not sure that having three providers working the same streets would be more efficient, reduce congestion, or otherwise be too smart.
Cheers, J/. -- John Beardmore

In message , Andy Hall writes

On 2006-11-25 00:52:39 +0000, John Beardmore said:
Why can't I opt out of the payments if I don't want to buy the service, but choose my own while still complying with the EPA (above)?

Same reason you can't opt out of buying Trident but keep a few grenades under the kitchen sink I guess.

Perhaps there is another clause saying that the local authority or its representative is the only "authorised person"

No - it's to do with having waste transfer licenses.

Perhaps the authority chooses not to use multiple contractors and to offer the customer a choice.

It might have discretion to do that. I'm still not convinced it would result in better service or greater efficiency.
Cheers, J/. -- John Beardmore

On 2006-11-25 01:34:24 +0000, John Beardmore said:

In message , Andy Hall writes On 2006-11-24 22:01:13 +0000, John Beardmore said: In message , Andy Hall writes
The trouble is that only partial views are taken and the true economic and environmental impacts not taken into account. Actually, local authorities do quite a bit of life cycle analysis to try and get this stuff right. While they don't / can't because it's hard to get the data and interpret the results, they may be better informed than you think.
One would hope so too, considering the number of people I am paying them to employ to do so.
However, the outcome, which is what I am interested in, is weak indeed.
In some respects. Not sure that's all down to LAs though.

Possibly. Possibly not. I pay the LA though.

This is always assuming that items genuinely are recycled as claimed and not just thrown in with the rest of the landfill. I still see instances of refuse collectors throwing what naive people have separated into their recycling bins in the back of the truck with the rest of the rubbish. Or even landfilling green waste because they don't have the facility to process it. Bu bad examples don't mean that there is never a benefit, or that it's not beneficial in the general case.
They should begin with things where there is a demonstrable and clear cut case for an economic saving and the means exists to do it.
Well - you might think that. As an environmentalist I think there is more to this than picking a bit of low hanging fruit...

That you may, but if you want what you are attempting to do to be effective as opposed to a feel good, then it needs to be low hanging fruit to almost everybody. The most effective ways to achieve that is to make it financially attractive to people and to tell the truth. Until that happens, it is rather pointless.

When I am convinced of that, I will stop putting everything into the standard bins and liners.
Well - you can do what you like, though I suspect that LA recycling is very much driven by the processing of those materials for which they can find markets.

or easy disposal without too many questions being asked.

Nobody has asked for a reduction in service, but the service they are required to give is no longer the same. That's pure marketing nonsense. Well no - it's umpteen changes in the law.
I am quite sure that there is nothing in the law that requires them to reduce collection frequencies.
If there is a requirement to collect a greater range of stuff without doubling up road miles and staff, it may amount to that.

Then the premise is wrong in the first place.
If the objective can't be acheved without reducing the level and quality of service, then the objective is wrong.

I am almost as sure that there is nothing that requires the householder as opposed to the collection outfit sorting out what needs to be recycled and what doesn't.
Indeed, but most people recognise that separation at source is easier than separation after mixing and covering in slime.

That's for the contractor to figure out. It is what they are being paid a great deal to do.
OTOH, if the expectation of the LA is that I should do this, then I am looking for a reduction in the price I pay.

I don't have the time, motivation or interest to sort through a whole pile of different types of assorted plastic crap to determine what is what and what should go where.
Yet you have the time, motivation or interest to consume the contents. It seems unfortunate that expect to gain the benefit of modern materials, but are utterly reluctant do deal with the consequences of their use.

I am not reluctant to deal with the consequences of their use at all. I pay a great deal of money to the LA to do the job for me. Either they do the job and I pay them to do it, or I do it and pay them a lot less. I don't expect to pay *and* do their work for them.

These people are paid a great deal of money.
By whose standards ?

By any standards.

