DCC take back bin collections

fly_agaric

cgcsb wrote: »

I've been attempting a zero-waste (low waste) lifestyle lately, My god is it hard. Basically it means not creating waste at all and, where unavoidable, being as responsible as possible with the disposal of waste...

Fair play on the effort.

cgcsb wrote: »

The government has to make it easier for people to make responsible choices, the volume of waste we go through must reduce. They have the bottle return in supermarkets across Europe for example, and some of the packaging in supermarkets here is really outrageous.

Agree government could do more (and bring in ideas that might work to reduce waste from elsewhere). I think there is a problem with trying to tackle it at a more fundamental level.

It's ultimately large multinational companies who provide the goods and run the systems with all of this packaging and associated waste that is generated by the end customers (and at different points in the supply chain).

Individual consumers can pressure them from the bottom up by trying to do what you are doing (I think that is unlikely to happen in large enough numbers) or they can be forced to change their operations to reduce waste by regulations/laws.

Unfortunately these are companies with the scale and wealth of entire nation states. There are (IMO) very few governments that can actually force them to change their business and I don't think Ireland is really one of them. Maybe something would have to happen at the EU level?

cgcsb

Gael23 wrote: »

What do you think she does with them? Straight into the bin

She puts more soap into them and sells them to other people obviously. Why would she was a perfectly good piece of packaging, it's saving her money, she'd have to buy more otherwise

El_Bee

We could really, really learn a lot from Japan:

Tony EH

Can't come quick enough as far as I'm concerned. Should never have been hocked out to private vultures in the first place.

Tony EH

hmmm wrote: »

So in essence the "won't pay" crowd will have won yet again - because someone has to pay for this, and it'll be the usual group who will shoulder the expense. I like my private bin collection, it is a considerably better service than I used to receive from the council.

There is no "won't pay" crowd.

What will happen, probably, is that the council will revert back to what it was just before bin collection was chucked out to the likes of Greyhound. In that people will still have to pay individually for things like bin tags and whatnot. That worked perfectly well and was reasonably priced too.

But we won't have to deal with cowboys who keep their taxes offshore like the Buckleys and are only interested in making a quick buck.

Bottom line is you just cannot trust private companies with essential public services like this, because they're only interested in the profit they can make off of it.

The waste privatisation project has been such an absolute disaster, so much so that the DCC are actually thinking of taking it back. Pretty much an admission that the whole nonsense has failed.

caff

The glass bottle vs paper carton isn't clear cut it depends on the distance to the recycling centre as glass weighs more and requires high heat to disinfect

odyssey06

Tony EH wrote: »

There is no
What will happen, probably, is that the council will revert back to what it was just before bin collection was chucked out to the likes of Greyhound. In that people will still have to pay individually for things like bin tags and whatnot. That worked perfectly well and was reasonably priced too..

That wasnt the systen that was in place.

It didnt work perfectly well as the millions owed to DCC by residents attests and the cost of providing waivers to low income households.
They were the reasons DCC got out of it and havent gone away.
Doesnt mean DCC shouldnt take it back but its fantasy to suggest all was perfect.

El_Bee

Tony EH wrote: »

There is no "won't pay" crowd.

So the bin bags that appear in the green in my estate and all over the place, and the rampant fly tipping, just figments of our imagination?

Spanish Eyes

There is another way of looking at this, and forgive me if it sounds inflammatory.

EVERYONE should pay Property Tax, it happens all over Europe. Why renters are exempt bothers me, they get the same services as those who have to pay for it.

And LPT charge should include rubbish collection, just as it does elsewhere. But no, we are different and still cannot justify it.

Tony EH

odyssey06 wrote: »

That wasnt the systen that was in place.

I recall that it was, because that's what we used before it was privatised. We have no space for wheelie bins, so we had to get tags for black bags and the recycling bags were free. When collection was tossed out to Greyhound, that all went to hell and everything just started going up. The govt even had to stop bin companies from hiking their prices by 50% a few years ago.

odyssey06 wrote: »

It didnt work perfectly well

Yes, it did. Much better than the joke Greyhound turned out to be. That's for sure. Greyhound have been a farce from beginning to end. Between arson attacks, strikes, irregular collection times and just not bothering their arses to even pick bins up, everyone ended up worse off where I live.

