Anti Bin Tax Campaign hots up in Finglas

by Edwin - Emerald Natural Living Thu Nov 09, 2006 15:31 edwin at emerald-natural-living dot ie

Were you aware that using the EM Bokashi Kitchen Waste Compost Bins from Emerald Natural Living that you could greatly reduce you waste for disposal via the normal means of refuse collection? The EM (effective micro-organisms) Concept originated in Japan and was discovered by Prof. Higa)

These Kitchen Waste Compost Bins allow you to put all your kitchen waste, cooked and non-cooked products be it fruit, vegetables, meat or fish it can all be put in these compost buckets which are designed for interior use in the kitchen area.

You can produce high nutrient compost in 4~6 weeks with these Bokashi

The buckets are only 54cm High, 33cm wide and 28cm deep and are cosmetically well designed for interior placement.

The ideal natural solution to reducing landfill waste.

by Terence Fri Sep 15, 2006 11:56

John,
Well in that case I would be pretty much against the idea creating this kind of composting 'service'. It creates the illusion with regard to the typical waste that you put in a typical composting bin that you actually need the council for it. You don't, although granted apartment blocks are a different matter.

All it does is in fact, encourages people to put any old 'messy' waste into it. As it stands and I will repeat what I said, since using my composting bin, I have noticed a considerable reduction in my waste. Dealing with this type of waste in your own home & garden is a much more sustainable path to take.

By transporting vegetable and garden waste to some central depot is largely against sustainable principles. I can see the need to deal with say old food that people throw out, but this is a much smaller fraction.

And lastly as you state, the council will be charging €3 per collection. And that makes it a bin tax which of course what we are objecting to. Thinking about this further, this 'new' service looks more like a way to extract yet more money from households under the guise or pretext of being environmentally friendly. I don't think so.

So in conclusion, I would encourage people to get a compost bin like the one shown in the attached photo because as you can see, the stuff that turns to compost at the bottom can be easily extracted and spread around the garden. It is very unlikely the council compost bins will be of this type and will just simply be your average wheelie bin coloured brown which is unsuitable for proper composting.

Your typical compost bin. But unlikely the one the council will supply.

by John - FABTC Fri Sep 15, 2006 10:11

As far as I am aware, the new 'brown' bin will cost €3 per collection. It isn't really a compost bin more like a bin for waste matter to be taken for composting by the council.

by Terence Thu Sep 14, 2006 18:25

Dermot, just curious but can meat be put in these composting bins, because I think some forms of them can -those based on worms possibly.

I am also curious why the council will collect them every 2 weeks, because much of the literature that I have seen suggests that you can put stuff into them for almost a year before you need to empty them. Now obviously if you cut down the whole hedge and put it in that is a different matter.

I have my own compost bin operating 6+ months and have no need yet to empty it and when I do it will be just compost which I can spread around the garden anyhow. So you can see that I am a bit confused over the council statement.

Having said that I am pleased to see that they council are providing them free and I think this call has been made for quite some time and possibly they have paid attention to this.

by Dermot Lacey Thu Sep 14, 2006 17:40

I don't really want to get into another row on this issue so please just take this posting as a piece of information in relation to the comment above about composting bins:

The Brown Bins ( compoisting bins ) are being rolled out now on a trial basis in parts of the City and will eventually delivered free of charge to all households. These will be collected on a fortnightly basis and the charge ( from memory) is I think 2 or 3 euro per lift. It is free until January next.

by John - FABTC Thu Sep 14, 2006 12:25

I believe that some EU new directive regarding VAT and councils may have an impact on the cost of bin collection. Its expected that VAT will be charged in the near future on top of any increases agreed in the estimates. Maybe Cllr Joan Collins could elaborate?

by Terence Thu Sep 14, 2006 12:08

A few weeks ago non collection was attempted in the Dun Laoghaire Rathdown area also.
See http://www.indymedia.ie/article/77311

And bills for the Bin Tax in the DLR so far for this year will for some be amounting to just slightly under 600 euro . This is what the campaign had been predicting what they would become 4 or 5 years ago and now it has come to pass. This is all the more reason for people to resist.

Lastly I would encourage everyone to buy a compost bin, they are not that expensive, because they can cut down on up to 30% of your waste. They are ideal for throwing potato peels, vegetable scraps, rotton fruit and stale bread into. By drastically reducing the amount of waste we can make this an unprofitable business for them.

by Finglas South Thu Sep 14, 2006 11:55

Hi

I can also confirm that information tags were being left on bins that had not been "registered" with DCC and looks like they were not collected (collections usually on Tuesday)

Assume a meeting will be organised soon for the Finglas South and West area asap?

by John - FABTC Mon Sep 11, 2006 14:56

Reports have been coming that non collection has now been extended to the Mellowes Area of Finglas West.

by Anononon Mon Sep 11, 2006 14:07

Well done ISN and...SF and SP

by Anon Mon Sep 11, 2006 12:35

Good to see the struggle continues. What about the rest of city, though. Is there much left of the citywide bin charges campaign? All seems very quiet these days.