Siting of panels for solar water heating

Andy Hall wrote:

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)?

You could, if you're a business, because business rates don't include waste disposal.

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.

Yup, and not a very good one.
I think my bins have been emptied once in the last five weeks.
Owain

John Beardmore wrote:

Competition almost always results in the customer getting what they want at the right price. I want an electron microscope for 50p. Almost...

Have you tried those police auction websites?
Owain

"John Beardmore" wrote in message

In message , Mary Fisher mary.fisher@zetnet.co.uk> writes
I HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH FORTNIGHTLY BIN COLLECTIONS!
Can we all play ?

You have to throw a six to start :-)
<changing subject - horrors!>
We painted our sittiing room recently (yes, water based environmentally friendly paint so pure you can put the remains on your compost heap) and I had to move all the stored board games.
I'd forgotten one, bought in the seventies I think, called POLLUTION. ISTR that the aim was to trade pollutants ...
Mary

"John Beardmore" wrote in message

Some cooks seem keen to have washing up water hot enough to blister skin too...
I know. And then wear gloves to protect their hands from it.
Daft I call it.
:) As an IOSH member I couldn't possibly comment !

I give in. What's IOSH - Inspectorate of Safety Hazards?
Mary

"John Beardmore" wrote in message

In message , Andy Hall writes On 2006-11-25 12:49:59 +0000, John Beardmore <wookie@wookie.demon.co.uk said:
I think you'll find there is more than one solution. One might be for you to sort your own waste in a responsible way.
That's not necessary
Not necessary in the same sense as eating or breathing.
Perhaps necessary in the same sense as not cutting down all the trees.
or interesting to do.
Many things that we need to do to survive are not hugely interesting.

Especially those things which women traditionally do. Like feed men, clean up after them and wash their pants.
Unless they have disposable ones of course ...

I already pay for a refusal disposal service - I don't therefore expect to have to do half the job myself.

It's hardly half! >

On 2006-11-25 16:47:35 +0000, John Beardmore said:

In message , Andy Hall writes On 2006-11-25 12:42:53 +0000, John Beardmore said: In message , Andy Hall writes On 2006-11-25 11:56:52 +0000, David Hansen SENDdavidNOhSPAM@spidacom.co.uk> said: On Sat, 25 Nov 2006 02:41:34 +0000 someone who may be Andy Hall andyh@hall.nospam> :-
Has still to propose, in some detail, something better. I don't *have* to anything. There are already plenty of ideas; the most obvious of which is to take the local authorities out of the food chain. Hardly a detailed proposal for what should replace them.
I didn't set out to provide a detailed proposal -
Indeed.
simply an outline of what obviously needs to be done.
Yes - it is an outline, but until the details are known, it's not obviously better than the situation we have now.

It really isn't rocket science to work out that if one takes out a non productive cost element from a product or service, it can be delivered to the customer for less money, or the customer can get more for the same money.

On 2006-11-25 17:11:13 +0000, John Beardmore said:

In message , Andy Hall writes On 2006-11-25 12:49:59 +0000, John Beardmore said:
I think you'll find there is more than one solution. One might be for you to sort your own waste in a responsible way.
That's not necessary
Not necessary in the same sense as eating or breathing.
Perhaps necessary in the same sense as not cutting down all the trees.

Now you are extrapolating into other areas that have nothing to do with the point being made.
If there is some value in sorting waste (and I think that's highly questionable in the first place but let's accept it for the moment), either I can do it or I can pay someone else to do it. I prefer the latter. The outcome does not depend on whether or not I do it or someone else does it, therefore it is bogus to suggest that taking responsibility requires the individual to act directly.

or interesting to do.
Many things that we need to do to survive are not hugely interesting.

... and this is one that I don't even need to do, therefore I am even less motivated to do it.

I already pay for a refusal disposal service - I don't therefore expect to have to do half the job myself.
The requirement has changed a lot in the last 20 years.

Who has changed the requirement?

Would you rather
1) sort it your self
2) waste a lot of it
or
3) pay to have somebody else do a more difficult and expensive separation and bill you for it ?

or 4) develop the technology to do 3) more efficiently such that 1) is unnecessary.

You seem unwilling to consider option 1 and by default do option 2. If in the end option 3 is imposed on you, I shan't grieve.

There is no need for option 3) to be more expensive provided that administrative cost savings can be made and suitable technology is developed.

Of course if FoE and others would like to volunteer to go and sift through the stuff at waste transfer stations on Sunday afternoons, I'd have no objection at all. No doubt you would be willing to exploit them, but I doubt they'd have time to sort through all the waste people like you produce and can't be bothered to sort themselves.
Too busy with more buckets of greenwash?
Even FoE zealots need time off.
I might even buy them a packet of biscuits at Christmas. Good to see such a responsible attitude !
They'll have to separate the packaging themselves, though.
I'm sure they can manage that.
Cheers, J/.

