Hi Folks

Just thought I would give you food for thought!

I know that most of you will be aware of the new bins we have recieved of late, the blue ones for rubbish, the green ones for garden waste, and I am informed that we are due to recieve another one for metal cans!

Just applied for a grant to build a bin Port, got the grant, and finished the project, only trouble its that large, the police helicopter keeps landing there!

You can apply for planning at Sheffield Planning office, but please be aware that another 8 bins are going to be introduced in the next two years, so allow plenty of space for your bin port!

We also are getting this service at a cost to us, we are actually subsidising this in our council tax!

You would think ,as Cardboard and paper is sold between £30-70 a ton, depending on the market trends, that this sorting of cardboard and paper would have our council bills reduced, as surely this would be profitable for the company Onyx who collects this?

Well, onyx is a French company, and as usual, they are shafting us again, they are making money from the subsidies we pay, I mean 600,000 people paying their share towards collecting this cardboard.

Sound like some bitter twisted fool, nope, I am as sharp as razors, the reason I posting here for all to see, is that Onyx have a second company collect the cardboard, and wait for it, its goes to a land fill tip, not to be recycled, like we were informed!

I want my bin taken away and my council taX bill amended, or aternatively, the money given to the homeless, the hospitals etc, who cares as long as it goes to a just cause!

Try contacting Katy Hodgkinson at Onyx, ask her where the cardboard goes, I am still waiting for a response after over 8 phone calls, and 20 emails!

Be easy on her, shes only just started in the job, a scape goat, thats for sure!

More interesting gossip next week folks!

Regards

Mark

( Your friendly Industrialist of Sheffield) ,for now, may emigrate if this country sinks any lower, take my employment and business elsewhere!

Originally posted by Howy
Onyx have a second company collect the cardboard, and wait for it, its goes to a land fill tip, not to be recycled, like we were informed!

What's the name of this second company?
Which landfill does the paper go to?
How much is the subsidy?

What's the point in blaming the French!
Perhaps we don't have the correct recycling procedures in place at the moment!
Why should recycling cardboard be any different to paper?
If the Lib Dems hadn't given given away our Refuse Service perhaps we wouldn't be in this state now!
sorry to get political folks!

Hi there, I am not blaming the French, but if you have kept up to date with the History of the French towards us, regarding business practices and relationships with us since the normandy landing, they still fell bitter for us not taking their soldiers away to the UK for safty when the Germans were closing iun, the truth is we did not have the resources and saved our own first!

I am not a racist, bigot, I believe in a cosmopolitan society, when everyone is treated as an equal, but the French unfortunately have given us a hard time in the past few decades, checkj your History books!

Regards

Mark ..

It wasn't the French that gave us the Lib Dems.
Check yours.

My friends who live in wandsworth in London have a great recycling service: The council provide them with orange plastic sacs into which they can put all glass, paper, cardboard and tin cans and the bag just goes out at the same time as the wheelie bin to be collected every week. Now how easy is that?

And what do we get in Sheff? A half arsed crappy blue bin that takes up loads of space that terraces and flats just don't have available. It is collected once a month on a different day to your ordinary bin and you can only use it for paper! And what about glass recycling? If you haven't got a car it is almost IMPOSSIBLE to do your own recycling......might have to get one of those granny shopping bags on wheels just so I can take my glass down to safeways recycling. It makes me really angry when you think about how much money it would have cost to make all the sodding blue bins in the first place.

Now we are stuck with them wouldn't it be a good idea to let us put ALL our recycling in them - just separate it up into bags by type and have one collection a week on your normal bin day. But that would be too simple and convenient for sheffield city council.

on upmystreet.com http://www.upmystreet.com/overview/?l1=s2+4ud#Cou You can see performance of your council compared to a national average - we do particularly badly on the recycling front.

and I don't give a toss about the french!

Don't worry about the helicopter landing on your bin shelter. The day the green bin was delivered my Hubby thought he'd walked into the Onyx yard instead of home. Mind you I did line all three up in a row just to wind him up!
We've spread them around our property now so we don't look like complete binheads!
Thing is, I hate the green bin with a passion (my Mum is even refusing to use hers!), but I hated the blue bin when that arrived but in no time at all I found myself meticulously tearing up the cereal box, the teabag box, the frozen fishfinger box and obsessively separating the rubbish! What happened to me, I used to have a life, now all I do is play with the litter!

