Bin spies, yet again

Just what is it with bureaucrats? They simply can't stay out of dustbins!

In the aftermath of our research, which showed that some 2.6 million households up and down the country had microchips installed in their dustbins (and none of them had been asked), the new Government banned "pay as you throw" schemes. But the bin spies just keep going.

It's emerged that 300 homes in Gloucestershire are going to have their rubbish snooped through by the Council - yet again, without their consent. The Council plans to sift through random bins to see if residents are meeting their strict recycling rules, introduced earlier this year, which reduced the frequency of bin collections to save money whilst sounding self-righteous encourage more recycling.

Council crews will select a random sample of the bins left out for collection and take the contents to a secret site near Gloucester. Why would they keep it secret? Perhaps because they know their residents completely disagree with what they're doing...

Do you expect someone to be going through your rubbish once you've put it in your bin?

It's spying – plain and simple.

If you live in the area and get picked on in this scheme, get in touch.

By Alex Deane

Hat tip: Declan

Comments

[The Filthy Engineer]

I check mine regularly. If I were to find one, where would I put it? In the bin of course.

[Paul]

I stopped using my bins a while ago as I only live round the corner from the skip so dispose of my own rubbish my way. Should I have to do this "No" but it a one up on the council snoopers.

[mrmovie]

waste in the uk is a serious issue. we dont recycle nearly enough. the only way to measure trends is to take a random sample and produce some stats. I see little choice in the matter. The stats should show how well the public is responding to being gently nudged in the right direction with regards recycling and their product choices.
i fail to see any alternative than to sift through the bins?
I figure, once you put your rubbish into the 'council' rubbish bin then it no longer belongs to you, its not yours anymore. You havent got your own private little whole in the landfill.
as stated before, i helped with some research about 15 years ago carried out by leeds uni, we sifted through bins of random houses / areas. we didnt know who the rubbish belonged to, we just bagged it up into the cat. and weighted it, nothing sinister.

[Demeter]

The contention that the rummaging will be anonymous is disingenuous, to say the least.

There will be many of the sample bins that include personal documents, thrown away in the mistaken belief that they will not be examined. There is after all a whole sub-industry of private detective work that does just this, in particular amongst journalists.

That local councils have a legal right to snoop this way doesn't make it morally right.

[PJH]

mrmovie: "i fail to see any alternative than to sift through the bins?"

I do. Don't sift through them. Think of the money that would be saved in not paying someone to do the sifting.

There - that wasn't difficult was it?

"waste in the uk is a serious issue."

No it's not. At least not to the majority of the British public that either
1) think that local (and national) government are spending too much money on nannying and spying on their employers using spurious excuses like "waste is a serious issue," or "the public are drinking more than in year " when it is demonstrably true that we are re in fact drinking less than in year +/- some number of years, or
2) couldn't give a rat's arse.

The rest are just rent-seeking.

[David Cooper]

I do hope that if the bin police search ours, they will give us top marks when they disentangle the recycled supermarket carrier bags and find out that they have been used to clean up after our labrador.

[Purlieu]

Here in Swindon they already sift through your recycling box and toss out anything non-conforming ONTO THE PAVEMENT.
An Einstein award to the council noggin who thinks that's environmentally advantageous.

[Evelyn]

I do hope that people will put as much revolting stuff in their bins as possible. Gone off milk (loose), squashed tomatoes, rotten eggs, and used sanitary products. That's what I'd do, anyway.