Tony EH

El_Bee wrote: »

So the bin bags that appear in the green in my estate and all over the place, and the rampant fly tipping, just figments of our imagination?

Scumbags are gonna scumbag.

But they weren't the ones who were against privatisation anyway. They didn't care either way, whether it was collected by the council or cowboys. There was illegal dumping even when the council were in charge of bins by the very same types. Privatising bins wasn't going to change that. It was only going to make it worse.

However, the folk who protested the privatisation of Dublin's waste collection did so, because they suspected quite rightly, just how things would go.

odyssey06

Tony EH wrote: »

I recall that it was, because that's what we used before it was privatised. We have no space for wheelie bins, so we had to get tags for black bags and the recycling bags were free. When collection was tossed out to Greyhound, that all went to hell and everything just started going up. The govt even had to stop bin companies from hiking their prices by 50% a few years ago.

Yes, it did. Much better than the joke Greyhound turned out to be. That's for sure. Greyhound have been a farce from beginning to end. Between arson attacks, strikes, irregular collection times and just not bothering their arses to even pick bins up, everyone ended up worse off where I live.

That was not the system in place across DCC as a whole. Wheelie bins came in long before privatisation for most areas.
Thats why there are so many Dublin corporation wheelie bins across DCC areas today.

Explain the operation of the waiver scheme when DCC collected the bins and how DCC was owed more than 5 million in charges by residents.
DCC got out of it for a reason. They screwed it up big time but the pressures that drove that decision are still there.

Tony EH

odyssey06 wrote: »

That was not the system in place across DCC as a whole. Wheelie bins came in long before privatisation for most areas..

I didn't say there were no wheelie bins.

Sleeper12

odyssey06 wrote:

I hope the Council has received good legal advice on this one.

The city council can vote all they want. Its the city manager signs off on things like this. Not a chance that DCC will take over bin collection in Dublin.

odyssey06

Sleeper12 wrote: »

The city council can vote all they want. Its the city manager signs off on things like this. Not a chance that DCC will take over bin collection in Dublin.

Yes I thought that too as iirc last time the city manager decided it and councillors could not stop it with a vote - except by voting down the entire budget.

hgfj

Tony EH wrote: »

... Bottom line is you just cannot trust private companies with essential public services like this, because they're only interested in the profit they can make off of it...

Reminds me of a documentary I saw years ago by Micheal Moore. I can't remember the name of it but there was a bit in it where Moore said he didn't bother with recycling anymore. I think it was in his hometown of Flint. Reason being that he followed his local bin collection truck one day and found that none of it was being recycled. Everything was going to the same place. Everything ended up in a landfill, and he just thought what's the effing point.

Tony EH

^

Probably 'Roger & Me'. Haven't seen it though.

cgcsb

caff wrote: »

The glass bottle vs paper carton isn't clear cut it depends on the distance to the recycling centre as glass weighs more and requires high heat to disinfect

Are you talking about tetra pak vs glass bottles?

There is no comparison. To recycle tetra pak, it is shipped to the UK where the lids are physically separated and sent to the far East to be recycled. The rest of the carton is shredded and boiled in water which separates he paper fraction from the plastic and aluminium layers. The paper fraction is reformed into paper and sold on and the plastic aluminium mush is marketed as a polymer to building contractors. This is a high energy process, much more difficult than steaming glass bottles and reusing them.

ted1

El_Bee wrote: »

Weird how there's like 3 competing bin companies and prices only went up.

More overheads. Before the trucks went out and collected bins from every house. Know they are doing the same distance but collecting less bins so the fuel costs is higher for each bin collected also staff costs are higher as there’s more office staff, sales staff, finance staff , insurance, bin men, basically everything is being triplicated driving up costs.

fritzelly

ted1 wrote: »

More overheads. Before the trucks went out and collected bins from every house. Know they are doing the same distance but collecting less bins so the fuel costs is higher for each bin collected also staff costs are higher as there’s more office staff, sales staff, finance staff , insurance, bin men, basically everything is being triplicated driving up costs.