Here in Bexley London Borough, we have a green weelie bin where you throw everything in! Also, a green box - for recyclable stuff, the rest - wheelie bin!

Alex

I think the recycling is a good idea but I must admit I think the green bin is a waste of time as a) I don't do much gardening-only the grass to cut and that goes in one corner b)Graden waste is biodegradeable anyway so no concerns there really.

I would rather have a glass or tin bin.

However, if that is correct that the cardboard goes to landfill I will be VERY upset that all our efforts are being thwarted by the people who are encouraging us to recycle.

HI Folks

The point I am making is that the collection of the plastic bins, the supplying of the plastic bins, as been cost to us, with a profit I may add!

In other words, Onyx, goes out for a meal withy one of the council officials. Says, if you can put forward a scheme where you can get the people of sheffield to contrubute say, £5 a month for these bins, theres plenty of profit left in it for us as a company, and quite possibly a little back hander for you matey, say £5,000!"

Lets see if that is possible>

600,000 times £60 a year is 36 million a year!

Now, you can see, that £5000 as a back hander is a pittence, although I am only insinuating this has possibly happened, you can see with 36 million as total cost, there is definately room for some large profit chunks in there!

Remember this folks, the cost of getting rid of the waste is for the same amount of refuse as before, out anual collection of waste has not tripled,, because we now have three bins, its exactly the same, and not only are we getting charged for it, but the amount of tons of cardboard and paper that is recovered for recylcing can actually be sold, although Onyx has already been approached to sell then cardbaord to a recycling place in sheffield, Quayside technologies down at thew Victoria Quays, they offered to pay them artound £30 a ton for the stuff, Onyx declined, they would rather see it go to a landfill site!

If this was sold, Onyx could provide the service of collection for free, they would be in profit from the sale of this cardboard for recycling, it may help even subsidise the collection of Garden waste, but they dont care, as long as joe public the mug pays for it!

We are all getting shafted, our council seems to be turning a blind eye to it all!

If the cardboard and paper was sold to a recycling plant for £30 a ton that would generate a return every month of £300,000 that could be put back into the council!

I think the council should make provisions for this cardboard to be sent to a recycling place, maybe set their own up to deal with this, it would make the recycling profitable and run as a business, instead of at a lose and a cost to the public!

Regards

Mark ..

Originally posted by Howy
they still fell bitter for us not taking their soldiers away to the UK for safty when the Germans were closing iun, the truth is we did not have the resources and saved our own first!

If I were french, I'd rather hold a grudge for the British actively killing a few thousand of French sailors at Oran Harbor (Mers-el-Kebir) in July 1940...

Quote by bulldog D
If the Lib Dems hadn't given given away our Refuse Service perhaps we wouldn't be in this state now!


Really? I though it was the Labour council?

Anyway, Sheffield City Council handing over the running of waste to Onyx was the worst thing they could ever do.

With the City Council, Onyx and Viridor pursuing landfill and incineration of waste over recycling, it makes a mockery of the Councils' 'Cleaner, Greener, Safer' mantra.

Sometimes I think this city is doomed to failure and incompetence. But then reading local history, it's always been that way. Something in the water perhaps? Or even the air?

Are the bins made from recycled plastic?

What is the point in having 8 bins each? You won't be able to walk on the pavement, you'll have to walk on the road and risk getting run over.

since there are only 7 days in the week, 2 of the bins will have to be collected on the same day - by different lorries - thus causes more traffic & pollution...not very green is it?!

My relatives in Austria have separate boxes for glass, paper, metal and compost - they keep them in the house, and have to separate their stuff by law, and can get fined if they don't do it.

Perhaps someone can invent a wheelie bin which has 4 compartments - 1 for each thing to recycle. Or draws!

We should have a forum returning of bins day. We all wheel our unwanted bins to the council depot and refuse (sorry) to have them in our garden until they come up with a better way for us all to recycle instead of filling our small gardens with bins.