Moreover, they know, or should know what facilities they have for dealing with different types of material.
The LA may have very few facilities - they sub out the process usually, remember ?
I'm not sure that the subcontractors are paid enough to hand sort or invest in the necessary machinery, especially if contracts only last 5 years or so.

So the obvious solution is to take the LA out of the loop and allow multiple contractors to compete for the business on household by household basis. This would allow a range of choice in terms of price and service and people can choose which they want.

Quite reasonably I want and expect them to deal with it.
What you regard as reasonable is up to you, but I don't hear the sound of you scurrying off to tender for this sort of processing, well paid though you maintain it to be !

There are a whole range of business activities that one can do. I could probably make a lot of money being a barrister as well, or perhaps a dentist, but it wasn't a path I chose. However, both seem to be quite lucrative.

I'm sorry but there is the equivalent of blood on the hands of both central and local government. EU Directives are not generally prescriptive in terms of the detail of implementation and neither is their transposition into UK statute. There is a lot more flexibility, I am sure than they would have people believe.
There may be flexibility in method, but perhaps less in targets, politics and culture.

... or in ability, I suspect.

Then the law needs to change again, if indeed it does actually prescribe what they are supposed to do to the level of detail that they claim. Therein lies the doubt. I am sure that if I look, I will find that there is a great deal more flexibility than they suggest.
Possibly, but look for example at Landfill Directive (1999/31/EC) which bans the landfill of some hazardous wastes, liquid wastes and tyres, sets targets to reduce the amount of biodegradable municipal waste sent to landfill to 75% of 1995 baseline levels by 2006, to 50% by 2009 and to 35% by 2016 to reduce methane greenhouse gas emissions which partly originate from the anaerobic breakdown of biodegradable waste in landfill.
It additionally aims to reduce the amount and toxicity of landfilled waste, defines standards for the design and operation of existing and new landfills, promotes the pre-treatment of waste before it is landfilling, and prevents potentially harmful wastes mixing by requiring certain types of waste to be disposed of in particular sites.
If you go to http://www.opsi.gov.uk/ and search for "Landfill Directive (1999/31/EC)", you can see the bulk of material that even this recent change throws up.

I expect that they will be mandating the collection of cow farts next.
This is typical of the kind of Directive that the EU should not be doing across the whole continent. It should be a matter for individual government.

It is an illustration that this is all part and parcel of the disease in local and central government and how there needs to be a massive cull of headcount.
I'm not sure that sacking a bung of people makes the remainder more honest. Probably more like more paranoid and devious.

That's fine. I wasn't setting limits on how many should be sacked. There are many departments where running it down to zero would be just fine.

There may be *some* value in doing *some* recycling, but when the package and reasons are tainted with this and the PC arguments of "being seen to do the right thing", people become disillusioned with the whole thing. Elected members have an incentive to be seen to do the right thing, but statutory compliance is perhaps the bigger driver once you get past the political speech writers.
If one is a jobsworth, I am sure it is.
Yes - exactly that - if you want to keep your job...
The mindset is to use as much of the regulation as possible, especially if it results in the need to employ more bureaucrats and to build bigger empires. It's not at all impressive.
But it is the civil service way.

Which is precisely why there needs to be a massive slash and burn operation.
Public sector employment is back to over 20% for the UK as a whole - nearly 30% in Northern Ireland and 25% in Scotland, the North East and Wales. Nearly 60% of them had been in their jobs for over 5 years.
There is absolutely no justification for this in terms of numbers or of lack of mobility. Under 10% of the workforce at the outside should be in the public sector

If they want to reduce that for cost reasons, then fine, but take that element out of the council tax, and I'll make my own arrangements with a private contractor. I think there's more to it than saving money. Such as an excuse to hire more jobsworths for the gravy train. Such as a desire, and externally imposed requirement, to deliver better environmental performance, yet all your criticism of those to whom council tax is paid suggests that you are criticising LAs. Yet the framework in which they operate, and the targets imposed on them largely come from central government and indeed the EU. They do have the ability to implement things in different ways, but choose to lie and cheat. I wasn't singling out LAs for special treatment. The disease goes all the way to the top. Well, you did refer to council tax and say "Nobody has asked for a reduction in service, so there is no reason for the supplier (i.e. the LA) to reduce it". You'll have to forgive me for assuming that you were thinking about what you were writing about.
Absolutely. There is no inconsistency in what I said.
Possibly not - it's just not very obvious to the reader.