And the dumps kept increasing their prices, surprise surprise

ted1

fritzelly wrote: »

And the dumps kept increasing their prices, surprise surprise

There’s a big difference between ballymount and Ballygowan pricing.

15 euro for general waste v 30 euro for general waste

fly_agaric

Tony EH wrote: »

However, the folk who protested the privatisation of Dublin's waste collection did so, because they suspected quite rightly, just how things would go.

I dunno, I think most of them protested simply because they'd never had to pay for a waste collection before and now they had to - not because of big principles of public vs (potentially...) private services. And politicians then jumped on it because it had emotion behind it/was popular/a vote-winner.

A little foreshadowing of the larger and angrier Water charges protests years later - I have to pay over my money to properly run this public service (which was never adequately funded from general taxation) and now I'm mad as hell!

Tony EH

fly_agaric wrote: »

I dunno, I think most of them protested simply because they'd never had to pay for a waste collection before and now they had to!

Nah, I don't buy that caricature at all. Not for a second. It was also said of the water charges protesters too. It's nothing but a handy slur to throw around, but it holds no, ahem, water at all.

The fact of the matter is that people generally understand how privatisation of essential public services go and it's usually never to the benefit of of the public, with costs almost always going up and up as was amply shown with this debacle.

And waste collection was paid for, through taxation, and then later through direct payment as well, when it was under city control and it was a far better system than the junk we got when Greyhound got the gig.

If the DCC are serious about this, I'll be very happy when the cowboys like the Buckley Bros. - who offshore their taxes to the Isle of Man - are out of it.

They should never have gotten in, in the first place.

Marcusm

Sleeper12 wrote: »

The city council can vote all they want. Its the city manager signs off on things like this. Not a chance that DCC will take over bin collection in Dublin.

Rationalisation of waste collection doesn't necessarily require DCC to actually run it. Issues exist which could significantly improve waste collection efficiency and management - the multiplicity of service providers increases wasteful traffic but also makes it difficult to tract households with no waste collection contract. This is a key feature in identifying likely fly tippers. A single contract for a locality would allow this to be tracked more easily and enforcement could be built into the contract.

fly_agaric

Tony EH wrote: »

Nah, I don't buy that caricature at all. Not for a second. It was also said of the water charges protesters too. It's nothing but a handy slur to throw around, but it holds no, ahem, water at all.

The fact of the matter is that people generally understand how privatisation of essential public services go and it's usually never to the benefit of of the public, with costs almost always going up and up as was amply shown with this debacle.

And waste collection was paid for, through taxation, and then later through direct payment as well, when it was under city control and it was a far better system than the junk we got when Greyhound got the gig.

If the DCC are serious about this, I'll be very happy when the cowboys like the Buckley Bros. - who offshore their taxes to the Isle of Man - are out of it.

They should never have gotten in, in the first place.

I didn't mean it as a caricature or a (deliberate) slur and fully agree
water and waste should be public services and would be delighted if its back under council control (or, as might be more likely, the council is in between us and a private company that provides the service).

I suppose I am cynical so many people think about the principle other than those who are politically engaged or interested somehow.
That is slightly insulting I admit, but it certainly isn't obvious from politics in general or how people vote.
Everyone notices it however when someone new (Irish Water that was, DCC) pops up reaching into their wallet for a charge [and it is a great motivator].

Tony EH

fly_agaric wrote: »

I didn't mean it as a caricature or a (deliberate) slur and fully agree
water and waste should be public services and would be delighted if its back under council control (or, as might be more likely, the council is in between us and a private company that provides the service).

Fair enough. I wasn't really hammering you personally about it though. But, over the years it's become obvious that a certain quarter, shall we say, use cheap slurs to demonise protesters who are concerned about hocking off public services and utilities to private, for profit, businesses.

fly_agaric wrote: »

I suppose I am cynical so many people think about the principle other than those who are politically engaged or interested somehow.