On 2006-11-25 17:44:41 +0000, Owain said:

Andy Hall wrote: There still is 20p deposit on Barr's Irn-Bru bottles. I have about �4's worth under the sink as Emergency Savings. 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?
Perhaps they only do the glass bottles in Scotland.
It's hard to imagine a non-sugary version of the product.

It certainly exists. I don't know what the sugary one is like because I only buy non-sugary drinks.

On 2006-11-25 17:50:45 +0000, Owain said:

Andy Hall wrote: 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)?
You could, if you're a business, because business rates don't include waste disposal.

That would be a good solution. Unfortunately, typically one is not permitted to run a business from home, at least not in a way that secures business rates.

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.
Yup, and not a very good one.
I think my bins have been emptied once in the last five weeks.

At that point, assuming I had already been giving the head of the department daily dyspepsia for the previous four weeks, I think I would be delivering the bags of rubbish to the reception of his office and arranging the press to be in attendance.

Andy Hall wrote:

The simple solution would be for an arrangement that each company collects in different areas on different days.
That would take a ten year old an afternoon to work out.

That might be why its not done then.
NT

"Owain" wrote in message

Mary Fisher wrote: And more emissions.
Not necessarily. They could combine it with other service, eg home shopping delivery. Swap a box of shopping with a box of clean recyclable waste, and a sealed plastic bag for smelly non-recyclables. Perfectly hygienic.
I acquire almost all my rubbish from Tesco; they might as well take it away again.

:-)
I don't get any rubbish from Tesco. Haven't paid them for years.
Mary

Owain

John Beardmore wrote:

In message , meow2222@care2.com writes
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.

With a monopoly, if you want the product you have to pay the company. If you dont want it, you dont pay. With LAs you're forced to pay regardless. Its worse.
There is a set of people who, in a free market, would invest a little time energy and money into reducing recycling and self disposing waste, and just call a private rubbish co on the odd occasion to dispose of a batch of waste. The state system strongly disincentivises this, it causes the waste and pollution we see today. AND charges people for the privilege.
NT

John Beardmore wrote:

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.

The ones with a cell between their ears would swap client collections so that it was one company one vehicle at each collection time. This could be automated by computer easily. Companies that didnt swap for efficiency would see higher costs, and go out of business.
In any other area private enterprise competes, and working out solutions to problems is part of that competing. The most successful at delivering what the customer wants wins.
People running upmarket B&Bs dont want rubbish piling up for 1 or even 2 weeks and ponging. People on benefits dont want to pay for weekly collections when fortnightly is good enough, and they have more important things to spend on. Some would consider monthly more than enough, etc. With choice we can all choose what fits our needs and wishes, thus delivery of service will be efficient in this respect. LA collections are simply going to be the wrong product for a significant proportion of its customers, because they dont give any choices, and customers circumstances differ.
Also LAs dont predict or satisfy customer wishes adequately. They dont offer a choice of collection intervals and prices, they dont adress poor operator behaviour, and they dont strive to improve their service.
With private collection we would see everything from thrice weekly collections from the rear of your property in a cleanly painted quiet engined wagon with suited operators in Chelsea to minimum cost collection every 3 weeks by 17 yr olds employed by PoundGarb company, who wouldnt stray further than the pavement and wouldnt sort anything. In each case, the customer gets what they want and choose, and they choose according to service and price. LAs are so uncompetitive it never even occurs to them to offer any variation in service at all.
NT

John Beardmore wrote:

In message , Andy Hall writes
Competition almost always results in the customer getting what they want at the right price.
I want an electron microscope for 50p.

Capitalism expands the options. I was about to say it doesnt create the imposible, but actually it does, its because of capitalism we have 4G CPUs today. If computer manufacture were left to LAs we'd still be using the 286.
Yesterday shredders cost �8 and up. Today they cost �1, and sell, because someone realised customers wanted them and then managed to work out how to do it.
LAs dont even try in this respect. They dont even have the skill set.
NT

David Hansen wrote:

On Wed, 22 Nov 2006 01:36:56 +0000 someone who may be Andy Hall andyh@hall.nospam> wrote this:-
Fortnightly bin collections are not acceptable.
Ah, proof by assertion.
As others have said, experience seems to be that switching to collection of residual waste once a fortnight initially causes loud complaints by some, but the silent majority have no problem with it.

You've interviewed a statistically significant sample of them? Or do you just presume anyone who doesnt complain is ok with it? Most people dont complain in most instances.
Round here our LA has not questioned people about their rubbish collection wishes, and there are no collection options, so they have no way of knowing. There is just about no attempt to giv people what they want (which implies being wiling to pay for)
NT