Recycling Articles : Fortnightly wheelie bin collection doubts

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With growing concerns over the amount of rubbish that the UK is throwing away each and every year the local councils and government stepped in and decided that one of the things that would benefit the management of waste would be the fortnightly collections of the wheelie bin.

Instead they plan to give us the green bin for compost matter, the blue bin for cans and bottles and a bag for paper materials in the hope that we would recycle our rubbish.

Of course many people have been up in arms over the now fortnightly collection of our rubbish, however now it seems that the government could be seeing this as an error and are having serious doubts over the fortnightly collection.

Prime Minister Tony Blair has admitted that he much prefers the weekly collection of rubbish as opposed to the fortnightly one with claims that he is a traditionalist, however with him soon to leave number 10 it seems very unlikely that anything will change for the time being.

While studies have shown that those councils who have been with the fortnightly system for a while now have made improvements when it comes to recycling, they have also found that the larger family fills up their normal wheelie bin and then tends to use the spare space in their compost bin.

However despite the fact that the fortnightly collection does seem to encourage people to be more careful when it comes to throwing things away there is the downside of maggots, bad smells and rats. While clearly something has to be done due to the sheer amount of waste which we are sending to the landfills, landfills are quickly filling up; people are now asking if the fortnightly collection is the answer.

Other ways which the government and local councils are thought to be planning as ways to tackle the problem relating to rubbish is by introducing a pay as you throw system. People will be charged for the amount of non recyclable rubbish thrown away which could mean that some families will have to pay around £25 per month to have their rubbish taken away for them. Along with this as ways to measure how much rubbish and just what the rubbish consists of is the microchip.

It is thought that the micro chip has already been implanted secretly in around 500,000 wheelie bins already. The chip is no bigger than a penny coin and registers with an attachment on the side of the rubbish truck just what is in your bin and how much is in it. The micro chip keeps all the information regarding your bin and the bin is linked to your address.

However the government denies that this is a measure to spy on households and what we put in our bins, but instead insists it’s just a way of tracking the wheelie bin. Only time will tell if the fortnightly collection is a good idea and whether it will be here to stay, as for the fines and tagging we will just have to wait and see what the future brings and what other surprises the government and council have in store for us.

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