Garbage fascists

We have a great garbage collection service here in Cardiff and it all seems pretty flexible and aimed at providing a good customer service. The guys are cheerful and they actually run down the road collecting rubbish.

We have a black wheelie bin for collecting unrecyclable waste and a green one for compostable waste including food. To contain the latter, we get free biodegradable bags so no vermin or flies. These bins are collected weekly. Then once a fortnight we put out green plastic bags (again free) for recyclable stuff like glass containers, tin cans, plastics etc. The only ‘no-no’ as I found to my cost are wire coat hangers. They apparently jam up the sorting machinery.

The free bags incidentally are available over the counter at local small shops and in my case that means a 5 minute walk.

We also have a free service to collect large items. Understandably, this is by appointment but all you have to do is put such items out in front of the house on the date agreed. My son and his family live in London and there they charge for it. No wonder ‘fly tipping’ continues in our country lanes.

Sadly the same is not true in many parts of Britain and it is getting worse and in some places nasty. Many councils are considering reducing all waste collection to fortnightly intervals or have even implemented such a policy. Some will fine you if you put so much garbage in the bin that the lid cannot be closed flat. The latest trick is to get us to do their sorting for them. This will be achieved by issuing people with up to seven different coloured containers for various types of garbage. Crikey, I'd have to pin the list to the fridge door to make sure I didn’t make a mistake.

And woe betide you if you do make a mistake or overfill your bin. The Gestapo at the council will descend up you and issue a heavy fine.

This is one of the sad things about Britain today and quite possibly other countries. Cardiff has taken the ‘give them a carrot’ approach but far too many only offer the stick. Paradoxically, the people dreaming up these policies and implementing them are called ‘civil servants’: they are neither.

Disenfranchisement

We had a general election recently and I learned that 3.5 million people in the UK did not even register to vote. Fine because I think that is their democratic right. I do not believe, unlike Australia, that people should be forced to vote.

However, the act of not bothering to register raises deeper issues for me. If you cannot be arsed to participate in the most basic factors of a democratic state, then why should that democratic state afford you its protection and benefits? Disenfranchisement can work two ways you know although I do not expect the unregistered to recognise that.

OK so you do not wish to operate within the democratic process? Fine, then piss off and do without any benefits, the NHS and much else.

It’s like the so-called travellers, who like to consider themselves romantically as gypsies. Wander around, paying no council tax or possibly pretty much else, yet they expect to squat where they like, shit all over your lawn and get away with it. Read somewhere about one of their sites where passersby on the adjacent motorway were said to be shouting insults at them. So the local mad council built them a fence to screen them from passing cars.

It’s very simple. Do you wish to be part of this society and enjoy its benefits? Yes? OK, pay up and understand that rights only come with obligations. No? Fine then bugger off and do your own thing and expect no help from me.

It’s their kids I feel sorry for because they have no choice in all this. What is worse, those kids will be raised with the same attitude