I don't even have a blue bin yet :cry:

Pippa (http://incurable-hippie.blogspot.com)

hey, guys, I am doing a TV program about the recycling and blue bins. I am a student in Univ. of Sheffield. More than one week ago, I posted a topic here, asking people to meet me and we can talk about this. If you don't mind, we can do a TV interview. But just relax, this won't be on TV anyway. Because This is for my degree. I am going to edit it now.
These are the interviewees that I have interviewed,
1. Diane Leek, lord mayor of sheffield
2. David Bird, Head of Waste management, City Council.
3. Bernard Little, Co-chair of Green Party.
4. Danny permattie, Chairman of Action For Stannington.
5. Anna, PHD researcher in Univ. of Sheffield
6. Monty. Development worker From Recycling Matters.
7. Vox pop: Local residents' view towards blue bins.
8. Vox pop: resident's view towards incinerator.

Today I am going to the materials reclaimation facility near beighton to get some footages about how they sort different cardboards and paper. I asked the manager of this plant for permission. He said I can't go in, but just film the pics how they pour the cards down to the ground of the plant. There is a big "sysytem" inside, but I can't film it. they say this is the TOP SECRET.
I am confused, but as a trainee journalist, I will find out the answer.

If you are interested in this,plz contact me, and I will get your real views. ( when I did the vox pop from some residents, they just said, o, blue bin scheme is goodddd....like this. I think they just have no time to think about it seriously. You guys are really caring about the environment and life in sheffield, that's why you come here to talk about your views. I really am looking forward to your reyply.)my phone number is 07709365597.

Hi Armin

It would be wise to label all facts concerning the innocent killing of the French by the British and why it happened!

Otherwise it is very misleading, heres some knowledge for you to digest>

http://www.combinedops.com/mers%20el%20kabir.htm


Background

After the surrender of the French to the Germans on June 22 1940 Britain stood alone. Most of Europe had been completely overrun and the only thing that prevented the continuation of Germany’s expansion into the U.K. was the English Channel. The terms of the French capitulation were unusual. The Germans allowed the new administration in Vichy, and its leader Marshall Petain, to keep 2/5th of their land. As well as this they were also allowed to continue to administer their overseas colonies and control their navy. This was a particular worry to the British since they believed, with some justification, that the neutrality given to the French by the Axis powers could not be relied upon. Consequently they decided to act on their own initiative and to silence the French fleet by any means at their disposal. After the signing of the armistice many French naval units had fled France to avoid capture. The biggest single concentration of the French fleet was at the port of Mers-El-Kebir in French Algeria. Early in July Churchill ordered "Force H", under Vice-Admiral Somerville to the area in order to secure the French squadron for the British.

Planning & Preparations

A number of senior British commanders, notably Somerville himself, opposed the plan. They argued that "Operation Catapult", the name now given to the planned engagement, would turn French public opinion totally against the British. They also argued that the French fleet could resist with force and cripple the Royal Navy, which was already spread very thinly due to wartime commitments.
Churchill and his War Cabinet ignored these concerns and in the early hours of July 2 Sommerville received the following text to be sent to the French Admiral Gensoul:

"It is impossible for us, your comrades up to now, to allow your fine ships to fall into the power of the German or Italian enemy. We are determined to fight on until the end, and if we win, as we think we shall, we shall never forget that France was our Ally, that our interests are the same as hers, and that our common enemy is Germany. Should we conquer we solemnly declare that we shall restore the greatness and territory of France. For this purpose we must make sure that the best ships of the French Navy are not used against us by the common foe. In these circumstances, His Majesty's Government have instructed me to demand that the French Fleet now at Mers el Kebir and Oran shall act in accordance with one of the following alternatives;

(a) sail with us and continue the fight until victory against the Germans and Italians.

(b) Sail with reduced crews under our control to a British port. The reduced crews would be repatriated at the earliest moment.

If either of these courses is adopted by you we will restore your ships to France at the conclusion of the war or pay full compensation if they are damaged meanwhile.