You just need to read what I wrote rather than what you think I wrote.

Basically, they are not adding any value, only cost. There is no reason or excuse for them to be in the supply chain. ...that you perceive... It's hard to find evidence to support any other view given the way that they execute what they are supposed to do. Well - you may have reason to assume this based on your experience. My experience is different to yours, though the politicisation of the issue is unfortunate in that it stops LA officers speaking freely, and gives them a party line to follow.
This really isn't a matter of politicisation, but of demonstrable incompetence.
Well, you may regard it as demonstrated within your LA. In mine, some of the officers have been a bit useless, but from one mayor down, I've seen startling levels of confusion, politicisation and denial of the obvious. If it's like that at the top of the organisation, it's no wonder the lower echelons are stressed, reciting garbage by rote, and wishing you'd stop asking smart questions.

I can always get more P45s......

It would be far more effective for there to be a free market in collection and disposal in the same way as there is in the energy sector. People who want to pay the lowest price can buy from a supplier who offers that. Those who want to go for more of a tree hugging operator and pay more because it gives them a warm fuzzy can do that, and people who want to buy a value add service where the supplier comes, sorts and disposes of the rubbish in groups or whatever can have that. I guess the point here is that LAs are obliged to implement recycling, and the minimum specification is not something they can alter. They will almost certainly then go through some sort of tendering process to get that service delivered at the lowest price. If you want to change the way this is done, it's a matter for central government. Absolutely. I'm directing some efforts there as well. This does need to be exposed for the scam it is. Well - I'm not sure that its a scam in that there is no obvious beneficiary of a fraud, but where the wrong thing is being done this should be fixed, and where the right thing is done badly, that should be fixed.
Where public money is involved, as it is here, this does need to be fully and openly investigated.
If there is any basis to assume an offence has been committed. The offence you seem to identifying is 'not doing it your way'.

Not really. Whether or not criminal offences as commonly understood have been committed is neother here nor there. The issue is that these people have the stewardship of our money, yet their standard of performance is very weak indeed as witnessed by the poor value for money.

There are plenty of opportunities for the hangers on to be making money.
Which "hangers on" ?

Extra people brought into departments permanently or temporarily.
Firms of management consultants ineptly making the decisions that the employees should be making but aren't.
etc.

The employment of each extra person in the LA to run the charade is a fraud in itself.
I'm not convinced.

At one in five of the workforce and rising, each person unnecessarily employed in this area, which is completely a cost centre and not a profit centre in terms of UK PLC is a fraud.

They might well, if there is one. I prefer to deal with these things at a higher level. Things are more likely happen as a result of pressure from above.
Maybe, but scrutiny can be fairly effective if you get them on the case. It's their job, where as the CEO may opt to bury bad news or delegate investigation to the officers responsible for the problem. Been there, got the T-shirt.

That depends on how you go about it.

I repeat the comment. It is seriously discredited. I am looking at the complete picture.
I'm not at all sure that you are. You have some conjecture about the [lack of] benefit, and some allegations about the people who implement the process, but no evidence that you have seen the big picture or looked beyond your own LA to speak of.

One can look on multiple levels.
ON a local one, it is possible to see the most detail and to do so personally.
On a larger scale, there are plenty of press and other sources to be found without looking at all far.