This is always a problem when the politicos get involved. They tend to override their true belief, opinions and principles with that of their chosen party. It's often terribly transparent though.

fly_agaric wrote: »

That is slightly insulting I admit, but it certainly isn't obvious from politics in general or how people vote.
Everyone notices it however when someone new (Irish Water that was, DCC) pops up reaching into their wallet for a charge [and it is a great motivator].

The issue is not a charge. When the DCC started direct charging, I don't recall too much outcry. It was only when full privatisation was mooted that people started to get really antsy about it and they were right too. Most people don't care about a reasonable charge for a reasonable service. You'll get those that will moan about it, but the vast majority will be ok.

The real problem is that when those services are put into the hands of companies that only care about their bottom line, their charges, far too often, cease to be reasonable and, also far too often, take a skyrocket money wise. Into the bargain, the services themselves often take a nosedive in quality as businesses seek to continually cut corners to maximise their profits to the highest point that a market will go. A market that is a captive audience in the case of public services, so the sky is often the limit.

hmmm

Some people seem to think our bin service was like that scene in the Simpsons when Homer took over.

I remember the reality.

You wouldn't get your bins picked up for weeks on end around Christmas.

Your bins would be randomly picked up the rest of the year, sometime around the day the binmen were supposed to come around. You'd sometimes find your bin where you placed it, or it could be halfway down the street. At least, those were my experiences.

As someone else mentioned, it was costing the council a fortune, and we still had the crowd dumping because they'd rather throw their rubbish into a ditch rather than disposing of it like an adult.

fly_agaric

Tony EH wrote: »

The issue is not a charge. When the DCC started direct charging, I don't recall too much outcry. It was only when full privatisation was mooted that people started to get really antsy about it and they were right too. Most people don't care about a reasonable charge for a reasonable service. You'll get those that will moan about it, but the vast majority will be ok.

We'd have to agree to disagree there I think. It's been a long time ago now though.
My memory (of Dublin City Council) was "protests" (in the form of just refusing to pay it) began when the charges came, but as you said, were smaller - less obvious/public anyway.

The council increased the charge quite a lot as years passed and also tried to go harder on any people not paying (stop collecting their rubbish) and it got much, much worse then [blocking trucks, politicians involved etc].
Then council hived it off to private companies and washed their hands of these problems (and made some new problems instead!).

Found a wiki page on it here (take with a grain of salt perhaps but it has a few links to old newspaper articles)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Bin_Tax_Campaign

The real problem is that when those services are put into the hands of companies that only care about their bottom line

Fully agree.

Tony EH

hmmm wrote: »

Some people seem to think our bin service was like that scene in the Simpsons when Homer took over.

I remember the reality.

You wouldn't get your bins picked up for weeks on end around Christmas.

Your bins would be randomly picked up the rest of the year, sometime around the day the binmen were supposed to come around. You'd sometimes find your bin where you placed it, or it could be halfway down the street. At least, those were my experiences.

I don't know where you live, but (and nobody that I know in real life) had your "reality". Bins were regularly collected every Thursday around my way and there was never a missed day. And my Christmas experiences didn't tally with yours either.

The same cannot be said for Greyhound and their activities, which were are farce from the moment they took over, up to an including being implicated in an arson attack on a rival company. That really was a Simpsons level of absurdity.

hmmm wrote: »

As someone else mentioned, it was costing the council a fortune, and we still had the crowd dumping because they'd rather throw their rubbish into a ditch rather than disposing of it like an adult.

And that's only got worse under privatisation by all accounts. So it hasn't worked for that angle either.

Also, if it was costing so much, why are they thinking of taking it back into their care? If everything was hunky dory, this wouldn't even be discussed.

odyssey06

Dublin City Council were owed 9 million in bin charges before selling out to Greyhound.
https://m.herald.ie/news/council-is-owed-7-2m-in-unpaid-rubbish-charges-30448062.html

One of the reasons DCC got out of it and the problems havent gone away if they resume involvement.