(c) Alternatively if you feel bound to stipulate that your ships should not be used against the Germans or Italians unless these break the Armistice, then sail them with us with reduced crews to some French port in the West Indies - Martinique for instance - where they can be demilitarised to our satisfaction, or perhaps be entrusted to the United States and remain safe until the end of the war, the crews being repatriated



Ultimately the action at Mers-El-Kebir was a tragedy but the action had served its purpose. The French navy could no longer fall into the hands of the Axis powers and pose a threat to Britain at a time when she was most vulnerable




-----------------------------------------

There is always casualties of War, how many people have been innocently killed in Iraq, Children, mothers etc!

I don't believe in War, I think we are at a level of intelligence to sort differences in other ways and cannot understand why this has not happened as yet!

Your taking from a different Eon, Past is past, we could go further back in time to the War with France and Britain, how many British were killed then?

Time to forgive and forget Barbaric times, if it had happened last year, your prose would have been relevant, but not from 1940!

Regards

Mark ..

.....so is our paper/card being incinerated (it is a good fuel!), going to landfill or being recycled because if its not the latter I'm going to paint my blue bin and convert it to a composter?!

i keep having to put this bit of information on

99% of the card and paper collected is recycled, 1% is not due to contamination, this is a low contamination rate

it is not incinerated.... why so many people think a council could get away with collecting card to recycle and burning it i do not know, too many conspiracy theorists!

Thank you, Easyrider!

Well, i was looking out of my window on blue bin collection day, and when the truck opened up to swallow all the paper from the blue bin, i could see black bin liners, plastic bottles - in fact - all the waste from standard bins. So i'm guessing that blue bin and black bin waste is the same thing to Onyx operatives.
If, say regular collection day in Walkey is on Wednesday, and Blue bin day in Crookes is also Wednesday, then i think they use the same truck for the lot to be lazy. And they are lazy because they never empty my blue bin, as it's the only one on the road - they simply can't be bothered.
So why should we?

Originally posted by easyrider

it is not incinerated.... why so many people think a council could get away with collecting card to recycle and burning it i do not know, too many conspiracy theorists!


And too many conspiracies. There was an exposore a while ago of justified suspicion.

In this case the council (or it's contractor) were collecting waste for re-cycling. The waste went to a 'special plant' where the process could not be revealed for reasons of 'commercial confidentiallity'. The processed waste was regularly shipped to some docks and loaded on a container ship whence it was shipped to Indonesia. In Indonesia it was dumped into a landfill site. In fact the waste had merely been compressed and packed into containers.

I think this was shown on the Sunday 'Countyfile' programme about a year ago.

Hopefully Dewdrop will stick with it and find out what happens to all the cardboard etc. once it leaves the 'TOP SECRET' plant near Beighton.

recycling is all well and good but the act of recycling a product produces more polution and uses more energy than producing a new one...

I have emailed
Jillian.Creasy@sheffield.gov.uk
(She is the sharrow green party councillor, the only one I could find at the time, with the link to this thread)

This is her reply:
Dear Michael
'Yes, I have grave suspicions about what is actually happening to the paper and card we are dutifully putting in the blue bins. I am trying to arrange a visit to the "mechanical separation plant" out at Beighton to see how it works and if I can gather any clues (as when Friends of the Earth visited the incinerator and found that the magnet, which supposedly pulls out recyclable metal, didn't work at all ...) Your email prompts me to ask the relevant council officer again about a visit (he keeps putting me off, which makes me even more suspicious).
You can find out who your councillors are from the Sheffield City Council website, which includes their email addresses.
Will keep you posted as an when I find out anything'

Anyone concerned about this matter could find the email of their local councillor from the city council website and put some pressure on.
Find it here:
http://www.sheffield.gov.uk/your-city-council/councillors

Originally posted by robbie
recycling is all well and good but the act of recycling a product produces more polution and uses more energy than producing a new one...

Could we have some proof please? From what I've seen on green websites, only 20% of the energy required to produce a new one is required to recycle it.

And we won't be depleting / burning off the earths' resources at the same time.

just noticed this post and find it very worrying that a local councillor cannot get a clear answer to this question....

I hope it is not true as I feel that not enough is being done to recyle our waste...

Surely somebody can answer this question clearly and honestly...

I feel sure that the press would love to hear about it.. especially the star (sorry to mention them) but they love to have a go at the council when they can...