Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Kevin Wood]

I liked the interview I heard with a manager on the London Underground. He explained that, when they threatened to disrupt the underground services (why would they worry about electric mass transit? anyway..) the underground responded by turning off Wi-Fi in the tube. This, apparently "removed the ability for them to organise themselves".

Great, these millennials. As soon as they start to be a PITA, take their Wi-Fi away and they are immediately passivated, and just sit there nodding in the corner until it comes back.

I really worry that we might have to rely on this generation to defend us in our old age.

[Field Marshal Dr. Opti]

The cherry on the cake. The high priestess of moronic hypocrisy Dame Emma Thomson has flown 5400 miles to join in the protest.

The luvvies luvvy.

[Lizzie Zoom]

On the tv it said an area of land the size of a football pitch vanishes every 45 minutes as the sea level rises. I cannot verify that but it may well be true.

We don't have rubbish collection at our house here in Spain. Everything has to be taken to bins. Recycling is easy. Different coloured bins plus the black ones for landfill. Often some lazy gits pu cardboard and bottles in it. Add to that the bottles ( plastic and glass ) just lobbed out of cars and you realise some people dont give a damn.

On the BBC this morning question was asked why UK supermarkets , shops do not have recycling with in effect deposit schemes. Other countries do it and those of us old enough can remember deposit on pop bottles. It is because no one gives a damn and it would cost someone. We cannot be bothered. Same applies on a larger scale.

On that point I can say it is because recycling of pop bottles (glass) always took up space 'out the back' of traditional shops. The quantities of bottles and crates stored was nothing like the quantities now seen in these days of 2ltr and 3ltr plastic bottles. Even with our supermarkets now, that have greatly reduced the sizes of their store warehouse areas due to auto replenishment from CDC's, have not got a huge amount of space for bulk recycling; it is also considered a fire and H & S hazard.  Recycling in bulk would also cost money to operate, including the transport to take it back to CDC's onwards.  Yes, the supermarkets already recycle the case and outer packaging from the goods they display for sale, but to take in the recycling packaging from consumers is going one step further, with, as I stated, storage and cost issues.

Now machines that crush down the packaging, like plastic bottles, could make a big difference, but there would still be the handling and storage costs, quite apart from buying the equipment required.

In my opinion the answer should be to not sell products with so much packaging; when packaging is required it must be made of paper, and in the case of soft drinks and bottles of cider, to name just one example in the acholic range, it should be re-thought and either quick degradable plastic / replacement packaging used, or bulk tank transfer to consumer used.  Vinegar (perhaps it still is?) used to be sold in bulk, so did paraffin, sugar, butter, etc.  So, like the green grocer providing paper bags for the bulk purchase of veg and fruit, let's go a bit back in time and do that again.  Supermarkets have suitable products delivered and put on shelves in bulk, then the customer buys in bulk.  Tis saves packaging, costs, and actually is a far more effective system overall with the consumer being able to buy the exact quantity they want, no less no more.

Now there are NO easy answers to how we can quickly resolve the current wasteful and damaging habits of our modern living, but thinking along these lines could be a start.

[Varche]

Exactly ........thinking.   No one thinks , just consume and profit. There is room for recycling in business models. How about every bottle ( plastic or glass) has a £1 deposit. Insert your card in the machine and pop your returns in for your refund. Could be a fiver to help focus minds.

[Lizzie Zoom]

Exactly ........thinking.   No one thinks , just consume and profit. There is room for recycling in business models. How about every bottle ( plastic or glass) has a £1 deposit. Insert your card in the machine and pop your returns in for your refund. Could be a fiver to help focus minds.

Yes Varche, that would be the ideal.  However, as I stated recycling takes space (separate from any foodstuffs), cost of machinery and staff, plus transportation costs.  Who will pay for that?  The supermarkets will not be happy to as it will affect their bottom lines profit.  Maybe there should not only be a deposit of £1, but a handling charge of say (out of thin air) 25p, or whatever it will cost the supermarkets per item.

Those small "recycling" machines featured on news reports are frankly laughable to anyone in the retail trade.  If you see what huge bales are created of crushed plastic bottles, you will recognise the volume and therefore size of the problem any superstore supermarket would have to handle.  A hopper in one of those aforementioned featured machines could never handle those quantities. 

Another way of understanding the problem is doing what I am trained to do; calculating multiples on the retail floor.  Not only in terms of profit per item, per customer, per store in your company, but the handling and storage issues.  In the old days of glass deposits we had to build additional storage facilities for the mass stacking of crates and bottles, per store.  With increased consumer demand of product in bottles and the need for larger quantities, the multiplication issues came in and demanded the introduction of non-deposit, large quantity, plastic bottles that came in, and went out to the consumer X thousands.  Stand in your major supermarket at the checkouts and calculate how many large plastic bottles are being sold per customer, per minute, per hour, per week, per store in the retail group.  You will then understand the logistical problems of consumer recycling through the retailer.