The problem is that it takes only a small number or even one obviously bogus aspect, whether it be wasting peoples' time with figuring out which product is which and prosecuting them if they get it wrong;
How often does this happen ?

It only needs to happen once with something as stupid as this.

material that is supposed to be recycled going in with the general trash, ridiculous shipping of materials to remote locations
Not necessarily an issue. It depends what it is.
and the employment of extra bureaucrats to run it all.
Well - how many ? It won't run itself.

It doesn't need to be "run". The whole thing can be outsourced to several commercial operators and customers can pay them directly, just as they pay for many other services and that's that.

Then on top of that, we are told that it's all wonderful
And indeed - it may well be better environmentally that what we had before.

... and it may not. More greenwash.

Which is precisely why they should be taken out of the chain. They add no value.
Well - somebody has to organise at a local level.

Very little if anything needs to be "organised"
I heard this same silly nonsense from the highways dept of my LA. They were asked to justify why they had hired quite a substantial number of people in a consulting firm (about the same as the dept itself) to go out and do traffic surveys plan layouts etc. The answer was that they had to "organise" the consulting firm. Complete nonsense. The whole department should be sacked, along with the consulting firm.

I suspect this culture is handed down from the elected members who want a quiet risk free life, in which they can worry about inter party bickering, where they can manage voters expectations, rather than dealing with the details of managing change in their locale.
I haven't seen evidence of elected members handing down this kind of culture; in terms of the risk free aspect.
Well it's their lives they want free form risk, not the officers...
Having seen one mayor bang the table about the definition of an incinerator and be really quite wrong at a technical level, and having seen short termism when choosing the build quality for major projects, I can well see why some officers are reluctant to speak out of turn.
I am in contact with a few of the better ones in my district and gradually the excess bureaucracy is being exposed.
OK, good !
The challenge becomes how to do the sackings.
...Oh so vindictive...

Not really. If people are adding value to something, it is reasonable to employ them. If they are not, then they should be removed from the position and encouraged to do something gainful.
The challenge is that it is too hard to do that, especially with those of public sector mentality.

I hope that that will come but will probably not be before a change of central government.
What has central government got to do with it ?

A great deal. Some holding of purse strings with respect to LAs is one example.

On 2006-11-25 01:41:16 +0000, John Beardmore said:

In message , Andy Hall writes On 2006-11-25 00:51:47 +0000, John Beardmore said:
OK - so the situation is analogous to private education. You can send your children to private school, but if you do, you don't get a tax rebate.
You should.
You can have no children at all, and still get no tax rebate.
Again, you should.
Well - maybe.
There is plenty of history of this kind of thing, but people don't generally think of state education as a monopoly.
In practical terms, to those who could otherwise afford private education if they didn't have to pay that proportion of council tax, it is.
Yes - but in that sense, not having a Rolls Royce is a monopoly thing.

Not influenced by taxation in that sense, though.

The same is true of education and of healthcare. The difference with those is that people view those rather more seriously and are willing to pay twice to get a proper service. Quite so - demonstrating that it's not a monopoly.
The local authority collects money from every household. Part of this goes towards refuse collection.
- It does not offer a choice of level of service.
- It does not offer a choice of refuse collection company
- It does not allow its customers a part in the selection of the single chosen company
- It does not provide a discount on council tax if the customer wants to shop elsewhere.
It's a monopoly in terms of profile
?
and effect,
Except you do have the option to have any licensed agent take your waste if you want them to.

Fine. Then they should be in a position to compete in the market for weekly collection as well as delivery and collection of large skips. I should be in a position that if I choose one, I opt out of paying the council tax amount for it.

and a poorly run one at that.
In some respects.
I guess to some extent this situation has perhaps arisen to address a need from an era when the private sector did not offer waste collection services, but imperfect though the present situation is, I'm not sure that having three providers working the same streets would be more efficient, reduce congestion, or otherwise be too smart.

I'd settle for 3 licensed operators with each having a different collection day on a given street.