There are answers to what is a problem we MUST solve.  Just like simple ones such as I in a small block of flats not being able to recycle through the council "special recycling" bin scheme;  I have to collect my recycling and take it once a fortnight to the local major County Recycling Centre.  However that Centre does not have any facilities at all for the recycling of plastic, and it all goes in "General Waste"!!  But at least we have one of those centres, unlike some areas where I understand they are being closed!!

That is the real issue; no central, integrated National policy on recycling. Until we start as a Nation to go in one direction, the buck of recycling will just be passed from one council, retailer, contractor, consumer, to another!

[TheBoy]

I really worry that we might have to rely on this generation to defend us in our old age.

As I've said before, this started a generation ago, when the the previous generation were able to breed millennials.

As a country, we're knackered. Completely knackered.


Recycling to the millennials - and their parents - means chucking your McDonalds wrappers out of the car window.

[Sir Tigger KC]

I really worry that we might have to rely on this generation to defend us in our old age.

As I've said before, this started a generation ago, when the the previous generation were able to breed millennials.

As a country, we're knackered. Completely knackered.


Recycling to the millennials - and their parents - means chucking your McDonalds wrappers out of the car window.

This is a depressingly familiar sight.  What a bunch of self-abusers!   

Self-abusers?  The word I wrote begins with W..... 

[Doctor Gollum]

I really worry that we might have to rely on this generation to defend us in our old age.

As I've said before, this started a generation ago, when the the previous generation were able to breed millennials.

As a country, we're knackered. Completely knackered.


Recycling to the millennials - and their parents - means chucking your McDonalds wrappers out of the car window.

This is a depressingly familiar sight.  What a bunch of self-abusers!   

Self-abusers?  The word I wrote begins with W..... 

Didn't rhyme with anchors perchance

[Sir Tigger KC]

I really worry that we might have to rely on this generation to defend us in our old age.

As I've said before, this started a generation ago, when the the previous generation were able to breed millennials.

As a country, we're knackered. Completely knackered.


Recycling to the millennials - and their parents - means chucking your McDonalds wrappers out of the car window.

This is a depressingly familiar sight.  What a bunch of self-abusers!   

Self-abusers?  The word I wrote begins with W..... 

Didn't rhyme with anchors perchance

That's the one! 

[Doctor Gollum]

I believe it's an acronym for the World Association of Non Knowledgeable Environmental Revolutionary Socialists*

*Other Communists Undermining Normal Terrestrial Systems exist, but it's all about the WAN.KERS at the moment 

[78bex]

Didn't some of them glue themselves to the DLR?

You know, the electric, public, mass transport system.

The kind of thing they want us to give up our cars for.

Which they stopped from running.

The retards.

All three were remanded in custody to next appear at Blackfriars' Crown Court in May 

[Rods2]

Make all consumers use Soda makers. Water bulk delivered by pipe to the point of use, 1L bottle of concentrate will make about 200l & returnable CO2 bottles. Not exactly leading edge technology as my parents made us kids use one in the late 1960's onwards.

I use old 0.5l plastic bottles when I have to cycle somewhere, which I fill with fresh cold water from something called a kitchen tap. They get several years of use before they need replacing.

All that current recycling will do is cause great inconvenience to consumers & transfer the problem to Asian countries where they are exported by Western recycling companies & they use the cheapest contractors who in turn use the cheapest disposal method with is to throw them into the adjacent river, so they float into the Pacific. 7 Asian countries account for about 90% of Pacific ocean plastic.

All self-righteous Western 'green' do gooders are doing is transferring the problem elsewhere, the only good thing that comes out of it is transport miles & the generation of much needed CO2 for the current CO2 correction.

The only extermination event I can see currently happening is that of May's socialist Conservative party who will be gone as a political force after the next GE. The party that wants to restrict, ban or tax everything & tell us how many chips we are allowed on our plates.

Most Conservatives now see the best route to stopping Corbyn is by voting for The Brexit Party & many have already defected & after 2nd & 23rd May election results many more will follow. Tories where they are broke & can't afford a Euro-election campaign are now appealing to owners of SMEs to join the party & donate. They have more chance of making lead balloons fly.

[Varche]

Agree with your analysis of the political scene.

The problem with the environment is we can all make difficulty statements like nowhere to recycle or lack of space or who is going to pay. If it was your own back garden filling with various types of crap from plastic bottles to used oil the you would soon do something. It is however fine to buy six eggs in pastic box ( not cardboard like they used to be....) and then lob it into landfill.

WE lack imagination. It is too easy to say it is someone else's problem.

Extinction rebellion should get products endorsed. That might change the dynamics quite rapidly.